He's never studied abroad, and his major in college wasn't even related to information technology. Yet the online retailer that he single-handedly founded has left major consumer electronics retail chains like Suning Citicall and GOME feeling queasy and even prompted the top dog of China's Internet business community, Tencent Inc. founder Ma Huateng, to provide his enterprise with a substantial capital infusion last October.

He is Stone G. Bu, founder of icson.com, China's second-largest online consumer electronics retailer. A chubby-cheeked 34 year-old, the soft-spoken Bu seems always to have a hint of a smile on his face. Indeed, he comes off as such a boy-next-door type that it is a little hard to believe this man is the boss of an Internet enterprise that takes in more than 100 million renminbi in operating revenue annually.

Yet Stone Bu is the very personification of China's new generation of entrepreneurs who struck it rich through the Internet. While a student at Taiyuan Institute of Heavy Machinery (now Taiyuan University of Science and Technology), Bu got his first taste of entrepreneurial enrichment when he converted the school's computer center into a for-profit "Internet Bar" providing Internet access to any student willing to pay.

As he recalls, not only was he able to cover his own tuition, but upon graduation he also returned home with profits of 200,000 renminbi in his pocket.

After graduation, he spent less than six months working at a state-run machinery plant before changing tack and taking a job at a software firm. He later signed on with the China unit of online retailer Newegg.com and saw his monthly salary skyrocket from 650 renminbi to 6,500. Having seen his compensation rise ten-fold, Bu was now keenly aware that his opportunity to strike it rich on the Internet was at hand.

A Style Apart from the Princelings

In 2006, Bu sank 400,000 renminbi into the founding of icson.com, an online retailer specializing in the sale of 3C (computers, communications, consumer electronics) products. Orienting itself to emphasize speed, on the day of its founding icson.com put together its own distribution team in Shanghai, China's most fiercely competitive region for the electronics business, and immediately succeeded in making a name for itself, differentiating itself from competitors by adopting an "order in the morning, take delivery in the evening" policy.

Advancing into the ranks of China's new Internet elite, Bu has a style that is far-removed from that of the "princelings," second-generation scions of wealthy families. Aside from working, Bu is at his happiest when he gets together with other Internet entrepreneurs, to share a drink and talk over new business models, in gatherings without the slightest feeling of adversarial malice. "It doesn't matter if you're a hundred million dollar operation or a failed start-up," Bu says. "No one is any different from anyone else."

Flaunting Wealth Is Out

Bu contends that within his peer group, members of a generation who have come of age in the new market economy, there is scant interest in flaunting wealth with flashy clothes or jewelry.

"Wearing a Rolex would be considered to be lacking in taste," he laughs.

What earns the most respect in their circles, he says, is someone who buys something off the Internet with the highest possible quality-to-price ratio.

"Now, somebody will feel embarrassed even for driving a BMW," he says.

Bu is more interested in having his own autonomous business enterprise than in overnight riches. Ever since icson.com began to take off, Bu says he's had numerous buyout offers from major business groups, but the deal breaker has always been differences in management philosophy, rather than the price offered.

"I think making money in China is not a problem. The most important thing is your attitude," he says in his customary unhurried and methodical manner. "The ones who squander their riches are those who got their wealth without going through the process of building it up."

Translated from the Chinese by Brian Kennedy