---
title: "Zong Qinghou: China's Richest Man, from Youth to Gray Hair..."
description: "For 28 years, working 16 hours a day and spending over 200 days a year on the front lines of the market, Zong Qinghou used his feet to understand the market, staying connected with people and the ground, until he built the Wahaha business empire worth over a hundred billion yuan, becoming China's richest man several times. While we gossip about the richest man, he himself may be walking the vast land, routinely chatting with rural shop owners. Today, let's join Daojun to reacquaint ourselves with this legendary entrepreneur in his seventies and appreciate his life philosophy and business thinking. In 1987, Zong Qinghou..."
author: "New Distribution"
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published: "2016-01-14"
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# Zong Qinghou: China's Richest Man, from Youth to Gray Hair...

> For 28 years, working 16 hours a day and spending over 200 days a year on the front lines of the market, Zong Qinghou used his feet to understand the market, staying connected with people and the ground, until he built the Wahaha business empire worth over a hundred billion yuan, becoming China's richest man several times. While we gossip about the richest man, he himself may be walking the vast land, routinely chatting with rural shop owners. Today, let's join Daojun to reacquaint ourselves with this legendary entrepreneur in his seventies and appreciate his life philosophy and business thinking. In 1987, Zong Qinghou...

For 28 years, working 16 hours a day and spending over 200 days a year on the front lines of the market, Zong Qinghou used his feet to understand the market, staying connected with people and the ground, until he built the Wahaha business empire worth over a hundred billion yuan, becoming China's richest man several times. While we gossip about the richest man, he himself may be walking the vast land, routinely chatting with rural shop owners. Today, let's join Daojun to reacquaint ourselves with this legendary entrepreneur in his seventies and appreciate his life philosophy and business thinking.
In 1987, Zong Qinghou was a manager delivering school notebooks by tricycle.
Group photo of Zong and his siblings (back row center is Zong Qinghou). In 1989, Factory Director Zong and workers operated machines in the raw liquid workshop to solve problems. In 1990, a photo exhibition at the busiest Jiefang Road Gallery in Hangzhou displayed photos introducing the Wahaha factory. Zong Qinghou held his first product, the nationally famous Wahaha Children's Nutritional Liquid, overjoyed. On April 28, 1992, Zong Qinghou cried when he received a 100,000 yuan bonus from the Shangcheng District Committee (heavy reward for economic pioneers). On November 21, 1993, Wahaha organized all employees to carry out a large-scale public relations activity in Hangzhou urban area and nearby counties—distributing Wahaha special newspapers to citizens. Zong Qinghou, holding a mobile phone, full of vigor, personally participated in the activity. In 2003, Zong, together with Lu Guanqiu and Feng Gensheng, were the three giants among Hangzhou entrepreneurs. On July 11, 2006, Zong led department staff to stack bags in the warehouse. Zong stacking bags in the workshop. After the tragedy of domestic beverages being "flooded by seven armies," Zong Qinghou "preferred to walk toward the tiger mountain," and Future Cola stood out amid the pincer attack of the "two colas," becoming a legend in China's beverage industry. October 2006, Zong's birthday.
A thousand people have a thousand Hamlets, and a thousand people have a thousand Wahahas.
But for me, Wahaha is unique.
It is my entire life, all my dreams, all meaning, value, labels, and symbols. It is proof of my existence in this world.
I hope it becomes a century-old enterprise, an immortal symbol. This requires future generations to inject new life into it. What I can give Wahaha is like what Li Yunlong gave the Independent Regiment—that thing called "soul" or "spirit."
The reason we choose to become entrepreneurs is not from our instinct, nor our true character. We just, in an era without a way out, tried hard to find a way out for ourselves. When we get older, looking back, we find we have walked out a path—a water path, "of the weak water three thousand, I only take one ladle to drink."
During my 27 years of managing Wahaha, I have always wanted to do things that can realize personal value and also bring value to society, such as innovating products, creating wealth, not owing others' payments, not bullying others, fair trade...
We all started businesses with hardship and have come all the way. We don't have the luxurious life that the outside world exaggerates. We people have no time to enjoy; we fear that once we enjoy and become complacent, the enterprise will collapse; and those too strange things, we dare not experience.
When I was young, I had many ideals, which were gradually revised by social reality. Seize whatever opportunity comes, like Xu Sanduo in "Soldiers' Sortie," treating every opportunity as a life-saving straw, holding it firmly. Without ideals and goals, it won't work. When I was young on the farm, I had the idea to grow tea better than others.
Almost all young people want to become outstanding. Do whatever you want. There are many outstanding people, but not everyone can be outstanding; most become "the class" rather than "the elite." In the process of struggle, there are ideals, a background of the times, and some accidents and luck, and finally, today's "elite" is formed.
I don't want Wahaha to bring me anything; it has already let me realize my life value.
I want to do Wahaha to the end for my whole life, no ifs.
Besides providing a Wahaha for this country and so much tax revenue, the greatest value I can provide for this country and this era is to update concepts. With a Zong Qinghou here, everyone will feel that in China, doing business and industry steadily, accumulating bit by bit, there is still hope and a future.
With a ready-made model here, everyone will see hope and feel that in China, doing business can succeed without relying on the capital market, not doing PE, not doing venture capital VC. Previously, everyone thought that doing industry made money slowly, and playing capital made money fast, without so much hard work; now everyone will think that only by doing industry steadily will you become the "richest man."
**In business life, I think diligence is the most important.** Heaven rewards the diligent. If measured by 100 points, diligence should account for at least 70-80 points. Besides diligence, I am more innovative and low-key. My weakness is that I do everything personally, and everyone relies on me a lot. Now I am gradually letting my subordinates gain experience.
This is related to understanding. I may be self-taught; I didn't learn any theories from others, completely relying on feeling and experience to judge how to solve a problem better, how to manage better. I made a set of my own things, and only through practice do I know right from wrong.
This is invisible value, reflected in people's perceptions and hearts. In visible aspects, I think the greatest charity is to invest and build factories in underdeveloped areas and minority regions, "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
Our principle is to help in emergencies but not in poverty. When there are major natural disasters, we also generously donate and extend a helping hand.
Only by continuously creating wealth can enterprises better assume social responsibility and promote social progress, and bring more joy to more people. Entrepreneurs not only need to know how to make money and manage enterprises, but also need a sense of social responsibility. Wealth with conscience is meaningful.
China was once a world power, and the Chinese nation is a great nation. It was only in the late Qing Dynasty that we closed the country, got beaten by foreigners, and finally lost our confidence. The Chinese have been reforming and opening up for more than 30 years and have achieved what we have today, showing that the Chinese nation is still remarkable.
I come from the grassroots of society and understand what ordinary people think. The people don't need us to manage them so forcefully. The current social atmosphere is not as good as before, mainly because people's living standards haven't kept up with the overall economic development. This requires a material foundation. With a material foundation, after people's moral standards and self-control awareness improve, you don't need to manage them; they know what can be done and what cannot, so society can be managed well. This is the period of social transformation. This is the ignition point and boiling point of the whole society.
You have to see clearly that human nature is selfish; only when certain conditions are met will there be selflessness; only when material civilization exists will there be spiritual civilization.
The world changes every day, but what remains unchanged is the eternal principles and laws in our hearts. "Richest man" cannot represent any meaning, but Wahaha standing there means my life has not been wasted, and the evidence that I lived in this world stands there, and no one can shake it.
I have a good mentality.
The happiest time in my life is the more than 20 years when I accomplished this thing.
A person's greatest achievement should be what they have created for society.
When I stood on the podium of the Stanford Forum, facing world celebrities and young students, I saw peace and war, wealth and poverty, luxury and frugality, greed and virtue following each other like shadows. If there is a "parallel world," I say it exists in the present, at this moment, the coexistence of the two extremes we see.
Beyond intuition, I realize the grandeur of life itself. In the financial world, we have no support, but it is this independence and self-awareness that give us greater spiritual freedom.
**The richest man is a crown, but I don't want to become a symbol of wealth. In the process of value accumulation, outstanding entrepreneurs gather sand into a tower and eventually complete a destiny, which is to reach the realm of "no self" and "no things," providing opinions for the progress and construction of this world, providing constructive thinking modes and constructive ways of dealing with the world. This is the greatest touch entrepreneurs bring to the world, and also a person's value of existence.** For example, providing help to the weak world in the "parallel world," making up for the defects of this world, and promoting social progress.
This world is connected. You and I are closer than we think. Perhaps the saying "self and others are one body" is a bit mysterious, but the Tao naturally appears when any thing reaches perfection.
Only in the process of pursuing perfection, we must be willing to give ourselves.
I am an ordinary person, a mortal who rose from the bottom. Fortunately, I was born in a great era; more fortunately, I got an opportunity to create a company and thereby became "China's richest man," realizing value and recognition.
My only thought is that when I truly grow old, I can say to everyone: "**My life is not extraordinary, but I have done a career, changed the fate of some people, and provided some positive energy for this era, this society, and this country. Many people are inspired by me and become the force to actively create a new world.** "
I really hope they answer me: "Don't worry, our views are not far apart."
Selected from: Wahaha Group's authoritative biography, "Zong Qinghou's Theory of Universal Gravitation"
**-END-**
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