Yong Zhang

Yong Zhang — Daniel Zhang, better known by his Alibaba nickname Xiaoyaozi — is the former chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group who has since reinvented himself as an investor. In September 2023 he abruptly stepped down not only from the group's top jobs but also as chairman and CEO of Alibaba Cloud, a role he had gone all-in on just three months earlier, leaving multiple Alibaba employees telling 暗涌Waves the move felt sudden and unplanned; at the time, Alibaba announced it would invest $1 billion to back a future-oriented tech fund he would set up . The expected new fund never quite materialized in that form: in March 2024, 暗涌Waves exclusively reported he was joining Chenyi Investment (晨壹基金), the firm founded by Xiaodan Liu, as co-managing partner alongside her — a surprise, but one the piece framed as fitting his dealmaking bent . His orbit still pulls Alibaba alumni: per elsewhere's September 2026 reporting on the Moonshot AI investment saga, Xiao Hu followed Zhang to Chenyi after leaving Alibaba in mid-2024 .