Entrepreneurs

Song Zude (August 24, 1968 -), born in Jingjiang City, Jiangsu Province, China, is an entertainment critic in mainland China. His younger brother is the writer Liu Xinda. On February 2, 2023, due to the Hu Xinyu incident, Song Zude's Sina Weibo was banned. In September 2026, there were rumors on the Internet that Song Zude had passed away, or that he had become a monk, but it was not confirmed. His brother Liu Xinda successively refused to respond and stated through media personality Du Enhu that Song Zude was in good health.

Song Hongbing (August 22, 1968 -), American, born in Chengdu, Sichuan, originally from Hebei, is a best-selling author of financial books. Author of the "Currency Wars" series of books.

Zong Qinghou (October 11, 1945 - February 25, 2024), a native of Hangzhou, Zhejiang, was an entrepreneur of the People's Republic of China, a member of the Communist Party of China, and a national model worker. He is the founder of Wahaha Group and served as the chairman of Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., Ltd. from 1991 until his death. Zong Qinghou was once a national model worker, winner of the National May 1st Labor Medal, one of the 100 outstanding private entrepreneurs in the 40 years of reform and opening up, and a representative of the 10th, 11th and 12th National People's Congress. He became the richest man in China in the Hurun Report in 2010, 2012 and 2013. Later, he ranked 5th in the 2016 Hurun Rich List with a wealth of 112 billion yuan.

John Davison Rockefeller, Jr. (English: John Davison Rockefeller, Jr., January 29, 1874 - May 11, 1960) was a famous American philanthropist and an important figure in the Rockefeller family. He is the only son and heir of billionaire John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil Company, and the father of the famous five Rockefeller brothers. To distinguish him from his more famous father, he is often referred to as John "Junior" Rockefeller.

Fusajiro Yamauchi (November 22, 1859 - January 1940) was a Japanese entrepreneur, craftsman, founder of Nintendo, and the first-generation president. The third-generation president Hiroshi Yamauchi is his great-grandson. In 1889 (Meiji 22nd), Yamauchi opened a Nintendo domino store in Kyoto, laying the foundation for today's Nintendo.

Hiroshi Yamauchi (Japanese: Yamauchi Pu/Yamauchi Hiroshi, Romanized: Yamauchi Hiroshi, November 7, 1927 - September 19, 2013), formerly known as Hiroshi Yamauchi, was born in Kyoto, Japan, and graduated from the Faculty of Law of Waseda University. Consultant and former president of Nintendo. During his time at the helm of the company, Nintendo successfully transformed from a playing card manufacturer into an electronic game company, and launched the world-popular video game console Famicom (FC) in the 1980s. He retired on May 24, 2002. He was known in the industry for his sharp words, tough actions and stubbornness. Hiroshi Yamauchi is a traditional Japanese powerful leader. During his tenure as the president of Nintendo, he made many arbitrary but far-reaching decisions.

Yamaha Torakusu (Japanese: Yamaha Torakusu/Yamaha Trax, Romanized: Yamaha Torakusu, May 20, 1851 - August 8, 1916) was a Japanese businessman and entrepreneur, the founder of Yamaha Enterprises. The first reed organ manufacturer in Japan was Tonasu Yamaha, who founded Nippon Musical Instruments Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in Hamamatsu to produce organs and other musical instruments, including pianos and harmonicas. Later, in memory of him, Nippon Musical Instrument Manufacturing Co., Ltd. was renamed Yamaha Co., Ltd.

Sam Moore Walton (English: Samuel Moore Walton, March 29, 1918 - April 5, 1992), founder of Wal-Mart, a global leader in retail. In 1918, Sam Walton was born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, United States. In 1936, Sam Walton entered the University of Missouri to pursue a bachelor's degree in economics and served as president of the university's student union. In 1940, he graduated from college and signed up to join the army, serving in the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Corps. In 1962, he opened a chain of retail stores in Bentonville, Arkansas, named Wal-Mart. Because of its low-price strategy, Wal-Mart achieved great success from the beginning. In its first year, the Bentonville store's sales reached $700,000. In 1964, Wal-Mart already had 5 chain stores, which increased to 18 stores in 1969. In 1990, Wal-Mart became the largest retailer in the United States. In 2001, Wal-Mart became the world's largest company by turnover. In 1992, Sam Walton passed away. According to his will, his property was equally distributed to his wife, three sons and one daughter. According to Forbes statistics in 2005, the five main members of the Walton family: Robson Walton and Jim Walton. The wealth of Walton, John Walton, Alice Walton and Helen Walton are respectively US$18.3 billion, US$18.2 billion, US$18.2 billion, US$18 billion and US$18 billion, ranking 10th to 14th on the global rich list, and they are the richest family in the world.

Written by Cen Bo (? - 1916), a native of Shunde, Guangdong, a giant merchant in the Guangdong silk industry and the first leader of the Guangzhou business group.

Satoru Iwata (Japanese: Iwata Satoshi／Iwata Satoru, Romanized: Iwata Satoru, December 6, 1959 – July 11, 2015) was a Japanese businessman, video game programmer and producer. He served as the fourth president of Nintendo since 2002 and served as CEO of Nintendo of America from 2013 until his death in 2015. Iwata's business strategy does not focus on the pursuit of top-notch gaming hardware, but advocates expanding the audience of video games through the development of more novel and interesting games. He has made a significant contribution in this regard. Iwata was born in Sapporo. He showed interest in video games at a young age and created his first simple game in high school. He studied at Tokyo Institute of Technology, majoring in computer science. In 1980, he joined the game developer HAL Research Institute while studying in college. Later, he worked closely with Nintendo as a programmer at HAL and launched his first commercial game in 1983. Later, he participated in the production of "Earthbound 2: Zig's Counterattack" and multiple "Kirby" series games. After experiencing a period of career downturn when the company was on the verge of bankruptcy, in 1993, at the recommendation of Nintendo's then president Hiroshi Yamauchi, Satoru Iwata was promoted to president of HAL and stabilized the company's financial situation after taking office. In the following years, Iwata participated in the development of the "Pokémon" and "Super Smash Bros." series of games. In 2000, Satoru Iwata joined Nintendo as head of the business planning department. After Satoru Iwata joined, Nintendo experienced profit growth. In May 2002, Satoru Iwata took over as president of the company after Hiroshi Yamauchi retired. Under the leadership of Satoru Iwata, Nintendo developed the dual-screen handheld Nintendo DS and the game console Wii, which focuses on somatosensory interaction, making the company a huge commercial success. He bluntly stated that he "has the heart of a gamer" and advocated using blue ocean strategy to broaden the appeal of video games to all ages and different groups of people. In 2009, Nintendo's profits hit a record high, and "Barron's" ranked Satoru Iwata among the top 30 CEOs in the world. Since then, Iwata has further continued to expand his strategy, planning a quality-of-life product line for Wii, and further evolved it into a ten-year long-term strategy aimed at creating independent products. However, the market performance of Nintendo's next-generation hardware 3DS and Wii U after this was far behind.

Ying Shuling (1981-), born in Shanghai, China, is a Chinese entrepreneur, a member of the E-sports Committee of the Olympic Council of Asia, a member of the 13th Shaanxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and currently the chairman of Hero Interactive Entertainment and the chairman of Hero Sports VSPO.

Cornelius Vanderbilt (English: Cornelius Vanderbilt, May 27, 1794 - January 4, 1877), also translated as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Cornelius Vanderbilt, nicknamed "The Commodore" (English: the Commodore, a New York-based industrialist and philanthropist of Dutch descent, made his fortune relying on inland waterway trade and gradually gained a dominant position. He then invested heavily in the rapidly developing railroad industry in the United States, which significantly changed the geographical pattern of the United States. Cornelius Vanderbilt was the founder of the Vanderbilt family and one of the wealthiest men in American history. Although he had almost never been to the South of the United States in his life, he still donated money to found Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, named after him, with the purpose of promoting reconciliation between the North and the South and the reconstruction of the South. Vanderbilt is a symbol of America's Gilded Age industrial and commercial boom, and is often depicted as a representative figure of the "robber baron".

Zhang Yiming (April 10, 1983 -), male, Hakka from Yongding District, Longyan City, Fujian Province, Chinese Internet entrepreneur, former chairman and CEO of ByteDance. Founded ByteDance in 2012. It has products such as Toutiao, Douyin and Huoshan Video. On the 2026 Forbes China Rich List, Zhang Yiming ranked first on the list with US$100.8 billion.

Allen Zhang (English: Allen Zhang, December 3, 1969 -), native of Shaodong City, Hunan Province, was born in Dongkou County, Hunan Province. He is a Chinese entrepreneur. He graduated from the Department of Telecommunications of Huazhong University of Science and Technology and holds bachelor's and master's degrees. Zhang Xiaolong has successively developed Foxmail, QQ Mail and WeChat. He is known as the "Father of WeChat" because he developed WeChat and has many users. Currently, he is the Senior Vice President of Tencent, responsible for the management of Tencent’s Guangzhou R&D Department, and also participates in the management and review of Tencent’s major innovation projects.

Tony Zhang (English: Tony Zhang, born in 1972), Han nationality, native of Dongguan, Guangdong, is one of the founders of Tencent. He was once the executive director and chief technology officer of Tencent, responsible for the development of proprietary technologies, including instant messaging platforms and online application systems. Zhang Zhidong received a bachelor's degree in engineering from Shenzhen University in 1993, majoring in computer science and applications, and a master's degree in computer applications and system architecture from South China University of Technology in 1996. In 1999, Zhang Zhidong and others founded Tencent, which currently holds QQ number 10002. Zhang Zhidong ranked 85th on the 2010 Hurun Rich List, with a personal wealth of 10 billion. In 2010, Forbes ranked 45th on the list with a net worth of 12.1 billion yuan. In the 2011 Forbes list of the world's richest people, he ranked 595th on the list with a net worth of US$2 billion (13.1 billion yuan). Ranked 719th on Forbes' 2012 list of the world's billionaires. Ranked 554th on Forbes' 2013 list of the world's billionaires. Ranked 40th on the 2014 Forbes Chinese Rich List. Ranked 41st on the 2015 Forbes Chinese Rich List with US$5.8 billion. In 2014, Zhang Zhidong resigned as Tencent CTO. He ranked 98th on Forbes' 2019 list of the world's billionaires, with assets of US$13.3 billion.

Zhang Zhongmou, Taiwanese semiconductor entrepreneur, first chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing , was born in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China, and grew up in the Republic of China and British Hong Kong. He has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University. He has served as the president and chairman of the Industrial Technology Research Institute and chairman of UMC and World Advanced Integrated Circuits. He has won the IEEE Medal of Honor and was listed in the Zhejiang Merchants Hall of Fame by the Zhejiang Gongshang University Zhejiang Merchants Museum. He is the first entrepreneur in the world to engage in foundry and is known as the "Godfather of Semiconductors." From 2006 to 2023, he served as the APEC Chinese Taipei leader representative. Among Taiwan's 50 richest people announced by Forbes in 2020, Zhang Zhongmou's assets are US$1.5 billion, ranking 28th.

Zhang Chaoyang (October 31, 1964 -), male, was born in Lintong, Shaanxi, and his ancestral home is Mengjin, Henan. He is an entrepreneur in mainland China and is the chairman and CEO of Sohu.

Zhang Ruimin (January 5, 1949 -) was born in Laizhou, Shandong. Male, Han nationality. He joined the Communist Party of China in September 1976 and started working in November 1968. He graduated from the Department of Management Science of the University of Science and Technology of China with a major in business administration. He has an on-the-job postgraduate degree, a master's degree and is a senior economist. Alternate member of the 16th, 17th and 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Zhang Ruimin is the CEO and founder of the well-known brand Haier. In 1999, he was selected as one of the "Thirty Most Admired Entrepreneurs in the World" by the Financial Times.

Zhang Lei (December 12, 1972 -), a native of Zhumadian, Henan Province, is a Chinese businessman and investor.

Zhang Jindong (March 28, 1963 -) was born in Nanjing, Jiangsu, and his ancestral home is Tianchang, Anhui. He is a Chinese entrepreneur, founder of Suning Cloud Commerce Group, and former chairman and CEO.

Stephen Cheung Yan-leung, SBS, JP (English: Stephen Cheung Yan-leung, 1959-), is currently the president of St. Francis University. He was the president and chair professor of public policy at the Education University of Hong Kong, and the dean and chair professor of finance at the School of Business Administration at Hong Kong Baptist University. His wife, Christine Cappio (Zhang Xueting), is French and came to Hong Kong in 1986. Awarded the Silver Bauhinia Star in July 2019.

Xu Yong (1964-), male, Han nationality, native of Beijing, Chinese entrepreneur, one of the founders of Baidu.

Mitarai Fujio (Japanese: Mitarai Fujio/ Fujio, Romanized: Mitarai Fujio, September 23, 1935 -) is the sixth generation president of Canon. The 2nd Chairman of the Japan Business Federation. Member of the Economic and Financial Advisory Council of the Cabinet Office. Graduated from Tokyo Metropolitan Oyamadai High School and Chuo University School of Law. In May 2006, he became the first person from a private university to serve as president of Keidanren.

Gordon Earle Moore (English: Gordon Earle Moore, January 3, 1929 - March 24, 2023) was an American entrepreneur, scientist, engineer, co-founder and honorary chairman of Intel. He proposed Moore's Law, which states that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years.