Alibaba founder Jack Ma to Baidu’s Robin Li, Xiaomi’s Lei Jun and Liu Qiangdong of JD.com – at which universities did China’s richest tech entrepreneurs study?
With more billionaires emerging in China than anywhere else in the world, the China University Alumni Association’s annual ‘Billionaire Ranking’ lists higher education institutes by the number of super-rich they produce
The swift transformation of China from an emerging nation in transition to a booming market economy has helped spawn a record number of rich citizens. China now produces billionaires faster then any country in the world. Many parents of young children refer to the annual “Billionaire Ranking” compiled by the China University Alumni Association, listing Chinese colleges and universities according to the number of billionaires they have produced from alumni and faculty. Intrigued? Let’s look at the top list of Chinese billionaires and where they obtained their education.
Jack Ma
A name well recognised across the globe, Jack Ma is co-founder of the Alibaba Group, one of the largest e-commerce businesses in the world (and owner of the South China Morning Post). The outgoing Ma had humble beginnings as a former English teacher. He attended Hangzhou Teachers College (currently known as Hangzhou Normal University), a public university in Hangzhou in the capital of Zhejiang province, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1988. Ma revealed in a video interview held in 2015 that he had applied 10 times to Harvard Business School but was rejected every time.
Robin Li
Robin Li is the CEO and co-founder of Baidu, China's top search engine and one of the world's most popular websites. The self-made man enrolled at the prestigious Peking University where he studied information management and earned a Bachelor of Science degree. In 1991, Li travelled to the University at Buffalo in the US for a doctorate in computer science. He received his Master’s degree in computer science three years later after deciding not to continue with the PhD.
Lei Jun
You have probably used a product from Lei Jun's corporation at some point of time. Co-founder and chairman of Xiaomi, one of the world's most popular smartphone and lifestyle product brands, Lei graduated from Mianyang Middle School in Sichuan province and attended Wuhan University in the same year. He passed all credits within two years and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in computer science. During his last year in college, he started his first company also known as Gundugoms.