![]() Duan was an angel investor and likely helped in the early days. His mentor Duan’s company was a large player in the Chinese electronics supply chain. In 2007 Colin founded his first startup,, an ecommerce site selling mobile phones and other consumer electronics. This included the power of simplicity, utilizing float, and redistributing wealth (as Buffett has famously pledged to donate 99% of his wealth after death). It's said that this meeting with Buffett greatly influenced Colin’s crafting of the Pinduoduo business model. Colin joined alongside Duan’s wife and five other friends. In 2006, Duan won the annual charity auction for lunch with Warren Buffett with a $620k bid. Colin then turned down all of his other offers to join a pre-IPO Google.Ĭolin joined Google as a software engineer working on early ecommerce-related search algorithms. Duan recommended he move to San Francisco to work at a promising young startup. ![]() Colin considers him a close friend, mentor, and he even helped Duan with his investing. The summer before moving to the US to start at Wisconsin, William at NetEase had also introduced Colin to Duan Yongping, fellow Zhejiang University alum and founder of BBK Electronics. By graduation in 2004 he had a full-time offer from Microsoft, and an impressed professor wrote letters of recommendations to the large US tech giants of the time (Oracle, Microsoft, IBM). Ĭolin then moved to the US in 2002 to pursue a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. William introduced him to many other Chinese tech luminaries like Tencent (WeChat) founder Pony Ma, and SF Express (logistics) founder Wang Wei. This serendipitous meeting changed Colin’s life. In college, Colin met NetEase (gaming) founder William Ding after helping him with a coding question in an online forum. He then transferred to Microsoft’s US HQ, making over $6,000 per month. He joined the Melton Foundation his first year and secured an internship at Microsoft China making $900 per month - more than his parents combined annual salaries.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |