Charles Zhang or Zhang Chaoyang () (born October 31, 1964) is a Chinese businessman,

investor An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future Return on capital, return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital the investor usually purchases some species of pr ...

and the founder, chairman and current CEO of Sohu Inc (Chinese: 搜狐). Sohu Inc is listed to trade on

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

and now has around 14,200 employees worldwide. Dr. Zhang is regarded as one of China's leading Internet pioneers and was named by ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'' magazine as one of the richest men in China in 2010.

Early life and education

Charles Zhang was born in

Xi'an Xi'an is the list of capitals in China, capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populou ...

, China. His parents were residential

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

s at a small

arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

near

. His ancestors were from

Henan Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Lu ...

. Zhang had been interested in science from a very young age. He studied at the Xi'an Qinghua middle school (西安庆华中学) and transferred to the Xi'an Middle School of Shaanxi Province. He excelled at school. Zhang was accepted to study

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

at the prestigious

Tsinghua University Tsinghua University (THU) is a public university in Haidian, Beijing, China. It is affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Constructio ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

and graduated in 1986. He then received a full CUSPEA scholarship to attend

graduate school Postgraduate education, graduate education, or graduate school consists of academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications usually pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate (bachel ...

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT) in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, United States. In 1993, Zhang graduated from MIT with a PhD in

experimental physics Experimental physics is the category of disciplines and sub-disciplines in the field of physics that are concerned with the observation of physical phenomena and experiments. Methods vary from discipline to discipline, from simple experiments and o ...

. He then went on to serve as MIT's liaison officer for China.

Founding of Sohu

Soon after leaving MIT, Dr. Zhang joined Internet Securities Inc. (ISI) in November 1995 and returned to Beijing to establish the ISI China operation. While at ISI, Zhang quickly envisioned an Internet

search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...

company. In 1996 with the support of

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...

director

Nicholas Negroponte Nicholas Negroponte (born December 1, 1943) is a Greek American architect. He is the founder and chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also founded the One Laptop per Child Association (OLPC). Negroponte ...

and

MIT Sloan School of Management The MIT Sloan School of Management (branded as MIT Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree progra ...

professor Edward B. Roberts, as well as

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

, Charles Zhang founded his own company, Internet Technologies China (ITC 爱特信公司). This was the first VC funding of a Chinese Internet company in history. In May 1997, after meeting Yahoo founder

Jerry Yang Jerry Chih-Yuan Yang (; born Yang Chih-Yuan; November 6, 1968) is a Taiwanese-born American billionaire computer programmer, internet entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. He is the co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo! Inc. and founding partne ...

, Zhang decided to transform ITC and change its name to Sohu. Sohu and its search engine quickly became a household name in China. Zhang managed to successfully conduct four mergers with other Chinese Internet companies to raise capital. On July 12, 2000, Sohu was listed to trade on NASDAQ - GS. During the dotcom crash in the early 2000s, Sohu's stock dropped below $1 USD, many board members and investors wanted to replace Zhang. But Zhang remained, and later he credited his non-confrontational style as a factor that helped him maintain his position. Today,

Sohu Sohu, Inc. () is a Chinese Internet company headquartered in the Sohu Internet Plaza in Haidian District, Beijing. Sohu and its subsidiaries offer advertising, a search engine (Sogou.com), on-line multiplayer gaming (ChangYou.com) and other se ...

is one of the leading Chinese Internet stocks, with a market value of around 2 billion dollars at around $45 USD per share.

Internet community A virtual community is a social network of individuals who connect through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Some of the most pervasive virtual commu ...

blogging A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

and short-messaging service, which helped the company turn around and generate total revenues of $750 million in China in 2002, accounted for 48% of company's revenues in 2004 and 2006.

Personal life

In many occasions, Zhang mentions about hoping he can live till the age of 150. He believes that stress plays an important role in

aging Ageing (or aging in American English) is the process of becoming Old age, older until death. The term refers mainly to humans, many other animals, and fungi; whereas for example, bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentiall ...

and if one practices

yoga Yoga (UK: , US: ; 'yoga' ; ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated with its own philosophy in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as pra ...

and understands

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

, he/she can be "freed" from stress, and so live till the age of 150. Zhang also enjoys

mountaineering Mountaineering, mountain climbing, or alpinism is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas that have become mounta ...

, he has been training on

Mount Everest Mount Everest (), known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at it ...

and has reached the height of 6,666 m above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...

References

External links

Personal blog

Sohu Corp
corporate information site.
Sohu Home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zhang, Charles 1964 births Living people Chinese Buddhists 21st-century Buddhists Businesspeople from Xi'an Chinese technology company founders Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Tsinghua University alumni Sohu people 21st-century Chinese businesspeople

Early life and education

Founding of Sohu

Personal life

See also

References

External links