This year, globally renowned market maker Citadel Securities announced the completion of a $1.15 billion funding round from Sequoia Capital and cryptocurrency investment firm Paradigm.
With this funding round, Citadel Securities' valuation has reached as high as $22 billion.
For those familiar with finance, Citadel is no stranger. In the early 2021 Wall Street showdown between hedge fund giants and retail investors buying GameStop, the largest shareholder behind Melvin Capital, the biggest short-seller of GameStop, was Citadel.
As the premier super unicorn of 2022, Citadel Securities' current CEO is Zhao Peng, a Chinese post-80s graduate of Peking University.
Zhao Peng was born in Beijing in 1983. From a young age, he displayed extraordinary emotional and intellectual intelligence. At age 10, he entered the 'gifted class' at Beijing No. 8 Middle School, where in 4 years he completed all the knowledge from fifth grade to high school, and gained admission to Peking University's Mathematics Department with excellent grades.
After graduating from Peking University, Zhao Peng went to the United States to pursue a Ph.D. in Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley, focusing on online prediction, prediction loss functions, natural statistics, financial data analysis, and financial forecasting.
In 2006, after earning his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, Zhao Peng joined Citadel as a quantitative analyst. With exceptional professional skills, he overcame obstacles, rising from analyst to partner and managing director, ultimately becoming CEO in 2017, all in less than 10 years.
By 2021, during his four years as CEO, Zhao Peng led the company to quintuple its net trading revenue, and in 2019 he was named to Fortune's 40 Under 40 list of the most influential young business leaders.
At 14 he entered Peking University, at 34 he became CEO of Citadel Securities—some call Zhao Peng a 'genius,' others a 'born entrepreneur.' In fact, in recent years, not only Zhao Peng, but more and more young business prodigies have become known.
Let's take a look at the storybook lives of these genius CEOs.
Natural Talent, Unstoppable Success
Brian Chesky - Airbnb - Age 40
Chesky was born in New York City and developed an early interest in art and design. In 1999, he enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design, ranked third in the QS World University Rankings, and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Industrial Design in 2004. At RISD, Chesky met Joe Gebbia, who would become his co-founder in launching Airbnb.
After graduation, the two shared an apartment in San Francisco. During a conference in San Francisco, hotel rooms were in short supply, and they saw a business opportunity: they bought three air mattresses and listed them online for short-term rental. To attract guests, they also offered homemade breakfast. That very day, three people made bookings.
And that service, which they named 'Airbed and Breakfast' (air mattress and breakfast), became the starting point for what would later be Airbnb.
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Of course, Airbnb's entrepreneurial journey was full of obstacles. At their lowest point, Brian and Gebbia had accumulated $200,000 in debt.
The turning point for Airbnb's survival came in 2009, when, thanks to their passion and perseverance, they were selected by Y Combinator's 'godfather' Paul Graham for the Silicon Valley startup incubator. From there, Airbnb continuously improved its services and ideas, steadily increasing the company's value.
Adam Mosseri - Instagram - Age 39
Mosseri was born in New York City and graduated from New York University in 2005 with a B.A. in Information Design. During his studies at NYU, Mosseri founded a design consultancy called Blank Mosseri, focusing on graphic, interaction, and exhibition design.
Although not the founder of Instagram, Mosseri's career is far more than just 'impressive.' Before joining Instagram, Mosseri started at Facebook in 2008 as a product designer. He rose from designer to design manager, then to product director, and was promoted to Vice President of Product in 2018.
That same year, after the two co-founders announced their departure, Instagram officially named Mosseri as the next CEO.
Daniel Ek - Spotify - Age 39
Ek was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and later studied engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), but dropped out to pursue an IT career.
In fact, Ek showed extraordinary programming talent and business acumen from a young age. Starting at age 13, he built websites for clients from home. To expand his business, he even bribed schoolmates with video games to help with his websites. Before turning 18, Ek was earning up to $50,000 a month at his peak.
After dropping out of college, Ek held leadership roles at several tech companies and founded an online advertising company called Advertigo. He later sold Advertigo to TradeDoubler in a deal valued at $1.25 million.
A comfortable life led Ek to enjoy a few months of 'retirement,' but he quickly realized his passion for trying new things. This sparked the idea of combining his two greatest loves—music and technology—and thus Spotify was born. In 2017, Ek was named the most influential figure in the global music industry by Billboard.
Mark Zuckerberg - Meta - Age 37
Zuckerberg was born into a Jewish family in New York City and demonstrated exceptional coding skills from middle school. Microsoft even offered him a job with a $980,000 annual salary while he was in high school.
Of course, Zuckerberg turned down the offer and chose to study at Harvard University. During college, he began building Facebook, which reached one million users in just one semester. He then dropped out to focus entirely on his venture.
In late 2021, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook was officially renamed Meta, focusing on building the 'Metaverse.' This year, Zuckerberg ranks 15th on the Forbes 2022 World's Billionaires list with a net worth of $67.3 billion.
Evan Spiegel - Snapchat - Age 31
Spiegel was born in Los Angeles to a wealthy and influential lawyer family. Growing up in an affluent neighborhood, he attended Stanford University to study product design. It was at Stanford that he conceived the idea for Snapchat and met his future business partner.
After dropping out of Stanford, Spiegel devoted himself to building Snapchat. Upon launch, Snapchat was instantly popular among young people because it differed from traditional social platforms and better suited their socializing habits.
Snapchat's massive traffic caught the attention of tech giants, and Tencent, Facebook, and Google all made high-priced acquisition offers, but all were rejected. In 2015, Forbes named the 25-year-old Spiegel the world's youngest self-made billionaire.
What These Wealthy Moguls Have in Common
Successful people often share common traits, and these moguls are no exception. We've summarized the following commonalities for your reference:
1. Established goals early on
Many of these moguls found their direction in middle school and had already launched successful businesses during college.
2. Exceptionally strong learning abilities
Beyond just book smarts, these moguls are absolutely top-notch in their respective fields.
3. Graduated from or dropped out of elite universities
Although three of them dropped out of college, they did so from Harvard, Stanford, and KTH. Their ability to get into these top-tier institutions in the first place speaks volumes.
4. Like-minded business partners
Successful startups often rely on like-minded business partners, and many of these moguls' partners were friends from their school days.
5. Flexible mindset
As industry leaders, these moguls never limit their direction; delayed gratification and the courage to try new things are among the secrets to their success.
After reading so many stories of young and accomplished moguls, how do you feel? Are you awestruck or pumped up with motivation?
Of course, such storybook lives are truly rare, a perfect combination of timing, environment, and personal qualities.
For us ordinary people, what's more important is to keep working hard, find the right direction, and forge ahead on our own paths!
