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William Ding Lei

Founder, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

“Life is just like chocolates with liquor and you never know what’s inside”, said a man who dreamt of being an excellent mechanical engineer and is now the richest person in China. Being the most populated country, China also offers numerous opportunities to individuals to invent a product or a service that millions of people can use on the go. William Ding , the founder of NetEase, did just the same. Keeping money as his secondary target Ding aimed for something extraordinary that would evolve China.

Early Life
Born on 1st October, 1971 in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China, Ding was interested in electronics from the early age of 13. And at 16 he managed to assemble electronic parts to make six transistor radios. Ding earned a bachelor’s degree from Chengdu College of Electronic Science and Technology. Just after graduation he took a job as an engineer in the local state department. He quit that job soon to join Sybase in Guangzhou. After working there for a while William Ding decided to go on his own and start a company.

The Birth of NetEase
It was 1997 when Ding finally started his own venture with dozen other employees. The company, for first two years, focused on development of Internet applied software, one of its kind in China, a bilingual e-mail system. The e-mail system quickly earned popularity and became buzz of the town. William Ding then conceptualized and brought the company into new light by hosting a search engine platform and microblogging on NetEase. The next thing they knew was NetEase becoming the largest internet portal in China.

NetEase then ventured into their most profitable launch ever – multiplayer gaming. NetEase’s gaming portal has thousands of massively popular games one of which is World of Warcraft. Millions of players from China as well as the whole world visit NetEase to play these multiplayer games. This web portal has made Ding Lei the richest man in China with billions of net worth. Popularly known as the ‘video game billionaire’ in China Ding Lei has made it to the top by creating opportunities for himself. In one of his interviews Ding Lei said, “Smart guys seize opportunities and never let them slip between their fingers. And those who think themselves weak always wait for opportunities.” The engineering genius considered Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison as his heroes. His intellect and love for reading always made him stand out among his classmates. During his college he chose to read as many IT books as possible from the school library rather than to focus on getting high marks. Ding Lei often raised questions which would be so unique that they sounded weird.

His constant reading and practicing what he believed led him to write an entire software code unlike his other classmates. He also quit good paying job to pursue his dream.

Ding Lei’s Goals
Lei considers NetEase as a responsibility towards users, clients, investors, and employees. His aim was to make gaming enjoyable, educational and believes that the next decade will see a massive rise in e-business. William Ding believes in talent and spends both time and money to upgrade skills his employees through training. He prefers to personally recruit people from his own alma mater and other colleges and universities.

Apart from the internet business Ding Lei plans to bring the farmers who have lost their farms for factories back into business. He plans to invest in organic farming to produce quality food. He can, thus, bring some of the country’s capital towards countryside. His another share for the Chinese people is to make them literate. Lei has appointed a team who translated American college lessons into Mandarin with subtitles.

Despite of his busy schedule, Lei has particular time devoted for his study. He likes to read as many books on IT as possible and to increase his knowledge base. In 2004 he was awarded as the ‘Technology Change Agent for Innovative use of Technology’. He lives in Guangzhou with his wife Wang Xunfang.

Story of Lee Byung-chul- Founder of Samsung

Founder, Story, Tech Story / By

An entrepreneur is a person who has a vision that could change millions of lives and help the country grow economically at the same time. This vision brings creative ideas and creates employment opportunities helping the society prosper.

Countries like USA, China, India, South Korea and many more have made a significant contribution to the global industrial sector. When it comes to electronics and plastic market, China tops the list, top apparel, software and hardware brands are from US and South Korea is famous for electronics and automobiles industry. One man from South Korea changed the entire electronics and smartphones market when his company called Samsung came to the market with their world changing technology. The founder Lee Byung-chul’s Samsung has seen many crests and troughs all these years and today stands as a symbol of growth, innovation, and prosperity.

Early Life
Born on 12th February, 1910 in Uiryeong County in South Korea Lee was the only son of a wealthy family. His family was of landowners and left behind huge wealth for him to inherit. Chull attended Waseda University in Tokyo but left his degree incomplete. Initially, he used his inherited wealth to start a rice mill. Although he dedicated himself in this first business it failed to float and sunk without generating any major profits.
Lee Byung-chul
After the failure of his first business Chul established an export business in Daegu on 1st March, 1938 and named the company Samsung Trading Co. The company exported varieties of goods and eatables like fish, vegetables, and fruits to the regions of China. The company saw a major boom in growth as it was supplying goods throughout Korea and even to other countries by 1945. The company was then shifted to Seoul in 1947. Samsung Trading Co. was considered to be one of the ten largest trading companies during that time. But, Chul had to face another difficulty. This time, the war. As the war broke out Chul had to shift his company to a safer location in Busan around 1950.

But this shifting came as a boon for Chul. The massive influx of US army troops and the military equipment boosted his trucking business for the next year and a half. Chul also started a sugar refinery which saw the light of success quite early. After the war, he went on to set up a wool factory in 1954 in Daegu which later became the largest wool factory in the country. As the business was growing Chul ventured into various other sectors like finance, insurance, retail, and security.

Chul had a strong belief in industrialization and wanted Samsung group to become leader in every sector. It was in the 1960s that Samsung ventured into electronics industry to take over the market just like other sectors. Samsung focused on creating innovative products and soon the company released their first product – a black and white television. By the mid and late 1960s Samsung already had six divisions focused on departments like semiconductors, telecommunications, hardware, etc.

Success in the Electronics Business
In 1980, Samsung acquired Hanguk Jeonja Tongsin, a major company in telecommunications. This was the same year when the company had its own electronics division under Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. unit. The company then started producing telephones, fax machines, and various other electronic devices on a large-scale.

The founder of Samsung, Lee Byung Chul, died on 19th November, 1987 in Seoul, South Korea. But the company kept following his philosophy of large-scale expansion. The company expanded as never before setting up their plants in New York, Texas, London, etc. Samsung’s construction company garnered major projects including that of the Burj Khalifa in Malaysia.

Major Successes
Samsung raced on the top of the list as the number one memory chip production company in the whole world in 1992. Soon it also acquired second position, just behind Intel, in the chip-making industry. The year of 1995 came with a huge success as Samsung made first LCD screen revolutionizing the television hardware industry.

Samsung accounts for 15% of South Korea’s GDP (as of 2012). In the same year the company’s total revenue was a whopping $265 billion and earned profits of $26 billion. Samsung has employed over 425,000 people providing a good life for people all over the world.

Liu Chuanzhi Founder of Lenovo

Founder, start-up, Tech Story / By

Hardships are the rigorous tests in a determined person’s life. Hardships come in numerous faces and it is this time when a human being’s ability and patience to deal and overcome the difficult time is tested. Those who come strong out of this deadly storm are the one’s who create history and make a difference in the world. Liu Chuanzhi is one such person who despite of humongous political constraints, managed to build a company which now ranks number two in the production of computers in the whole world.

Born on April 29, 1944 in Shanghai, China, Liu Chuanzhi grew up during the worst of times. Liu’s father was an executive with the Bank of China in Shanghai. However, his connections with the Chinese Communists would create a problem in Liu’s future. Liu’s childhood was encompassed with the years of unstable politics and tension in the government. In 1961, he admitted himself in Xian Military Communication Engineering College. Due to his father’s political connections Liu was not allowed to study sensitive subjects and he completed his graduation in 1966 specializing in Radar Systems. This course, however, exposed him for the first time to the computing world.

Just two years after graduation, Liu’s past yet again haunted him and sent him down for labor work. This time it was due to his anti-revolutionary ideas which led the officials to send him to work on a state-owned rice farm as a laborer and learn by living among the peasants from 1968 to 1970. By this time, the Chinese Academy of Sciences was reopened which was closed due to Chinese Cultural Revolution. Liu returned to his job at Beijing and went on to work as an engineer and an administrator. Liu provided a lion’s share in developing the 757 mainframe computer. He resigned from his job in 1984 to join Chinese Academy of Sciences – the place where the computer producing giant Lenovo would be born.

Early Days

After joining Chinese Academy of Sciences Liu stumbled upon an idea to start a computer company. But, there were multiple barriers standing in front of him and his dream. First, the Chinese government did not encourage start-ups and ran a strictly planned economy. So the funding from government was out of question. Second, for a scientist to jump into business was considered below one’s dignity and, therefore, the company Liu would start won’t have a single market expert who knows how the business should work. Despite of this barriers, Liu received a 200,000 yuan ($24,000 USD) loan from his superior at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Liu’s computer company, initially named Legend, was compared to the early days of Apple. The company’s manufacturing unit began in a small 20 square yards room in Beijing. The company worked on the research of magnetic storage technology in its initial stage. In 1985, Legend did something which no other computer company had ever done, they built a Chinese character set for computers. Since, the Chinese language consisted of huge number of characters it was almost an impossible task to bring all those characters in digital form. But, the development of a character set put Legend multiple steps ahead of any other company. Due to the lack of business knowledge the company often faced opinion problems among the members. But, Liu’s leadership and his study of other big companies like HP and IBM helped him to sketch an influential business and marketing strategy.

Legend started selling computers six years after its foundation, i.e., in 1990. And by 1996, the company climbed on top of the computer manufacturing company’s list surpassing IBM. Liu believed in young people in their energy and talent which could pave a way to keep the company on cutting edge of innovation and technology. Most of the company’s higher staff included young people during the 90s. By developing Pentium II processor Legend once again proved that they are and will always be on the top of the market.

The company saw its massive success in 2004 when they were declared as the largest PC manufacturing company. In 2006, Legend was renamed as Lenovo Group to enter into the UK and Europian market where the name ‘Legend’ was already trademarked. Legend also became the first company to join the sponsorship for Olympic Games held in Turin, Italy in 2006.

In 1995, the Chinese government honored Liu as the Model of National Work Force and Man of Reform in China. In 2005, Liu has also been listed in Time’s one of the 25 most influential global executives.

Marc Benioff, Founder and CEO of Salesforce

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Talented people have the urge to make a difference in this world and create a name for themselves from quite an early age. One such genius who jumped into the entrepreneurship race from the age when he was just in high school is Marc Benioff. Influenced by his father, a Hindu guru, and a former secretary of state Marc Benioff is best known as  founder of Salesforce – a cloud computing company.

Marc Benioff, son of Joelle and Russell Benioff, was born on September 25th 1964 in San Francisco and was raised in the Bay Area. Marc got his first exposure into the business world through his father’s local departmental store in San Francisco. In one of the interviews he went on to credit his father and said, “I learned my work ethic from him”. He studied high school from the Burlingame High School and during his time there he developed and sold his first software called “How To Juggle” for the TRS-80 Model 1 Computer. This trade gained him $75 from the buyer computer magazine.Marc BenioffThe next major successful turn came into Marc’s life when he was 15. This was the year when he founded his single-man company named Liberty Software dedicated to develop games for the Atari 800 computer. Under this company’s banner Benioff developed games such as “King Arthur’s Heir”, “The Nightmare”, “Crypt of the Undead”, and “Escape from the Vulcan’s Isle”. His venture of developing games became his primary source of income and by the next year Benioff was making $1500 per month which he would later use to pay for his higher studies. He graduated from High School in the year 1982 and enrolled himself into University of Southern California to pursue Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree.

The USC days were of great opportunities for Benioff. He landed an internship as a programmer with the tech-genius and the greatest visionary ever lived Steve Jobs at Apple’s Macintosh division. It was here when he learned that revolutionary ideas were not just a dream but they can be pursued and achieved too. Benioff had made his mind to make his career in programming but one of his professor at USC had something else in mind. He suggested Benioff to take business. And, thus, was born an entrepreneur who would revolutionize the online world.

Marc started his career immediately after graduating from USC and joined the database giant Oracle as a customer support. Benioff had an exceptional oratory skills and this helped him to gain the “Rookie of the Year” title at the age of 23. Three years later he climbed up his career ladder so fast that he reached the Vice President position and became the youngest person to be on that post. This also gained him a fat salary of $300,000.

Benioff’s success caught an eye of the top-line people and the founder of Oracle, Larry Ellison, himself called him in. Benioff and Ellison quickly became close friends and spent a good amount of time together attending parties, going on vacations, etc. After 13 years of job at Oracle, Benioff decided to work on something of his own project. And he started working on the idea of cloud computing and gave the company a name which today is known as “Salesforce”. Ellison supported Benioff’s idea by funding the project with $2 million and took a seat on board of directors.

As the time passed by, Benioff found out a potential competitor to Salesforce and it was none other than Oracle itself. This led to the start of downfall between Ellison and Benioff’s relations. While the business war’s continued Salesforce managed to survive the huge dot-com bust blow-off in early 2000s. The survival made the company even stronger and brought it in the list of biggest companies in modern cloud computing market. The company went public in 2004 and raised $110 million. Today, the company is valued at $40 billion and has also been awarded multiple awards including the “Best Place to Work at” for 8 consecutive years.

Starting from selling a software for $75 to making a billion dollars company Marc Benioff stands at number 16 in the Forbes 500 most influential CEOs list. Besides his business work, Benioff has also written a business book “Behind the Cloud”, a memoir on Salesforce in 2009. He is actively involved in philanthropical works and donates a huge sum to charitable trusts and organizations. Benioff currently lives in San Francisco, California with his wife Lynnie Benioff and two children.

Story of Jimmy Wales: Co-founder of Wikipedia

Founder, Tech Story / By

The world is making progress at a massive speed. So may it be in engineering, medical or creative prospects, the people are putting forward their best ideas to improve even further. And, no doubt, technology is playing a vital role in all this development. From cooking recipes to educational courses, everything is available on a single click. All this has become possible due to constant hard work of the people who had an ambitious vision. Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, is one of such people who dreamt of building world’s largest encyclopedia, and that too, free for everyone’s use.

Early Life
Born on August 7, 1966 at Huntsville, Alabama Wales took his schooling at the Randolph School. He lived with his father, who ran a grocery store, and his mother, who ran a single room school. Jimmy wales, with his siblings, studied in this school before attending primary school. He graduated at the age of 16 and got his Bachelor’s degree in Finance from the Auburn University. While pursuing his postgraduate studies he went on to teach at the University of Alabama and the Indiana University.

Risks from Earlier Life
Wales was interested and quite good at computer coding. In 1994, while working with Chicago Options Associates, a trading firm, he spent his free time playing with the computer code wishing to build a knowledge sharing platform. Despite his bright career ahead in the firm, he decided to quit so that he could bring his dream into reality. As a result he started a company named ‘Bomis’ with his two partners. The website was designed for a purpose to gather humongous views and therefore contained some unethical material aimed to sustain male needs. Bomis worked quite well bringing in enough money which Wales used to finance his next big project.

The initial idea of starting a knowledge sharing platform was that people would contribute useful articles and expert editorial team would edit the content. The site was named ‘Nupedia’ which provided quality information and also challenged the professional encyclopedias already in the market. The idea was immensely apprehended and thousands of people all around the world started contributing quality informative articles to the website. Jimmy witnessed a major problem when the incoming articles were coming in a huge amount while the edited version were taking a lot of time to be uploaded. He had to find a way to balance both sides where the rate of uploading the edited articles would match the incoming articles.

Wikipedia’s birth and funding
This is when Jimmy Wales  and his colleagues came up with another ambitious idea. The idea put forward allowed maximum number of submissions on a single topic and, an added provision was that any user could be able to edit the article. Jimmy thought that finding faults and editing them in an article was easy but collecting the facts and information was the toughest part. The idea of crowd sourced editing worked and Wikipedia was born. Here, n number of people could edit and add the information to the already written article. Thus, making it more and more factual with every edit. January 15, 2001 was the official launch date of Wikipedia. Wikipedia was funded from the money earned from Bomis before it was made non profit organization.

The concept was receiving overwhelming response that Jimmy Wales and his teammates ever emancipated. Here, people from around the globe were providing quality and informative articles and simultaneously editing it constantly. Wales put few best editors to look over the uploaded articles and correct them regularly to maintain the quality of the information. In 2011, 10 years from launch, Wikipedia became the highest visited online encyclopedia platform. The website holds more than 30 million articles in more than 287 languages available freely for its visitors. Wales has avoided advertisements on his website to provide distraction free readings.

Wikipedia, on October 2013, was ranked as the 6th highest visited website across the globe. Jimmy Wales’ vision of providing quality education has revolutionized the way people could learn. From leaving his PhD dissertation thesis, his promising job mid-way to accomplishing the world’s largest information providing website Wales has come a long way and has definitely made this world a better place.

Neil Patel Co-founder of Hello bar, Crazy Egg and Kissmetrics

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Internet is a world of organized chaos. One can reach immeasurable heights if the path through this chaos is figured out. And once figured out it can make you millionaire or a billionaire. One such bright mind to carve a path through this chaotic world is that of Neil Patel. He managed to find a solution on which numerous multi-billion dollar companies would rely in the future. Patel, at an early stage in his career, realized the potential of digital marketing and dedicated his whole time in finding the best way that would increase the traffic on a website.

Born on 24th April, 1985 in London Neil grew up in a family with a strong entrepreneur background. While studying at the John F. Kennedy High School, Neil saw his cousin making money out of selling burned CDs. He too tried to follow his cousin but avoided selling the pirated versions due to legal constraints. However, the burned CDs gave considerably low returns and Neil thought of a new idea to increase his income. Now, he would sell the black boxes and by buying cable black boxes from eBay he would capitalize his money. Again, the legal constraints made him jump to yet another idea of reselling automotive parts. This time he acquired legal permission from the State Board of Equalization to avoid any further disturbances in his business.

Patel, at an early age of 15, landed his first job which involved cleaning restrooms, picking up and emptying trash cans, sweeping the vomit, etc. He would earn comparatively extra cents than other places. His next and better job was in the sales just 3 months later working in Quality Systems selling vacuums worth $1600. But Patel’s aim was not just to earn money but to get rich and the sales job wasn’t going to make him a rich man.

A Step Forward
Neil’s sister introduced him to the boss at Oracle consultant. He studied the business model of Monster.com he started his own venture called Advice Monkey which failed terribly. But every failure brings with it new opportunities and lessons to learn. Neil learnt the magnificent potential of Internet Marketing.

With the knowledge of potential business model and the tool to achieve it already acquired Neil only needed proper education of the same. Therefore, he joined Cypress Community College to learn Digital Marketing. And along with his partner, and her sister’s then boyfriend, setup a venture called Crazy Egg which took the internet marketing field by storm.

The reputation Crazy Egg gained made Neil work harder on his business model and further setup numerous software and internet marketing firms. He has also founded KISSmetrics , Hello Bar, etc. His digital marketing strategies attracted several MNCs like HP, e-commerce giant Amazon, Viacom, GM and NBC. Patel’s model helped to increase the revenue growth of these companies multiple folds.

Patel is the owner of $10 million fortune and is now eyeing to help several non-profit organizations. He is known as the SEO Tycoon in the digital marketing field as his strategies increased the traffic on TechCrunch by a whopping 30% in just two months. Growing in a family full of business men and his mother who owns a home daycare business, Neil grew up to follow the footsteps and has made a name for himself in the entrepreneur world.