經濟學人報道：中國新一代神秘富豪
发表于 ： 周二 7月 21, 2026 1:29 pm
經濟學人報道：中國新一代神秘富豪
Sasha Gong
21 Jul 2026
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去年年初，當中國人工智慧公司DeepSeek橫空出世、令美國科技界措手不及時，幾乎沒有人知道它的創始人梁文鋒是誰。 時至今日，這位企業家依然保持著極低的曝光率。 然而，有一點已經十分明確：隨著DeepSeek完成最新一輪融資，公司估值達到710億美元，梁文鋒的個人財富也水漲船高，約達380億美元，身家已經超過Anthropic創始人達里奧·阿莫代伊，以及OpenAI首席執行官薩姆·奧爾特曼。
梁文鋒幾乎從不出席國際科技會議，也從未在中國電視上公開接受現場直播採訪。 公開流傳的照片和視頻少之又少，鏡頭裡的他身材瘦削、衣著樸素，與外界熟悉的科技明星形象相去甚遠。 不過，這種低調並非個例，而是中國新一代年輕富豪的共同特徵。
除了美國之外，如今沒有任何國家能夠像中國這樣，以如此快的速度誕生年輕的白手起家億萬富翁。 根據胡潤研究院今年公佈的數據，中國已有29位年齡不超過40歲的白手起家億萬富翁; 如果把將在今年年滿41歲的梁文鋒也計算在內，總人數達到30位，比去年增加了9人。
與上一代中國富豪相比，這批年輕企業家的成長軌跡發生了明顯變化。 他們很少靠房地產投機起家，也不像過去那樣熱衷於酒桌應酬和經營政商關係，而是更喜歡電子遊戲、日本動漫等流行文化。 不過，他們同樣展現出驚人的商業能力，能夠迅速把新穎的創意發展成面向全球市場的大型企業，其速度甚至超過歷代中國企業家。
事實上，中國超級富豪的歷史並不長。 上世紀80年代，中國改革開放初期，第一代企業家主要依靠國有企業改革積累財富。 海爾創始人張瑞敏便是代表人物。 他接手一家國營冰箱廠，最終將海爾發展成為全球最大的家電製造商之一。 進入90年代，房地產市場開放，又催生了以恆大創始人許家印為代表的新一批富豪。
2001年中國加入世界貿易組織后，製造業迅速崛起，比亞迪創始人王傳福等工業企業家由此脫穎而出。 到了2010年代，互聯網經濟成為新的財富引擎，阿裡巴巴創始人馬雲、騰訊創始人馬化騰先後建立起龐大的科技帝國。 隨後幾年，TikTok母公司位元組跳動以及快時尚品牌Shein的創始人，也相繼完成財富積累，如今都已躋身全球最富有的企業家之列。
如今，中國新一代富豪正在書寫另一套成功模式。
根據胡潤研究院的數據，今年榜單上超過三分之二的年輕億萬富翁，財富來自消費品牌或文化傳媒，而不是房地產、金融或傳統製造業。 其中，有7人靠開發電子遊戲起家，4人創辦了茶飲或咖啡品牌。 梁文鋒之後，中國最富有的年輕企業家是泡泡瑪特創始人王寧。 這家公司的Labubu玩偶風靡全球，也成為中國消費品牌成功出海的代表案例。
相比之下，真正依靠人工智慧躋身億萬富翁行列的人並不多，榜單上只有3位。 其中包括34歲的月之暗面（Moonshot AI）創始人楊植麟。 今年7月17日，這家公司發佈新一代大語言模型，據稱性能已經能夠與美國最先進的人工智慧產品競爭。 而曾經大量製造中國首富的房地產行業，如今已經完全從這份榜單上消失，這也折射出過去幾年中國房地產市場持續低迷所帶來的巨大變化。
除了財富來源不同，新一代企業建立公司的方式也發生了變化。 過去，中國企業往往需要花費十多年時間，才逐漸摸索出國際化道路; 如今，不少創業公司成立之初便把海外市場作為重要目標。 33歲的霸王茶姬創始人張俊傑就是典型例子。 他2017年創辦公司，僅僅兩年後便在海外開設第一家門店。 如今，霸王茶姬已經在紐約上市，業務遍及9個國家。
年輕企業家之所以如此積極走向海外，一個重要原因是中國國內消費市場持續疲弱。 39歲的俞浩創辦消費電子品牌追覓科技（Dreame），目前約八成銷售額來自海外; 生產全景相機的影石創新（Insta360），對國際市場的依賴程度也相差無幾。 泡泡瑪特去年海外銷售額突破20億美元，占公司總收入約四成; 霸王茶姬雖然中國市場增長放緩，但海外業務依然保持健康增長。 對於越來越多中國消費品牌而言，國際化已經不只是擴大市場的選擇，而成為企業繼續增長的重要依靠。
與此同時，新一代企業家的管理理念也與上一代明顯不同。 過去十多年，中國互聯網行業普遍奉行所謂“996”工作制，即每天上午9點上班、晚上9點下班、每周工作6天。 阿裡巴巴創始人馬雲曾公開支援這種工作文化，不少科技企業也紛紛效仿。 在拼多多等公司，還曾發生年輕員工因長期過勞而猝死的事件，引發社會廣泛關注。
然而，越來越多年輕創業者開始嘗試另一種管理方式。 39歲的米哈遊聯合創始人劉偉反對把長時間待在辦公室視為敬業，公司提出“快樂工作、穩健成長”的理念，把員工心理健康放在更加重要的位置。 不過，即使如此，米哈遊近年仍有員工因與過勞有關的健康問題去世，也說明改變長期形成的工作文化並非易事。 梁文鋒據稱也曾表示，人腦每天真正能夠保持高效專注的時間只有6至8小時，過度工作反而容易增加錯誤。 這種看法，與上一代企業家強調拚命加班、不斷延長工作時間的理念形成了鮮明對比。
不過，並非所有人都認同這種變化。
一位私募股權投資人告訴《經濟學人》，過去三十年，中國經濟之所以能夠迅速崛起，靠的正是中國人願意付出比世界任何地方都更長的工作時間。 他最近考察一家新興消費品牌時，卻發現企業內部氛圍遠比過去輕鬆，這讓他頗為失望。 在一些投資人看來，如今不少年輕創業者缺少上一代企業家那種近乎拚命的創業精神。
也有人認為，這與成長環境的改變有關。 上一代中國富豪大多經歷過改革開放初期的社會劇變，很多人出身貧寒，在政治和經濟轉型過程中摸爬滾打，才建立起自己的商業帝國。 相比之下，新一代企業家大多成長於中國經濟高速發展的年代，很少經歷真正意義上的生存壓力。
根據胡潤研究院的統計，在這一代年輕億萬富翁中，真正出身貧困家庭的只有兩位，分別是DeepSeek創始人梁文鋒，以及霸王茶姬創始人張俊傑。 其他多數人的成長經歷則相對順遂，沒有上一代企業家常常提起的艱苦奮鬥故事。
他們的興趣和創業動機，也與前輩截然不同。 米哈遊三位創始人最初因為共同喜歡日本動漫而相識，後來創辦公司，也只是希望做出自己喜歡的遊戲，把動漫和電子遊戲文化發揚光大，而不是單純為了賺錢。 另一家人工智慧公司MiniMax的創始人，同樣是一位資深遊戲玩家。 他酷愛多人在線遊戲《Dota 2》，公司員工甚至直接用遊戲角色“I/O”來稱呼他。
如果說上一代中國企業家更像改革開放的產物，那麼這一代創業者則更接近全球互聯網文化的一代。 他們成長於動漫、電子遊戲和社交媒體普及的時代，既沒有太強的政治色彩，也不像前輩那樣熱衷於塑造企業家英雄形象。 他們的企業往往更加國際化，而他們本人卻比任何一代中國富豪都更加低調、更加神秘。
然而，真正的挑戰並不來自企業文化，而是外部環境。
過去幾年，中國政府與民營企業家的關係發生明顯變化。 改革開放以來，許多成功企業家都把自己視為國家建設的一部分。 房地產行業鼎盛時期，佔中國國內生產總值近四分之一，其快速擴張離不開地方政府與民營開發商之間的密切合作; 馬雲等互聯網企業家，則被視為推動中國數位經濟發展的重要力量。
但近年來，中央政府開始重新調整這種關係。 房地產行業持續去槓桿，大批房企陷入危機; 2020年，馬雲公開批評監管機構后，其商業帝國迅速遭遇全面整頓; 國家主席習近平提出“共同富裕”後，縮小貧富差距也成為重要政策目標。 對於中國最富有的企業家而言，政策環境已經不再像過去那樣穩定。
這種變化，已經深刻影響了中國富豪的財富格局。
2021年，農夫山泉創始人鍾睒睒的個人財富一度接近1000億美元，成為中國歷史上最富有的人之一。 但此後，再也沒有人達到這一水準，就連鍾睒睒本人也不例外。 隨著農夫山泉股價持續下跌，他的身家如今已縮水至約390億美元。 馬雲目前的財富也僅相當於2021年的約五分之一，其他互聯網巨頭的處境大致相同。 相比之下，房地產企業家的命運更加慘澹，不少人不僅失去財富，甚至遭到拘留調查。
西交利物浦大學學者史蒂文·海（Steven Hai）認為，這樣的環境讓不少年輕企業家產生了挫折感。 他們希望參與國家產業政策，推動新技術和新產業的發展，卻發現自己能夠發揮作用的空間十分有限。
與此同時，這一代企業家的全球化佈局，也讓他們越來越容易受到中美關係變化的影響。 以人工智慧公司Manus為例，其33歲的創始人肖弘原本有望在今年躋身億萬富翁之列，但中國政府最終阻止了他將公司出售給美國科技巨頭Meta，這筆交易未能完成，他也因此錯失了成為億萬富翁的機會。
胡潤研究院董事長魯珀特·胡哲（Rupert Hoogewerf）認為，如今不少中國企業家都有一種共同感受：他們隨時可能因為中國或美國政策突然發生變化，而失去原有的發展機會。 正因為如此，他們普遍選擇遠離聚光燈，希望盡量降低外界關注，以便讓企業生存得更久。
這種低調幾乎已經成為新一代中國富豪的共同特徵。 多數年輕億萬富翁從未接受過外國媒體採訪，就連《經濟學人》此次採訪，也無人願意接受。 不少人甚至連中國媒體也盡量避免接觸。
結果便形成一種耐人尋味的現象：這一代企業家建立了中國歷史上最國際化的一批公司，它們的產品銷往世界各地，業務高度依賴海外市場; 但與此同時，他們本人卻成為中國歷來最神秘、也最不願公開露面的富豪群體。
https://www.economist.com/business/2026/07/1 ... -the-world
China’s mysterious new billionaires are conquering the world
And refusing to talk to the press
Early last year, when DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial-intelligence lab, was causing panic among its Western rivals, almost nothing was known about Liang Wenfeng, its founder. Mr Liang remains a mysterious figure, but at least one thing is clear. As DeepSeek closes a funding round valuing it at $71bn, its founder’s personal wealth has soared to roughly $38bn—making him far wealthier than Anthropic’s Dario Amodei or OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
Mr Liang will not be spotted on the conference circuit. He has never appeared live on Chinese television, and there are few photos or taped footage of his unpolished, wiry figure. That puts him at home among the new generation of young Chinese billionaires. The country is cranking out more of them than anywhere else bar America. According to Hurun, which tracks the riches of the world’s wealthiest people, there were at least 29 self-made billionaires aged 40 or under in China this year. Including Mr Liang, who will turn 41 at some point this year, brings the total to 30. That is nine more than last year.
China’s new tycoons differ from their predecessors in striking ways. They have abandoned real-estate speculation and boozy dinners with officials for video games and meet-ups over Japanese anime. But they are also adept at taking imaginative ideas and scaling them into global businesses faster than any before them.
The history of China’s uber-rich is short. In the 1980s tycoons figured out how to wrest assets from the state. Zhang Ruimin, a member of a troupe of students who terrorised teachers and intellectuals during Mao’s era, got hold of a state-owned refrigerator business called Haier and turned it into what is now the world’s largest home-appliance maker. The opening of the property market in the 1990s minted another early group of billionaires including Xu Jiayin, founder of Evergrande, a now-collapsed property developer.
In the early 2000s industrialists such as Wang Chuanfu of BYD, originally a battery maker, launched a wave of manufacturing firms as China entered the World Trade Organisation. And then in the 2010s the consumer internet produced China’s first generation of tech moguls, including Jack Ma of Alibaba, an e-commerce giant, and Pony Ma of Tencent, maker of WeChat. The founders of ByteDance, creator of TikTok, and Shein, the online fast-fashion firm, who are both now in their early 40s, built their fortunes a few years later.
China’s new generation of tycoons are charting out a different path. More than two-thirds of the young billionaires on Hurun’s list made their money from consumer goods or media (see chart). Seven created video games; four built tea or coffee businesses. After Mr Liang, the wealthiest is Wang Ning, the founder of Pop Mart, which sells Labubus, strange-looking dolls. Only three have struck it rich with AI, including Yang Zhilin, the baby-faced 34-year-old founder of Moonshot AI, which on July 17th released a new model that is said to rival the best from America. No property mogul makes the list—perhaps unsurprisingly, given how the sector has fared in recent years.
The businesses built by China’s new billionaires are also far more global than in the past. It once took a decade or more for Chinese entrepreneurs to figure out foreign expansion. No longer. Zhang Junjie, the 33-year-old founder of Chagee, a milk-tea shop, launched his firm in 2017 and opened his first overseas shop just two years later. The company is now listed in New York and operating in nine countries.
The new tycoons’ heavy reliance on foreign markets partly reflects the slump in consumer spending at home. Around 80% of sales at Dreame, a consumer-electronics brand founded by 39-year-old Yu Hao, come from overseas. Insta360, which sells small, waterproof cameras, is almost as reliant on foreign demand. Pop Mart made more than $2bn in sales from outside China last year, about 40% of its total. Chagee’s sales in China have slumped, but overseas they are growing healthily.
Attitudes to work have also shifted. A controversial part of Chinese business culture for the past decade or so has been the so-called “996” routine, working from 9am to 9pm six days a week. The idea was championed by Alibaba’s Mr Ma and embraced by other local tech giants. At Pinduoduo, another e-commerce platform, young white-collar staff have died from overwork on their way home from the office.
China’s new entrepreneurs, by contrast, have adopted a more relaxed style of management. Many are comparatively flexible on working times. Liu Wei, the 39-year-old billionaire co-founder of miHoYo, a gaming firm, has eschewed presenteeism. He has overseen what the company calls its “happy work, steady growth” approach, which prioritises mental health (though one employee also recently died from complications related to overwork, suggesting that cultural norms are hard to shift). DeepSeek’s Mr Liang has reportedly said that the human brain can only concentrate for 6-8 hours a day, and that overwork leads to mistakes.
A willingness to put in longer hours than anyone else in the world is what built the Chinese economy over the past thirty years, huffs one private-equity investor, who recently visited an up-and-coming consumer brand and did not like what he saw. Some blame the relatively laid-back attitude of China’s young founders on cushy upbringings. Gone are the tales told by earlier tycoons of struggling for survival amid the country’s political and economic convulsions. Among China’s young billionaires, only Mr Liang and Mr Zhang of Chagee grew up poor. The three founders of miHoYo originally bonded over Japanese cartoons and formed their company as a celebration of gaming and comics. The founder of MiniMax, an AI lab, is so fond of a multi-player game called “Dota 2” that his staff refer to him as “IO”, a character from it.
To get rich is perilous
It is not all rosy for China’s young billionaires. The relationship between China’s government and its wealthiest people has deteriorated over the past few years. Older magnates once viewed themselves as part of a nation-building project. The property sector, which contributed up to a quarter of China’s GDP at its peak, was a collaborative effort between private entrepreneurs and local officials. Mr Ma was instrumental in building China’s digital economy. But the central government has now punished many prominent figures in these areas. Leverage has been sucked out of the real-estate industry. Mr Ma’s business empire became the subject of a state crackdown in 2020 after he criticised regulators. Xi Jinping, China’s ruler, has sought to tamp down inequality under the slogan of “common prosperity”.
In 2021 Zhong Shanshan, the 71-year-old founder of Nongfu, a bottled-water company, reached a net worth of nearly $100bn. No one has since come close, including Mr Zhong, who has seen his wealth plunge to around $39bn as the share price of his company has slumped. Mr Ma is worth roughly a fifth as much as in 2021, and many other internet moguls have suffered similarly. Still, they have fared better than property magnates, a number of whom have been detained.
This environment has created a sense of disillusionment among China’s young billionaires. Many are eager to engage in industrial policy but are given little opportunity to do so, notes Steven Hai of Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. Their global ambitions also leave them exposed to souring relations between China and America. Xiao Hong, the 33-year-old founder of Manus, another AI firm, would have become a billionaire earlier this year if the Chinese government had not stopped him from selling his company to Meta, an American tech giant.
These people live with the sense that their businesses could be derailed at any time by sudden policy changes in China or America, notes Rupert Hoogewerf of Hurun. By shunning publicity they seem to believe they can survive longer, he says. Most young Chinese billionaires have never spoken with foreign media. (None would speak to The Economist.) Many avoid the Chinese press as well. The result is a generation of tycoons that is both China’s most global—and its most enigmatic.
Sasha Gong
21 Jul 2026
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去年年初，當中國人工智慧公司DeepSeek橫空出世、令美國科技界措手不及時，幾乎沒有人知道它的創始人梁文鋒是誰。 時至今日，這位企業家依然保持著極低的曝光率。 然而，有一點已經十分明確：隨著DeepSeek完成最新一輪融資，公司估值達到710億美元，梁文鋒的個人財富也水漲船高，約達380億美元，身家已經超過Anthropic創始人達里奧·阿莫代伊，以及OpenAI首席執行官薩姆·奧爾特曼。
梁文鋒幾乎從不出席國際科技會議，也從未在中國電視上公開接受現場直播採訪。 公開流傳的照片和視頻少之又少，鏡頭裡的他身材瘦削、衣著樸素，與外界熟悉的科技明星形象相去甚遠。 不過，這種低調並非個例，而是中國新一代年輕富豪的共同特徵。
除了美國之外，如今沒有任何國家能夠像中國這樣，以如此快的速度誕生年輕的白手起家億萬富翁。 根據胡潤研究院今年公佈的數據，中國已有29位年齡不超過40歲的白手起家億萬富翁; 如果把將在今年年滿41歲的梁文鋒也計算在內，總人數達到30位，比去年增加了9人。
與上一代中國富豪相比，這批年輕企業家的成長軌跡發生了明顯變化。 他們很少靠房地產投機起家，也不像過去那樣熱衷於酒桌應酬和經營政商關係，而是更喜歡電子遊戲、日本動漫等流行文化。 不過，他們同樣展現出驚人的商業能力，能夠迅速把新穎的創意發展成面向全球市場的大型企業，其速度甚至超過歷代中國企業家。
事實上，中國超級富豪的歷史並不長。 上世紀80年代，中國改革開放初期，第一代企業家主要依靠國有企業改革積累財富。 海爾創始人張瑞敏便是代表人物。 他接手一家國營冰箱廠，最終將海爾發展成為全球最大的家電製造商之一。 進入90年代，房地產市場開放，又催生了以恆大創始人許家印為代表的新一批富豪。
2001年中國加入世界貿易組織后，製造業迅速崛起，比亞迪創始人王傳福等工業企業家由此脫穎而出。 到了2010年代，互聯網經濟成為新的財富引擎，阿裡巴巴創始人馬雲、騰訊創始人馬化騰先後建立起龐大的科技帝國。 隨後幾年，TikTok母公司位元組跳動以及快時尚品牌Shein的創始人，也相繼完成財富積累，如今都已躋身全球最富有的企業家之列。
如今，中國新一代富豪正在書寫另一套成功模式。
根據胡潤研究院的數據，今年榜單上超過三分之二的年輕億萬富翁，財富來自消費品牌或文化傳媒，而不是房地產、金融或傳統製造業。 其中，有7人靠開發電子遊戲起家，4人創辦了茶飲或咖啡品牌。 梁文鋒之後，中國最富有的年輕企業家是泡泡瑪特創始人王寧。 這家公司的Labubu玩偶風靡全球，也成為中國消費品牌成功出海的代表案例。
相比之下，真正依靠人工智慧躋身億萬富翁行列的人並不多，榜單上只有3位。 其中包括34歲的月之暗面（Moonshot AI）創始人楊植麟。 今年7月17日，這家公司發佈新一代大語言模型，據稱性能已經能夠與美國最先進的人工智慧產品競爭。 而曾經大量製造中國首富的房地產行業，如今已經完全從這份榜單上消失，這也折射出過去幾年中國房地產市場持續低迷所帶來的巨大變化。
除了財富來源不同，新一代企業建立公司的方式也發生了變化。 過去，中國企業往往需要花費十多年時間，才逐漸摸索出國際化道路; 如今，不少創業公司成立之初便把海外市場作為重要目標。 33歲的霸王茶姬創始人張俊傑就是典型例子。 他2017年創辦公司，僅僅兩年後便在海外開設第一家門店。 如今，霸王茶姬已經在紐約上市，業務遍及9個國家。
年輕企業家之所以如此積極走向海外，一個重要原因是中國國內消費市場持續疲弱。 39歲的俞浩創辦消費電子品牌追覓科技（Dreame），目前約八成銷售額來自海外; 生產全景相機的影石創新（Insta360），對國際市場的依賴程度也相差無幾。 泡泡瑪特去年海外銷售額突破20億美元，占公司總收入約四成; 霸王茶姬雖然中國市場增長放緩，但海外業務依然保持健康增長。 對於越來越多中國消費品牌而言，國際化已經不只是擴大市場的選擇，而成為企業繼續增長的重要依靠。
與此同時，新一代企業家的管理理念也與上一代明顯不同。 過去十多年，中國互聯網行業普遍奉行所謂“996”工作制，即每天上午9點上班、晚上9點下班、每周工作6天。 阿裡巴巴創始人馬雲曾公開支援這種工作文化，不少科技企業也紛紛效仿。 在拼多多等公司，還曾發生年輕員工因長期過勞而猝死的事件，引發社會廣泛關注。
然而，越來越多年輕創業者開始嘗試另一種管理方式。 39歲的米哈遊聯合創始人劉偉反對把長時間待在辦公室視為敬業，公司提出“快樂工作、穩健成長”的理念，把員工心理健康放在更加重要的位置。 不過，即使如此，米哈遊近年仍有員工因與過勞有關的健康問題去世，也說明改變長期形成的工作文化並非易事。 梁文鋒據稱也曾表示，人腦每天真正能夠保持高效專注的時間只有6至8小時，過度工作反而容易增加錯誤。 這種看法，與上一代企業家強調拚命加班、不斷延長工作時間的理念形成了鮮明對比。
不過，並非所有人都認同這種變化。
一位私募股權投資人告訴《經濟學人》，過去三十年，中國經濟之所以能夠迅速崛起，靠的正是中國人願意付出比世界任何地方都更長的工作時間。 他最近考察一家新興消費品牌時，卻發現企業內部氛圍遠比過去輕鬆，這讓他頗為失望。 在一些投資人看來，如今不少年輕創業者缺少上一代企業家那種近乎拚命的創業精神。
也有人認為，這與成長環境的改變有關。 上一代中國富豪大多經歷過改革開放初期的社會劇變，很多人出身貧寒，在政治和經濟轉型過程中摸爬滾打，才建立起自己的商業帝國。 相比之下，新一代企業家大多成長於中國經濟高速發展的年代，很少經歷真正意義上的生存壓力。
根據胡潤研究院的統計，在這一代年輕億萬富翁中，真正出身貧困家庭的只有兩位，分別是DeepSeek創始人梁文鋒，以及霸王茶姬創始人張俊傑。 其他多數人的成長經歷則相對順遂，沒有上一代企業家常常提起的艱苦奮鬥故事。
他們的興趣和創業動機，也與前輩截然不同。 米哈遊三位創始人最初因為共同喜歡日本動漫而相識，後來創辦公司，也只是希望做出自己喜歡的遊戲，把動漫和電子遊戲文化發揚光大，而不是單純為了賺錢。 另一家人工智慧公司MiniMax的創始人，同樣是一位資深遊戲玩家。 他酷愛多人在線遊戲《Dota 2》，公司員工甚至直接用遊戲角色“I/O”來稱呼他。
如果說上一代中國企業家更像改革開放的產物，那麼這一代創業者則更接近全球互聯網文化的一代。 他們成長於動漫、電子遊戲和社交媒體普及的時代，既沒有太強的政治色彩，也不像前輩那樣熱衷於塑造企業家英雄形象。 他們的企業往往更加國際化，而他們本人卻比任何一代中國富豪都更加低調、更加神秘。
然而，真正的挑戰並不來自企業文化，而是外部環境。
過去幾年，中國政府與民營企業家的關係發生明顯變化。 改革開放以來，許多成功企業家都把自己視為國家建設的一部分。 房地產行業鼎盛時期，佔中國國內生產總值近四分之一，其快速擴張離不開地方政府與民營開發商之間的密切合作; 馬雲等互聯網企業家，則被視為推動中國數位經濟發展的重要力量。
但近年來，中央政府開始重新調整這種關係。 房地產行業持續去槓桿，大批房企陷入危機; 2020年，馬雲公開批評監管機構后，其商業帝國迅速遭遇全面整頓; 國家主席習近平提出“共同富裕”後，縮小貧富差距也成為重要政策目標。 對於中國最富有的企業家而言，政策環境已經不再像過去那樣穩定。
這種變化，已經深刻影響了中國富豪的財富格局。
2021年，農夫山泉創始人鍾睒睒的個人財富一度接近1000億美元，成為中國歷史上最富有的人之一。 但此後，再也沒有人達到這一水準，就連鍾睒睒本人也不例外。 隨著農夫山泉股價持續下跌，他的身家如今已縮水至約390億美元。 馬雲目前的財富也僅相當於2021年的約五分之一，其他互聯網巨頭的處境大致相同。 相比之下，房地產企業家的命運更加慘澹，不少人不僅失去財富，甚至遭到拘留調查。
西交利物浦大學學者史蒂文·海（Steven Hai）認為，這樣的環境讓不少年輕企業家產生了挫折感。 他們希望參與國家產業政策，推動新技術和新產業的發展，卻發現自己能夠發揮作用的空間十分有限。
與此同時，這一代企業家的全球化佈局，也讓他們越來越容易受到中美關係變化的影響。 以人工智慧公司Manus為例，其33歲的創始人肖弘原本有望在今年躋身億萬富翁之列，但中國政府最終阻止了他將公司出售給美國科技巨頭Meta，這筆交易未能完成，他也因此錯失了成為億萬富翁的機會。
胡潤研究院董事長魯珀特·胡哲（Rupert Hoogewerf）認為，如今不少中國企業家都有一種共同感受：他們隨時可能因為中國或美國政策突然發生變化，而失去原有的發展機會。 正因為如此，他們普遍選擇遠離聚光燈，希望盡量降低外界關注，以便讓企業生存得更久。
這種低調幾乎已經成為新一代中國富豪的共同特徵。 多數年輕億萬富翁從未接受過外國媒體採訪，就連《經濟學人》此次採訪，也無人願意接受。 不少人甚至連中國媒體也盡量避免接觸。
結果便形成一種耐人尋味的現象：這一代企業家建立了中國歷史上最國際化的一批公司，它們的產品銷往世界各地，業務高度依賴海外市場; 但與此同時，他們本人卻成為中國歷來最神秘、也最不願公開露面的富豪群體。
https://www.economist.com/business/2026/07/1 ... -the-world
China’s mysterious new billionaires are conquering the world
And refusing to talk to the press
Early last year, when DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial-intelligence lab, was causing panic among its Western rivals, almost nothing was known about Liang Wenfeng, its founder. Mr Liang remains a mysterious figure, but at least one thing is clear. As DeepSeek closes a funding round valuing it at $71bn, its founder’s personal wealth has soared to roughly $38bn—making him far wealthier than Anthropic’s Dario Amodei or OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
Mr Liang will not be spotted on the conference circuit. He has never appeared live on Chinese television, and there are few photos or taped footage of his unpolished, wiry figure. That puts him at home among the new generation of young Chinese billionaires. The country is cranking out more of them than anywhere else bar America. According to Hurun, which tracks the riches of the world’s wealthiest people, there were at least 29 self-made billionaires aged 40 or under in China this year. Including Mr Liang, who will turn 41 at some point this year, brings the total to 30. That is nine more than last year.
China’s new tycoons differ from their predecessors in striking ways. They have abandoned real-estate speculation and boozy dinners with officials for video games and meet-ups over Japanese anime. But they are also adept at taking imaginative ideas and scaling them into global businesses faster than any before them.
The history of China’s uber-rich is short. In the 1980s tycoons figured out how to wrest assets from the state. Zhang Ruimin, a member of a troupe of students who terrorised teachers and intellectuals during Mao’s era, got hold of a state-owned refrigerator business called Haier and turned it into what is now the world’s largest home-appliance maker. The opening of the property market in the 1990s minted another early group of billionaires including Xu Jiayin, founder of Evergrande, a now-collapsed property developer.
In the early 2000s industrialists such as Wang Chuanfu of BYD, originally a battery maker, launched a wave of manufacturing firms as China entered the World Trade Organisation. And then in the 2010s the consumer internet produced China’s first generation of tech moguls, including Jack Ma of Alibaba, an e-commerce giant, and Pony Ma of Tencent, maker of WeChat. The founders of ByteDance, creator of TikTok, and Shein, the online fast-fashion firm, who are both now in their early 40s, built their fortunes a few years later.
China’s new generation of tycoons are charting out a different path. More than two-thirds of the young billionaires on Hurun’s list made their money from consumer goods or media (see chart). Seven created video games; four built tea or coffee businesses. After Mr Liang, the wealthiest is Wang Ning, the founder of Pop Mart, which sells Labubus, strange-looking dolls. Only three have struck it rich with AI, including Yang Zhilin, the baby-faced 34-year-old founder of Moonshot AI, which on July 17th released a new model that is said to rival the best from America. No property mogul makes the list—perhaps unsurprisingly, given how the sector has fared in recent years.
The businesses built by China’s new billionaires are also far more global than in the past. It once took a decade or more for Chinese entrepreneurs to figure out foreign expansion. No longer. Zhang Junjie, the 33-year-old founder of Chagee, a milk-tea shop, launched his firm in 2017 and opened his first overseas shop just two years later. The company is now listed in New York and operating in nine countries.
The new tycoons’ heavy reliance on foreign markets partly reflects the slump in consumer spending at home. Around 80% of sales at Dreame, a consumer-electronics brand founded by 39-year-old Yu Hao, come from overseas. Insta360, which sells small, waterproof cameras, is almost as reliant on foreign demand. Pop Mart made more than $2bn in sales from outside China last year, about 40% of its total. Chagee’s sales in China have slumped, but overseas they are growing healthily.
Attitudes to work have also shifted. A controversial part of Chinese business culture for the past decade or so has been the so-called “996” routine, working from 9am to 9pm six days a week. The idea was championed by Alibaba’s Mr Ma and embraced by other local tech giants. At Pinduoduo, another e-commerce platform, young white-collar staff have died from overwork on their way home from the office.
China’s new entrepreneurs, by contrast, have adopted a more relaxed style of management. Many are comparatively flexible on working times. Liu Wei, the 39-year-old billionaire co-founder of miHoYo, a gaming firm, has eschewed presenteeism. He has overseen what the company calls its “happy work, steady growth” approach, which prioritises mental health (though one employee also recently died from complications related to overwork, suggesting that cultural norms are hard to shift). DeepSeek’s Mr Liang has reportedly said that the human brain can only concentrate for 6-8 hours a day, and that overwork leads to mistakes.
A willingness to put in longer hours than anyone else in the world is what built the Chinese economy over the past thirty years, huffs one private-equity investor, who recently visited an up-and-coming consumer brand and did not like what he saw. Some blame the relatively laid-back attitude of China’s young founders on cushy upbringings. Gone are the tales told by earlier tycoons of struggling for survival amid the country’s political and economic convulsions. Among China’s young billionaires, only Mr Liang and Mr Zhang of Chagee grew up poor. The three founders of miHoYo originally bonded over Japanese cartoons and formed their company as a celebration of gaming and comics. The founder of MiniMax, an AI lab, is so fond of a multi-player game called “Dota 2” that his staff refer to him as “IO”, a character from it.
To get rich is perilous
It is not all rosy for China’s young billionaires. The relationship between China’s government and its wealthiest people has deteriorated over the past few years. Older magnates once viewed themselves as part of a nation-building project. The property sector, which contributed up to a quarter of China’s GDP at its peak, was a collaborative effort between private entrepreneurs and local officials. Mr Ma was instrumental in building China’s digital economy. But the central government has now punished many prominent figures in these areas. Leverage has been sucked out of the real-estate industry. Mr Ma’s business empire became the subject of a state crackdown in 2020 after he criticised regulators. Xi Jinping, China’s ruler, has sought to tamp down inequality under the slogan of “common prosperity”.
In 2021 Zhong Shanshan, the 71-year-old founder of Nongfu, a bottled-water company, reached a net worth of nearly $100bn. No one has since come close, including Mr Zhong, who has seen his wealth plunge to around $39bn as the share price of his company has slumped. Mr Ma is worth roughly a fifth as much as in 2021, and many other internet moguls have suffered similarly. Still, they have fared better than property magnates, a number of whom have been detained.
This environment has created a sense of disillusionment among China’s young billionaires. Many are eager to engage in industrial policy but are given little opportunity to do so, notes Steven Hai of Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. Their global ambitions also leave them exposed to souring relations between China and America. Xiao Hong, the 33-year-old founder of Manus, another AI firm, would have become a billionaire earlier this year if the Chinese government had not stopped him from selling his company to Meta, an American tech giant.
These people live with the sense that their businesses could be derailed at any time by sudden policy changes in China or America, notes Rupert Hoogewerf of Hurun. By shunning publicity they seem to believe they can survive longer, he says. Most young Chinese billionaires have never spoken with foreign media. (None would speak to The Economist.) Many avoid the Chinese press as well. The result is a generation of tycoons that is both China’s most global—and its most enigmatic.