Zhou Hongyi (; born 4 October 1970) 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 busin ...

entrepreneur. He is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of the Internet security company

Qihoo 360 Qihoo 360 (; approximate pronunciation CHEE-hoo), full name 360 Security Technology Inc., is a Chinese internet security company that has developed the antivirus software programs 360 Safeguard and 360 Mobile Safe, the Web browser 360 Secure Bro ...

. As of November 2018, he is ranked #45 on Forbes China Rich List 2018 and #135 on Forbes Billionaires 2018, with an estimated net worth of $4.7 billion.

Early life

Zhou Hongyi was born in

Huanggang Huanggang is a prefecture-level city in easternmost Hubei Province, China. It is situated to the north of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and is bounded in the north by the Dabie Mountains and is named after Mount Huanggang. It borders ...

Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The prov ...

, China. He has a master's degree from

Xi'an Jiaotong University Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU, ) is a public research university in Xi'an, Shaanxi, China. As a member of Double First Class University Plan, C9 League, Project 985, and Project 211, it is a leading national university with special strengths i ...

Career

Zhou was one of China's pioneer internet entrepreneurs, founding 3721 in 1998, a search engine which sells Chinese-language keywords for Roman-alphabet domain names. 3721 was acquired by

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...

in 2004 for US$120 million with Zhou heading Yahoo! China's operation. However, with differences between Zhou and Yahoo's management, Yahoo eventually sold its China operations to

Alibaba Ali Baba (character), Ali Baba is a character from the folk tale ''Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves''. Ali Baba or Alibaba may also refer to: Films * Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1902 film), ''Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves'' (1902 film), a F ...

in 2005 and Zhou left to start Qihoo 360.

Personal life

Zhou is married, and lives in Beijing, China.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zhou, Hongyi 1970 births Living people Businesspeople from Hubei Chinese billionaires People from Huanggang Xi'an Jiaotong University alumni Chinese computer programmers Chinese technology company founders Members of the 13th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Members of the Jiusan Society