Billionaire chronicles: Jason’s Dominion episode 1

Moneymaker Name: Jason Li
Age: 38 years
Nationality: Chinese
Industry: Technology, enterprise financing
Net worth: $20.3 billion
Chronicle:

Growing up in the slums of Guangzhou city, Jason knew only two things. The first was that he hated school and the second was that he loved electronics. He just had this natural affinity for electronics and would spend his time taking apart and reconfiguring any electronic he could lay his hand s on. When he first discovered at age eleven, the mysteries embedded in computer programming code, he might as well have been injected with addictive serum. At sixteen, Jason dropped out of school to start his first tech business and never missed it but his first tech start-up was a colossal failure. So also were the next dozen or so attempts such that his father, a retired traffic officer who had spent the best years of his life waving on and halting all manner of automobiles from the luxurious to the ludicrous, without ever actually owning one; told him (Jason) that his life was a wasted breath. In his early thirties, broke and in debt yet still highly defiant, Jason made a friend who was the son of an influential party member, a master of excess whether it was in alcohol, partying, women or crack but he still retained enough sanity to recognize genius when he saw it. The unlikely duo formed a company off their partnership, each maintaining a fifty percent stake in the new venture although Jason had a buy-out clause for his partner’s stake inserted into their binding agreement. Their first government contract for an indigenous software solution for the public schools database followed shortly after and off that single contract, Jason made more money than he had ever made in his entire life. That was the beginning of a new life for Mr. Li.

Elumination: A spectacular sign may not always precede a spectacular event.

Twitter: @eluminary1

magnus est enim Deus noster super omnes deos.