NEWSMAKER - China web tycoon thrives on portals, pig farms

By Melanie Lee

BEIJING (Reuters) - He may be a billionaire, but soft-spoken William Ding, founder of Chinese online gaming giant NetEase.COM, feels as comfortable on the farm with his pigs as he does in the boardroom.

The publicity shy 38-year-old juggles his time between China's No. 3 online game operator and a pig rearing business he started in February, in search of balance and quiet as the nation's raucous online community develops at breakneck speed.

The bespectacled bachelor, China's 23rd richest man worth $2.25 billion according to Forbes, was one of China's earliest Internet pioneers when he founded NetEase in 1997 as a tiny search engine.

More than a decade and several controversies later, NetEase is one of China's most prominent names on the web and Ding has acquired celebrity status in China, pursued everywhere like a rock star by packs of reporters and admirers.

"Ding has encouraged a whole generation of young people to want to enter the Internet business," said Internet entrepreneur Edward Liu, who, along with Ding, attended one of China's biggest Internet conferences this week in Beijing.

"They all want to be like him."

Ding belongs to an elite group of Chinese mavericks who have made billions on the Internet in China, the world's largest market with over 300 million users. He sits alongside others like Jack Ma, head of Internet giant Alibaba Group and Robin Li, founder of online search leader Baidu.

Born in China's Zhejiang province, which churns out some of the country's most famous entrepreneurs, Ding was schooled as an engineer and worked for several companies including Sybase before founding NetEase.