Chinese IT's 'alpha wolf ' releases new book with insights into his life

Zhou Hongyi, founder of internet security company Qihoo 360, is dubbed as a "tireless fighter" by China's IT industry. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Zhou talked to classmates while his classes were going on and drew caricatures of teachers for fun.

But Zhou became engrossed with computers after his first computer lesson in 1985.

He subscribed to the country's first newspaper on computers, Children Computer Newspaper, and kept reading it through his high school years.

The computer was still a technological novelty back then. IBM created the first personal computer in 1981 and Apple sold its first Macintosh in 1984.

Zhou was determined that being a programmer would be his career.

He once announced his ambition to his high school classmates, saying: "I will be a computer developer and create things that will change the world."

In 1988, Zhou was admitted by Xi'an Jiaotong University to major in computer science. He graduated from the university with a master's degree in system engineering in 1995. After that, he worked at Founder, an early Chinese IT company, for three years before starting his own company, Beijing 3721 Technology.

The company provided a Chinese domain name service so that early internet users in the country could visit sites by typing the Chinese names without needing to remember their English address.

The service was a success after its launch in 1998, and the company was acquired by Yahoo China in 2004.

Zhou founded Qihoo 360 in 2006. At a time when most anti-virus software came with a big price, he started to offer it free of charge.

"It changed the existing business model in the industry," writes Zhou. "It was like declaring war on everyone in this field."

Zhou's company also challenged Chinese tech giant Tencent in 2010 by claiming that the latter's instant-messaging tool QQ "stole" users' private data. Tencent denied the charge, took Qihoo 360 to court and won the case. Qihoo 360 had to make a public apology and pay for damages to Tencent's image.

During the quarrel, Tencent had also asked its users to choose between QQ and the 360 anti-virus software.

Zhou was dubbed an "alpha wolf" and a "maverick" by some in China's IT industry as a result.

"I like to challenge established rules and practices," Zhou writes in the book.

"If one day I become complacent, dispirited and compromise reality, I hope energetic young people come and defeat me."