Charles Xie

Charles Xie (星爵) is the founder and CEO of Zilliz, a vector database company he established in 2017 after returning from Silicon Valley in 2015 with the goal of building a globally oriented Chinese tech company . He chose the name "星爵" (Star-Lord) after the Marvel character because, as he put it, Star-Lord and the Guardians of the Galaxy "take exploring the vast universe as their mission" — with the next destination always being the endless universe .

Per a 5Y Capital profile, Xie deliberately entered uncharted territory with Zilliz: when he began building in the vector database category, there was no prior experience to draw on and even his own team had doubts . The company started building vector databases in 2018, making them among the earliest global explorers in the space . From day one, operating out of a small office in Shanghai, Xie oriented Zilliz toward global users rather than treating international expansion as a later-stage add-on .