Ding Lei (; born October 1, 1971; also known as William Ding) is a Chinese

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least 1,000,000,000, one billion units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. It is a sub-category of the concept of the ultr ...

businessman, and the founder and CEO of

NetEase NetEase, Inc. () is a Chinese Internet technology company founded by Ding Lei in June 1997. It provides online services with content, community, communications, and commerce. The company develops and operates online PC and mobile games, adverti ...

. He has made significant contributions to the development of computer networks in mainland China. In late 2016, he was looking into investing in the property sector, and travelled to Zimbabwe in December and to the United Kingdom. As of May 2025, the '' Bloomberg Billionaires Index'' estimated Ding's fortune to be $38.9 billion.

Early life

Ding was born in

Fenghua Fenghua (; ) is a district (China), district of the city of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China. The district and its administrative hinterlands have a population of over 480,000. Fenghua is the hometown of two former president of the Republic of ...

, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China. He graduated from the Chengdu Institute of Radio Engineering (now the

University of Electronic Science and Technology of China A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

) and obtained a bachelor's degree in

telecommunications engineering Telecommunications engineering is a subfield of electronics engineering which seeks to design and devise systems of communication at a distance. The work ranges from basic circuit design to strategic mass developments. A telecommunication eng ...

Career

After graduation, Ding worked as an engineer in a local state department in Ningbo, and worked for

Sybase Sybase, Inc. was an enterprise software and services company. The company produced software relating to relational databases, with facilities located in California and Massachusetts. Sybase was acquired by SAP in 2010; SAP ceased using the Syba ...

Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

. He founded NetEase and became the richest individual on the Chinese mainland in 2003 (7.6 billion yuan), becoming the country's first internet and gaming billionaire. According to the Hurun Report 2013, his net worth is estimated to be $5.2 billion. In 2012, it was confirmed that Ding branched NetEase's activities out into pork production. The pig farm is centered around technology and

environmental sustainability Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

, and is not meant to become a major arm of the company. In May 2017, venture capital firm Sinovation Ventures, US-based Meituan-Dianping, and Alibaba competitor JD invested a total of US$23 million into the firm. In June 2020, Ding purchased a 16,000-square-foot mansion for US$29 million in Bel Air, Los Angeles, from Tesla and SpaceX founder

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...

References

External links

Article on Ding Lei, China Today (2004)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ding, Lei 1971 births 21st-century Chinese businesspeople Billionaires from Zhejiang Businesspeople from Ningbo Chinese technology company founders Living people Members of the 13th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference NetEase people University of Electronic Science and Technology of China alumni