40 under 40

7. Pony Ma Huateng

One of China's richest -- and perhaps most reclusive -- business moguls, Ma is the founder of Tencent, the country's biggest Internet company by market capitalization. Ma created the instant-messaging platform QQ in 1999; today it has more than 500 million active users. He has demonstrated a canny knack for figuring out what China's youth wants -- and what they'll pay for -- leveraging Tencent's massive QQ user base to also sell gaming and push e-commerce.

Growth rate: Revenue in the first six months of this year hit $1.3 billion, up 65% from 2009.

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Last updated October 14 2010: 1:25 PM ET