Tencent, which Ma Huateng founded in 1998, is China's largest online community. Its instant messaging tools have helped change the way people in China communicate and interact. Today Tencent boasts annual revenue of 19.6 billion RMB ($3.1 billion). Ma has ingrained his engineering background into the culture at Tencent, and he remains deeply involved in the product R&D process. This not only guarantees product quality, but is also a form of encouragement to its engineers.
Critics in Tencent's industry have complained about the company's influence with its huge instant messaging users base. In response, Ma recently proposed an open platform initiative and proclaimed that "Tencent is going to create the largest and most successful open platform," quieting critics for now. Ma was named one of "China's Most Influential Business Leaders" by Fortune China for seven consecutive years from 2005 to 2011.
