The Golden Five: How Complementary Skills Built Tencent's Empire

Imagine choosing startup partners. Would you select people with similar skills to yours, or partners with complementary abilities?

In 1998, Ma Huateng faced exactly this choice. When he wanted to start a company, he knew his technical background alone couldn't handle all entrepreneurial challenges. He needed the right co-founders.

Ultimately, he chose four partners with distinct strengths: technical genius Zhang Zhidong, marketing expert Zeng Liqing, management specialist Chen Yidan, and product expert Xu Chenye. Five people with complementary skills and different personalities formed one of China's most successful startup teams.

This choice ultimately built the Tencent empire.

What you'll learn from this legendary partnership:

• How to build startup teams with complementary skills
• Why team diversity beats individual brilliance
• How to achieve effective division of labor in startup teams
• Why trust and chemistry are foundations of team success

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The Meeting of Five Minds

Ma Huateng: The Product Idealist

Ma Huateng, born in 1971, became Tencent's soul. He had dual characteristics: an engineer by training with keen product intuition.

During university at Shenzhen University, Ma Huateng showed unique product understanding. His graduation project—a graphical stock analysis system—sold for 50,000 yuan to his internship company, becoming his first pot of gold.

After graduation, working at Runxun developing pager software, Ma Huateng excelled technically but was more interested in user experience. He constantly wondered: What do users really need? How can we make products better?

This product mindset became Ma Huateng's most important trait. Throughout Tencent's development—from QQ's interface design to WeChat's product philosophy—you can see Ma Huateng's relentless pursuit of user experience.

Zhang Zhidong: The Technical Architect

Zhang Zhidong, Ma Huateng's university classmate and Tencent's CTO. If Ma Huateng was Tencent's brain, Zhang Zhidong was its heart.

At Shenzhen University, Zhang was recognized as a technical genius. He had deep understanding of computer systems and exceptional programming abilities. More importantly, he possessed an engineer's rigor and pure love for technology.

"Zhidong could solve any technical problem," Ma Huateng later said. "More importantly, he could foresee technical problems before they occurred."

Zhang Zhidong's technical architecture laid the foundation for all of Tencent's products. From OICQ's early server architecture to QQ's massive concurrent user support to WeChat's mobile-first design—all bore Zhang Zhidong's technical DNA.

Chen Yidan: The Administrative Backbone

Chen Yidan, though studying applied chemistry, became Tencent's chief administrative officer. He was the team's "housekeeper"—managing finances, legal affairs, human resources, and daily operations.

"Yidan is our most reliable person," Ma Huateng often said. "Whatever we give him, he handles perfectly."

Chen Yidan's management philosophy was "details determine success or failure." In Tencent's early days, he personally handled everything from lease negotiations to employee contracts to financial planning.

This meticulous management style provided solid support for Tencent's rapid growth. When the company expanded from 5 to 50 to 500 people, Chen Yidan's management systems ensured smooth operations.

Xu Chenye: The Product Craftsman

Xu Chenye, also from Shenzhen University's Class of '89 Computer Science, was responsible for product development and user experience.

If Ma Huateng provided product vision, Xu Chenye was responsible for implementation. He had exceptional attention to detail and deep understanding of user psychology.

"Chenye could always find problems others missed," Zhang Zhidong recalled. "He'd spend hours testing every interface detail to ensure the best user experience."

Under Xu Chenye's refinement, QQ's interface became increasingly user-friendly. Many classic QQ features—like emoticons, user profiles, and friend grouping—came from his careful design.

Zeng Liqing: The Market Pioneer

Zeng Liqing came from outside the university circle. He worked at a paging company and brought market experience the team lacked.

"Liqing understood the market," Ma Huateng said. "He knew what users wanted and how to reach them."

Zeng Liqing was responsible for market expansion and business development. In OICQ's early days, he personally visited internet cafes, universities, and companies to promote the product.

More importantly, Zeng Liqing had keen business sense. He could spot market opportunities and translate technical advantages into business value.

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The Perfect Division of Labor

Natural Role Assignment

What's remarkable about Tencent's five founders is how naturally they found their roles. There was no complex negotiation or power struggle—everyone gravitated toward their strengths.

Ma Huateng: Overall strategy and product direction Zhang Zhidong: Technical architecture and development Chen Yidan: Operations and administration
Xu Chenye: Product design and user experience Zeng Liqing: Market expansion and business development

"We never formally assigned these roles," Ma Huateng recalled. "Everyone just started doing what they were best at."

Complementary Skill Sets

The five founders' skills were perfectly complementary:

Vision + Execution: Ma Huateng provided direction, others handled implementation Technology + Business: Zhang Zhidong built products, Zeng Liqing sold them Product + Operations: Xu Chenye designed experiences, Chen Yidan managed operations Internal + External: Some focused on internal development, others on external relationships

This complementarity meant the team had no obvious weaknesses—every major business function was covered by an expert.

Mutual Trust and Respect

Perhaps most importantly, the five founders genuinely trusted and respected each other.

"We never questioned each other's decisions in their areas of expertise," Zhang Zhidong noted. "If Yidan said we needed to handle something administratively, we trusted him. If Liqing said the market was ready for something, we believed him."

This trust enabled rapid decision-making and efficient execution—crucial advantages for a startup.

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The Chemistry That Built an Empire

Shared Values

Despite different backgrounds and personalities, the five founders shared core values:

User First: Everything started with user needs Long-term Thinking: Focus on sustainable growth over quick profits Continuous Learning: Adapt and improve constantly Team Success: Individual success meant nothing without team success

These shared values provided a foundation for all major decisions.

Complementary Personalities

The founders' different personalities created productive tension:

Ma Huateng: Visionary but cautious Zhang Zhidong: Perfectionist but pragmatic
Chen Yidan: Conservative but thorough Xu Chenye: Detail-oriented but user-focused Zeng Liqing: Aggressive but strategic

These personality differences prevented groupthink while maintaining team cohesion.

Conflict Resolution

Like any team, the founders sometimes disagreed. But they developed healthy conflict resolution mechanisms:

1. Focus on facts, not personalities
2. Listen to domain experts
3. Test ideas with users when possible
4. Make decisions quickly and move forward

"We argued about ideas, never about people," Ma Huateng said. "And we never let disagreements linger."

Shared Sacrifice

In the early days, all five founders made significant personal sacrifices:

• Working 12+ hour days regularly
• Taking minimal salaries for years
• Investing personal savings repeatedly
• Putting company needs before personal needs

This shared sacrifice created unbreakable bonds and mutual commitment.

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Lessons from the Golden Partnership

The Power of Complementary Skills

Tencent's success demonstrates that complementary skills beat similar skills in startup teams.

"If we'd all been programmers, we'd have built great technology but struggled with business," Ma Huateng reflected. "If we'd all been business people, we'd have had great ideas but couldn't execute them."

The key insight: startup teams need coverage across all critical functions, not depth in just one area.

Diversity Drives Innovation

The founders' different perspectives led to better decisions and more innovative solutions.

"When we disagreed, it usually meant we hadn't thought through all angles," Zhang Zhidong observed. "Our differences made our final decisions stronger."

Cognitive diversity—different ways of thinking about problems—proved more valuable than demographic diversity alone.

Trust Enables Speed

The founders' mutual trust enabled rapid decision-making that gave Tencent competitive advantages.

"We could make decisions in hours that took other companies weeks," Chen Yidan noted. "Because we trusted each other's judgment in their domains."

This speed proved crucial in fast-moving internet markets where timing often determines success.

Long-term Partnership Thinking

All five founders approached their partnership with long-term mindsets, not short-term gain optimization.

"We knew we'd be working together for decades," Ma Huateng said. "That changes how you handle conflicts and make decisions."

This long-term thinking created stability that enabled bold strategic moves.

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The Evolution of Partnership

Adapting Roles Over Time

As Tencent grew, the founders' roles evolved but their core partnership remained strong:

Ma Huateng: From technical contributor to strategic leader Zhang Zhidong: From hands-on programmer to technical architect Chen Yidan: From office manager to chief administrative officer Xu Chenye: From individual contributor to product leader Zeng Liqing: From sales person to business development chief

Their ability to evolve with the company's needs kept the partnership relevant and effective.

New Challenges, Same Values

As Tencent became a massive corporation, the founders faced new challenges:

• Managing thousands of employees
• Handling public company responsibilities
• Navigating complex regulatory environments
• Competing with global technology giants

But their core values and mutual trust remained unchanged, providing stability during turbulent periods.

The Legacy Continues

Today, even as some founders have stepped back from day-to-day operations, their partnership model influences Tencent's entire culture:

• Collaborative decision-making across business units
• Respect for domain expertise in specialized areas
• Long-term thinking over short-term optimization
• User-centric values in all products and services

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From Five Friends to Global Empire

The five founders who pooled 500,000 yuan in 1998 built one of the world's most valuable companies. Tencent today is worth over $400 billion, serves billions of users, and employs hundreds of thousands of people.

But perhaps their greatest achievement isn't financial success—it's proving that complementary partnerships can achieve more than individual brilliance.

"None of us could have built Tencent alone," Ma Huateng reflected. "Our success came from combining our different strengths into something greater than the sum of its parts."

For today's entrepreneurs, Tencent's founding team offers powerful lessons:

1. Seek complementary skills, not similar backgrounds
2. Build trust through shared sacrifice and mutual respect
3. Embrace productive conflict while maintaining team cohesion
4. Think long-term about partnership sustainability
5. Evolve roles as the company grows while preserving core values

The most successful startups aren't built by individual heroes—they're built by teams of people who bring different strengths to shared dreams. Tencent's five founders proved that when the right people come together with complementary skills and shared values, they can literally change the world.

Sometimes the most important decision an entrepreneur makes isn't what product to build—it's who to build it with.