Meet Colin Huang, Billionaire Founder of Pinduoduo and Temu

Colin Huang is not widely known outside China, but he is one of the richest men in the world.

Huang, 44, is the richest person in China. He is the founder and former CEO of Pinduoduo, an online gaming marketplace that connects buyers and sellers. It is popular in China and has a market capitalization of more than $190 billion, giving it a higher valuation than Uber or Sony.

People buy things like iPhones at discounted prices on Pinduoduo, play games, and get their friends to “group buy” groceries with huge discounts. Pinduoduo takes a small commission and charges merchants to promote their products on its app, but it doesn’t hold any inventory.

Huang founded the company in 2015. Since then, the company has grown rapidly and went public on the New York Stock Exchange in July 2018.

Huang’s fortune exploded after that, with his net worth peaking at just over $70 billion in February 2021, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates, though it has since fallen. He is now worth an estimated $48.6 billion, according to Bloomberg, making him the richest person in China and the 25th richest in the world.

In September 2022, Pinduoduo launched its discount shopping app Temu in the US. It quickly climbed to the top of the download charts.

Here’s how Huang went from math Olympiad competitor to Google software engineer, serial entrepreneur, and e-commerce billionaire.