China's Internet billionaire life and his mysterious 'disappearance' when he was only 30 years old

Today referring to the famous Internet companies in China, we often only know Alibaba or Tencent, these are the leading businesses in this country. However, if we go back in time 10 years ago, these companies are nothing compared to the online game publisher Shanda Interactive Entertainment, founded by young founder Chen Tianqiao, who has become a billionaire when only new 30 years old.

For more than a decade, Chen is more famous than Alibaba's Jack Ma today. While his career is growing prosperously, Chen disappears without a reason. He seemed to leave his homeland and be completely separate from the outside world. In 2012, he canceled listing of the company's shares on Nasdaq.

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After years of 'disappearance', Chen re-returned, at the age of 44 he is no longer a billionaire of the online game publisher Shanda Interactive Entertainment, but he has built his career in the country. Singapore with many upcoming action plans. When Bloomberg reporter visited the office in Singapore, he explained why he ceded the Chinese market to Alibaba and Tencent. Alibaba's founder and Tencent are currently China's richest.

He said that, at the age of 30, his life faced with a lot of pressure, increased competition pressure, the government's management policy began to be more stringent, making him feel too tired, late. he decided to stop here.

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Besides the pressure of work, he also faced a health decline, Chen said: 'Every evening when I watch the sun set, I have been afraid I will never wake up'.

After stopping in the old field. Accumulating his valuable experience, he decided to turn to a new path, which is to invest in the study of the human brain.

With total personal assets of at least $ 2.4 billion, he left $ 1 billion (about VND 22 trillion) for his plans. The sum of $ 115 million (more than 2 trillion VND) that Mr. and Mrs. Chen donated to the California Institute of Technology to establish Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Neurological Research Institute. The remaining money is used to support research for young scientists and to establish a university named after him in the United States.

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A special feature of this school is that it will gather scholars in all areas from neuroscience, biology and psychiatry to philosophical and theological researchers, and encourage them to do work together. Chen thinks it is time to focus on improving people's morale after centuries of efforts to improve living standards.

He said: "This will be a university with the task of trying to answer the question of who we are and where we come from. For thousands of years, we have improved our happiness through Now, we have to solve this problem by discovering the interior. "

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Mr. Chen was born in 1973 in Zhejiang Province, south of Shanghai City, China. He grew up during the period when China was more and more open to the capitalist world during the post-Cultural Revolution period. Later he graduated from Easter University with a bachelor's degree in economics, and worked for a securities company, which is where love started with Mrs. Chrissy. After 6 months of love, they married and formed Shanda in 1999 together.

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During that time, many Chinese entrepreneurs were racing to create electronic portals like Yahoo! Then Chen and his wife and brother went on a different path to establish an online game company with savings of about $ 60,000 (more than 1.3 billion VND).

His first success in his career was the acquisition of distribution rights to the role of Legend of Mir II of Korea. Thanks to the distribution of this game, it gave Shanda a significant revenue stream to continue developing her own games, including World of Legend. Chinese people's love for video games as well as the explosive growth of Internet cafes in China have helped Shanda's profit to double after just one year. In May 2004, the company raised USD 152 million (over VND 1 trillion) in the IPO on Nasdaq.

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After the company listed shares on Nasdaq. Stocks skyrocketed in the first years, then began to decline sharply in the second years, because now people are bored with old games, they start switching to other, more interesting games. In this difficult situation, Chen decided to put all his investment into diversifying the business and proclaiming China's desire to become Disney, focusing on doubling investment in games and As a result, his stock has risen again. In 2009, he separated from Shanda Games Corporation during the US $ 1 billion IPO - the largest IPO in the US that year.

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In 2004, Chen had a bad health problem when he was on a flight from Shanghai to Beijing, he felt pain in his chest. At this time, people thought he might have a heart attack. But when he was hospitalized, the doctor answered that he was terrified. At that time, he thought he would not continue doing business anymore, but after treatment and recovery, he returned to work.

Human ambition is very high and Chen is no exception, he continues to expand his business to family entertainment. He stopped working with Intel and Microsoft to create a new Set-top box (a device that decodes TV signals and then transfers audio and video data to the TV screen) allowing viewers to transmit online pictures, play Shanda games, buy music and movies.

However, when Chen introduced this plan, he encountered fierce opposition from Chinese government officials at the time, because at the moment the government wanted to have full control over television activities.

After five years of treatment, in 2009 Chen again faced more serious obstacles to his health. At this moment, his spirit was completely broken, he even thought he might not be able to walk again.

After treatment, he decided to go to Singapore to rest. He now saw the Chinese market once under his rule, but now it is slipping back toTencent, Alibaba and Baidu, who are not resigned, he wants to go back to fight back. its market. But with no allowable health, he could do nothing but leave everything behind. And his wife told him that he had many other opportunities, not necessarily following an old road forever.

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Finally, in 2010, he decided to change his route, move to Singapore to live and withdraw from business activities. They then sold stakes in Shanda Games and Chen withdrew from the board. After about three years of withdrawing from the Chinese market, Chen and his wife studied what they would do next. Finally, they decided to invest in research on the human brain.

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They also invest more to find ways to prevent and treat Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Shanda Group, based in Singapore, has invested in more than 100 other technology companies in China and around the world. Shanda also poured money into Israel's ElMindA fund to develop tools to identify brain defects from early stages.

Chen's great influence also inspired the medical industry for his two daughters. He said his 13-year-old and 8-year-old daughters now always talk about later learning to become a research scientist on the human brain.

When he reached out to foreign markets, Mr. Chen's influence in China was declining. Many people who worked under him are emerging in Chinese technology village.

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Alibaba's founder, Tencent, joined the group of richest billionaires in China. The assets of these two founders are about 43.6 billion USD (about 986 trillion VND) and 33.2 billion USD (about 750 trillion VND). However, Mr. Chen said he did not regret leaving. He is pursuing new goals, the resounding successes of his 30s are only regarded as good memories.