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 busin ...
businessman and the CEO of
Meituan-Dianping
Meituan (, literally "beautiful group"), formerly Meituan-Dianping, is a Chinese shopping platform for locally found consumer products and retail services including entertainment, dining, delivery, travel and other services. The company is headqu ...
. ''Fortune'' listed Wang as number three on its 2018 "40 under 40" list. ''
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 ...
'' estimates his net worth at US$8.9 billion as of November 2022.
Early life and education
Wang Xing was born in 1979 in
Longyan
Longyan (; Hakka: ''Liùng-ngàm''; Longyan dialect: ''Lengngia'') is a prefecture-level city in south-western Fujian Province, China, bordering Guangdong to the south and Jiangxi to the west.
History
In 736 AD, (the Tang dynasty), the prefect ...
,
Fujian
Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capi ...
, China. He graduated from
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 ...
with a bachelor’s degree in
electronic engineering
Electronics engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering which emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current ...
in 2001. He pursued a Ph.D. in
computer engineering
Computer engineering (CoE or CpE) is a branch of electrical engineering and computer science that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer engineers ...
at
University of Delaware
The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 mas ...
from 2001 to 2004 but then dropped out of the program. Nevertheless, in 2005, he received a master's degree in computer engineering from University of Delaware.
Startups
After dropping out of University of Delaware, Wang returned to China and, with a couple of friends, tried to create a Chinese version of the then-social networking site
Friendster
Friendster was a social network game based in Mountain View, California, founded by Jonathan Abrams and launched in March 2003.Eric Eldon, August 4, 2008.Friendster raises $20 million, nabs a Googler to be CEO VentureBeat. Retrieved December 4, 2 ...
. His first such site was called Duoduoyou ("Many Friends"), targeting students in various Chinese universities. After Duoduoyou failed to take off, he started Youzitu to serve Chinese students abroad but the site was shut down.
In 2005, he created a Chinese version of
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
called
Xiaonei
The Renren Network (), formerly known as the Xiaonei Network (), is a Chinese social networking service similar to Facebook.Renren
The Renren Network (), formerly known as the Xiaonei Network (), is a Chinese social networking service similar to Facebook.
In 2007, he created a Chinese version of
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
called
Fanfou
Fanfou () is a Chinese microblogging (weibo) website. It was the first Twitter clone in China.
History
Fanfou.com was founded by Wang Xing with the team that created Xiaonei on 12 May 2007. The website was developed in LAMP stack with Twit ...
. It was China's first big microblogging site but was soon shut down by the government over politically sensitive content. It was eventually permitted to reopen but by then, other Chinese microblogging sites like
Sina Weibo
Sina Weibo (新浪微博) is a Chinese microblogging ( weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users (252 million daily acti ...
and
Tencent Weibo
Tencent Weibo was a Chinese microblogging (weibo) website launched by Tencent in April 2010, and was shut down on September 28th, 2020. Users could broadcast a message including 140 Chinese characters at most through the web, SMS or smartphone.
...
had entered the market and captured substantial market share.
In 2010, he founded the Chinese group-buying site
Meituan
Meituan (, literally "beautiful group"), formerly Meituan-Dianping, is a Chinese shopping platform for locally found consumer products and retail services including entertainment, dining, delivery, travel and other services. The company is headq ...
, which was based on the business model of
Groupon
Groupon is an American global e-commerce marketplace connecting subscribers with local merchants by offering activities, travel, goods and services in 13 countries. Based in Chicago, Groupon was launched there in November 2008, launching soon af ...
. Meituan was hugely successful and merged with Dianping in 2015.
book burning
Book burning is the deliberate destruction by fire of books or other written materials, usually carried out in a public context. The burning of books represents an element of censorship and usually proceeds from a cultural, religious, or politi ...
Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping ( ; ; ; born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus as the paramount leader of China, s ...
's
administration
Administration may refer to:
Management of organizations
* Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal
** Administrative assistant, Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an admini ...
's clampdown on civil society, intellectual and academic freedom since ascension to office. The poem, entitled "Book Burning Pit" speaks about the late emperor
Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang (, ; 259–210 BC) was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of a unified China. Rather than maintain the title of "king" ( ''wáng'') borne by the previous Shang and Zhou rulers, he ruled as the First Emperor ( ...
's practice of beheading scholars and burning books, only to be overthrown by illiterate rebels later during his reign.
As a result of the post, Meituan's shares plunged 7.1% on the same day, wiping $36.98 billion from the company's market cap over the subsequent weeks. The firm also subsequently came under scrutiny from the Beijing Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and became the target of an anti-monopoly investigation from the State Administration of Market Regulation, widely seen as political reprisal for Wang's comments.