(Alvin Huang’s post from the FACEBOOK on 16 May2026.)
Touch
your phone screen right now. Feel how smooth it is. There's a decent chance the
glass under your fingertip was made by a woman who grew up raising pigs and
ducks in a village in Hunan province, dropped out of school at 16, and took a
factory job making watch lenses for less than a dollar a day.
Her
name is Zhou Qunfei. She's the founder of Lens Technology, the company that
makes the cover glass for Apple, Samsung, Huawei, and Tesla. She's worth over
US$18 billion. She's the world's fourth richest self-made woman. And the entire
thing started with a resignation letter.
Zhou
was born in 1970 in Xiangxiang, Hunan, the youngest of three children in a
family shaped by loss. Before she was born, her father, a former soldier, lost
a finger and most of his eyesight in an industrial accident.
He supported the family by weaving bamboo baskets, making chairs, and repairing bicycles. Her mother died when she was five. The girl helped her family raise animals for food and whatever small income they could manage.








