Charles Zhang or Zhang Chaoyang () (born October 31, 1964) is a Chinese businessman,

investor An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future Return on capital, return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some specie ...

and the founder, chairman and current CEO of Sohu Inc (Chinese: 搜狐). Sohu Inc is listed to trade on

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

and now has around 14,200 employees worldwide. Dr. Zhang is regarded as one of China's leading Internet pioneers and was named by ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'' magazine as one of the richest men in China in 2010.

Early life and education

Charles Zhang was born in

Xi'an Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by #Name, other names, is the list of capitals in China, capital of Shaanxi, Shaanxi Province. A Sub-provincial division#Sub-provincial municipalities, sub-provincial city o ...

, China. His parents were residential

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

s at a small

arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

near

. His ancestors were from

Henan Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

. Zhang had been interested in science from a very young age. He studied at the Xi'an Qinghua middle school (西安庆华中学) and transferred to the Xi'an Middle School of Shaanxi Province. He excelled at school. Zhang was accepted to study

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

at the prestigious

Tsinghua University Tsinghua University (; abbreviation, abbr. THU) is a National university, national Public university, public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Minis ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

and graduated in 1986. He then received a full

CUSPEA CUSPEA (China-U.S. Physics Examination and Application,李政道奖学金) was an examination and admission system used by the physics departments of some American and Canadian universities for graduate school admission from People's Republic of Chi ...

scholarship to attend

graduate school Postgraduate or graduate education refers to Academic degree, academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by higher education, post-secondary students who have earned an Undergraduate education, un ...

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(MIT) in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

, United States. Zhang graduated from MIT in 1993 with a PhD in

experimental physics Experimental physics is the category of disciplines and sub-disciplines in the field of physics that are concerned with the observation of physical phenomena and experiments. Methods vary from discipline to discipline, from simple experiments and ...

. He then went on to serve as MIT's liaison officer for China.

Founding of Sohu

Soon after leaving MIT, Dr. Zhang joined Internet Securities Inc. (ISI) in November 1995 and returned to Beijing to establish the ISI China operation. While at ISI, Zhang quickly envisioned an Internet

search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...

company. In 1996 with the support of

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...

director

Nicholas Negroponte Nicholas Negroponte (born December 1, 1943) is a Greek American architect. He is the founder and chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also founded the One Laptop per Child Association (OLPC). Negroponte ...

and

MIT Sloan School of Management The MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan or Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs, ...

professor Edward B. Roberts, as well as

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

, Charles Zhang founded his own company, Internet Technologies China (ITC 爱特信公司). This was the first VC funding of a Chinese Internet company in history. In May 1997, after meeting Yahoo founder

Jerry Yang Jerry Chih-Yuan Yang (born November 6, 1968) is a Taiwanese-American billionaire computer programmer, internet entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. He is the co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo! Inc. As of February 2022, Yang has a net worth ...

, Zhang decided to transform ITC and change its name to Sohu. Sohu and its search engine quickly became a household name in China. Zhang managed to successfully conduct four mergers with other Chinese Internet companies to raise capital. On July 12, 2000, Sohu was listed to trade on NASDAQ - GS. During the

dotcom crash The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compos ...

in the early 2000s, Sohu's stock dropped below $1 USD, many board members and investors wanted to replace Zhang. But Zhang remained, and later he credited his non-confrontational style as a factor that helped him maintain his position. Today,

Sohu Sohu, Inc. () is a Chinese Internet company headquartered in the Sohu Internet Plaza in Haidian District, Beijing. Sohu and its subsidiaries offer advertising, a search engine (Sogou.com), on-line multiplayer gaming (ChangYou.com) and other ser ...

is one of the leading Chinese Internet stocks, with a market value of around 2 billion dollars at around $45 USD per share.

Internet community A virtual community is a social network of individuals who connect through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Some of the most pervasive virtual communi ...

blogging A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

and short-messaging service, which helped the company turn around and generate total revenues of $750 million in China in 2002, accounted for 48% of company's revenues in 2004 and 2006.

Personal life

In many occasions, Zhang mentions about hoping he can live till the age of 150. He believes that

stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...

plays an important role in

aging Ageing ( BE) or aging ( AE) is the process of becoming older. The term refers mainly to humans, many other animals, and fungi, whereas for example, bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentially biologically immortal. In ...

and if one practices

yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciou ...

and understands

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

, he/she can be "freed" from stress, and so live till the age of 150. Zhang also enjoys

mountaineering Mountaineering or alpinism, is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending tall mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, a ...

, he has been training on

Mount Everest Mount Everest (; Tibetan: ''Chomolungma'' ; ) is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation (snow heig ...

and has reached the height of 6,666 m above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

, he hopes to scale the top of Everest one day. In April 2017, there was speculation that Zhang was dating

Taylor Swift Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her vivid songwriting—often inspired by her personal life—has received critical praise and wide media coverage. Bor ...

, "America's number one singer", but Zhang denied those rumors."I'm not dating Taylor Swift, says Sohu founder Charles Zhang"
''

The Straits Times ''The Straits Times'' is an English-language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore and currently owned by SPH Media Trust (previously Singapore Press Holdings). ''The Sunday Times'' is its Sunday edition. The newspaper was established ...

''. April 22, 2017.

References

External links

Personal blog

Sohu Corp
corporate information site.
Sohu Home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zhang, Charles 1964 births Living people People's Republic of China Buddhists Businesspeople from Xi'an Chinese technology company founders MIT Department of Physics alumni Tsinghua University alumni Sohu people 21st-century Chinese businesspeople

Early life and education

Founding of Sohu

Personal life

See also

References

External links