Ding Lei

Ding Lei (; born 1 October 1971), also known as William Ding, is a Chinese billionaire businessman, and the founder and CEO of NetEase (163.com). Ding made significant contributions to the development of computer networks in mainland China. In late 2016, Ding was looking into investing in the property sector, and travelled to Zimbabwe in December, and to the United Kingdom. As of April 2021, Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated Ding's fortune to be $35.8 billion. Early life Ding Lei was born in Fenghua, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China. He graduated from Chengdu Institute of Radio Engineering (now University of Electronic Science and Technology of China) and obtained a bachelor's degree. Career After graduation he first worked in a local state department in Ningbo as an engineer, and then he went to Guangzhou and worked for Sybase there. He founded NetEase and became the richest individual in Chinese mainland in the year of 2003 (7.6 billion yuan), becoming the country's first internet and first gaming billionaire. According to the Hurun Report 2013, his net worth is estimated to be $5.2 billion.