By now, you must have heard the news that the richest person in Singapore in 2019 is Zhang Yong, the founder of Hai Di Lao a.k.a. everyone’s favourite hotpot restaurant.

What makes this all the more mind-boggling is that Haidilao’s founder was never the scion of some wealthy cosmopolitan family. According to Wikipedia, Zhang Yong was a rural Sichuanese, and worked in construction and manufacturing before opening a tiny little hotpot eatery.