Zhang Yiming Age, Biography

Bio/Wiki
Profession	Chinese Internet Entrepreneur
Known For	Becoming Asia's richest person (September 2026)
Physical Stats
Eye Colour	Black
Hair Colour	Black
Career
Awards, Honours, Achievements	• China 30 Under 30 list (2013) • Fortune magazine's 40 Under 40 list (2018) • Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People (2019)
Personal Life
Date of Birth	1 April 1983 (Friday)
Age (as of 2026)	43 Years
Birthplace	Longyan Area, Fujian, China
Zodiac sign	Aries
Signature
Nationality	Chinese
Hometown	Longyan Area, Fujian, China
College/University	Nankai University, Tianjin
Educational Qualification	A Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Engineering majorly in micro electronics engineering and software engineering (2005)
Relationships & More
Marital Status	Married
Money Factor
Net Worth (approx.)	$105 billion (as of September 2026)

Some Lesser Known Facts About Zhang Yiming

• Zhang Yiming was born and raised in Longyan Fuijian Province. He is the only child of his parents.

• In 2001, he joined Nankai University in Tianjin, where he initially focused on microelectronics and later focused on software engineering. In 2005, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering.

• During his university time, Zhang met his future wife while studying; however, he kept his family away from the public spotlight.

• After graduating, he entered the technology industry and began building experience in software and internet businesses.

• In 2006, Yiming joined the travel website Kuxun as its fifth employee and first engineer. He was later promoted to technical director.

• In 2008, he left Kuxun and joined Microsoft.

• However, after few months, he left Microsoft and joined a Chinese startup Fanfou, a social-networking service.

• In 2009, when Expedia was preparing to acquire Kuxun, Zhang took responsibility for Kuxun’s real-estate search business. He later used this experience to start 99fang.com, a property-search website.

• In 2012, Zhang and his longtime associate Liang Rubo founded ByteDance. The company initially operated from a four-bedroom apartment in Beijing’s Zhongguancun area, a well-known technology hub.

• One of ByteDance’s first products was Neihan Duanzi, an app built around jokes, memes and humorous content. It later became extremely popular in China before being shut down in 2018.

• In August 2012, ByteDance launched Toutiao, meaning “Today’s Headlines.” Unlike a traditional newspaper-style news app, it used algorithms to recommend content according to users’ interests. This became the foundation of ByteDance’s business model.

• In 2013, Zhang Yiming was included in Forbes China 30 Under 30 list.

• In 2016, ByteDance launched its video-sharing app TikTok (known as Douyin in China) a shortvideo platform that later became the Chinese counterpart of TikTok and became one of the company’s most successful products.

• In the same year, ByteDance also began expanding internationally and invested in India’s content aggregation platform Dailyhunt.

• In 2017, Zhang’s ByteDance launched TikTok internationally.

•  In November 2017, ByteDance acquired the popular short-video app Musical.ly. The company later in 2018 merged Musical.ly with TikTok

• In 2018, Fortune included Zhang in its 40 Under 40 list.

• In 2019, Yiming was named among Times magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of the Year.

• In 2020, ByteDance donated million yuan to the Chinese Red Cross Foundation to establish a fund supporting medical workers during the COVID-19.

• In 2021, Zhang announced that he would step down as CEO of ByteDance and handed the position to his longtime colleague Liang Rubo. In an interview, he shared that he wanted to focus more on long-term strategy rather than day-to-day management.

• In November 2021, Zhang completed his transition away from the ByteDance’s top executive role; however, he remained a major shareholder and retained significant influence through his ownership and voting rights.

• In 2024, Zhang and ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo jointly donated 200 million yuan to Nankai University. The money was earmarked mainly for mathematics research and talend development.

• In 2025, Zhang Yiming’s wealth continued to grow as ByteDance’s business expanded. His fortune came not only from TikTok but also from the company’s growing investment in artificial intelligence (AI).

• His earlier work at Kuxun, Microsoft, Fanfou and 99fang.com gave him experience in search, recommendation systems and internet products before he founded ByteDance.

• In June 2026, Yiming became the second-richest person in Asia, behind Gautam Adani. Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index put Zhang’s wealth at about $92.8 billion at that time.

• In September 2026, he became Asia’s richest person, with his wealth reaching approximately $105 billion.

• According to some reports ByteDance’s AI products including Doubo, an AI chatbot and Seedance, a video-generation tool became an important part of Zhang’s wealth story.