Different founders. The same count.
Japan’s qualifier in 2006 was Rakuten’s Hiroshi Mikitani: 41 years old, worth an estimated $4.5 billion.
I reviewed the first 40 positions of Forbes’ 2006 country and regional rich lists, looking for founders aged 20–59, each worth over US$1 billion.
The scope is digital businesses and computing hardware. Telecom is part of tech, but operators and distributors are excluded from both comparisons.
Across the same 11 markets, I identified:
🇹🇼 Taiwan: at least 2
🇯🇵 Japan: 1
🇨🇳 China: 1
🇭🇰 Hong Kong: 0
🇰🇷 South Korea: 0*
🇸🇬 Singapore: 0
🇦🇺 Australia: 0
🇹🇭 Thailand: 0
🇲🇾 Malaysia: 0
🇮🇩 Indonesia: 0
🇵🇭 Philippines: 0
Zero means none identified in the records reviewed (*South Korea remains provisional).
China’s qualifier was NetEase’s William Ding, then 35. Baidu’s Robin Li and Tencent’s Pony Ma were already in China’s top 40, but below the billion-dollar threshold.
Taiwan had Hon Hai’s Terry Gou and Quanta’s Barry Lam. Joint fortunes are excluded unless individual eligibility can be established.
The telecom exclusion removes SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, Hikari Tsushin’s Yasumitsu Shigeta and PCCW’s Richard Li from this historical count.
My 2026 comparison counted eleven in China, eight each in Singapore and Australia, and one in Japan: ZOZO’s Yusaku Maezawa.
The earlier lists cover 40 positions, versus 50 in the newer comparison; some also combined markets.
Still, Japan’s thin younger cohort makes me pause.
Mikitani has aged out. Japan’s count remains one.
These snapshots cannot explain an economy’s performance. But they raise a question about the next generation of founders.
Japan had an early digital success story. But why have so few younger founders followed at this scale?
Source: Forbes country/regional lists; valuation dates vary. The 2026 comparison uses 2025 data for China. Energy technology excluded. Taiwan: confirmed minimum.
