Ding Lei (; born 1 October 1971), also known as William Ding, is a Chinese

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busi ...

businessman, and the founder and CEO of

NetEase NetEase, Inc. () is a Chinese Internet technology company providing online services centered on content, community, communications, and commerce. The company was founded in 1997 by Ding Lei. NetEase develops and operates online PC and mobile gam ...

(163.com). Ding made significant contributions to the development of computer networks in mainland China. In late 2016, Ding was looking into investing in the property sector, and travelled to Zimbabwe in December, and to the United Kingdom. As of April 2021, ''

Bloomberg Billionaires Index The ''Bloomberg Billionaires Index'', launched in March 2012, is a daily ranking of the world's 500 richest people based on their net worth. It draws information from "action in the stock market, economic indicators and news reports", features a p ...

'' estimated Ding's fortune to be $35.8 billion.

Early life

Ding Lei was born in

Fenghua Fenghua (; ) is a district of the city of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China. The district and its administrative hinterlands has a population of over 480,000. Fenghua is most famous for being the hometown of former Presidents Chiang Kai-shek an ...

Ningbo Ningbo (; Ningbonese: ''gnin² poq⁷'' , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly romanized as Ningpo, is a major sub-provincial city in northeast Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It comprises 6 urban districts, 2 sate ...

Zhejiang Province Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...

, China. He graduated from Chengdu Institute of Radio Engineering (now

University of Electronic Science and Technology of China The University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) is a national public research university in Chengdu, Sichuan, China. It was founded in 1956 instructed by the Premier Zhou Enlai. UESTC was established on the basis of the incorp ...

) and obtained a bachelor's degree.

Career

After graduation he first worked in a local state department in Ningbo as an engineer, and then he went to

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, sou ...

and worked for

Sybase Sybase, Inc. was an enterprise software and services company. The company produced software to manage and analyze information in relational databases, with facilities located in California and Massachusetts. Sybase was acquired by SAP in 2010; ...

there. He founded NetEase and became the richest individual in Chinese mainland in the year of 2003 (7.6 billion yuan), becoming the country's first internet and first gaming billionaire. According to the Hurun Report 2013, his net worth is estimated to be $5.2 billion. In 2012, it was confirmed that Ding branched NetEase's activities out into pork production. The pig farm is centered around technology and environmental sustainability, and is not meant to become a major arm of the company. In May 2017, venture capital firm Sinovation Ventures, US-based Meituan-Dianping, and Alibaba competitor JD invested a total of US$23 million into the farm. In June 2020, Ding purchased a 16,000-square-foot Bel Air, Los Angeles, mansion for US$29 million from the Tesla and SpaceX founder

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The B ...

References

External links

Article on Ding Lei, China Today (2004)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ding, Lei 1971 births Living people Chinese technology company founders Billionaires from Zhejiang Businesspeople from Ningbo University of Electronic Science and Technology of China alumni NetEase people 21st-century Chinese businesspeople Members of the 13th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference