Today, Fortune (Chinese edition) officially released the "2026 Fortune China 40 Under 40" list. Zhu Pai, CEO of Efung Capital, was honored to be included.

Since its establishment in 2011, the list has continued to spotlight China's younger generation of innovators and value creators. Among past honorees, names such as Pony Ma, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Tencent; Richard Liu, Chairman of the Board of JD.com; and Liang Wenfeng, founder of DeepSeek, have since profoundly influenced Chinese business.

Among this year's 40 honorees, business elites including Wang Xingxing, founder, chairman, CEO and CTO of Unitree; Yang Zhilin, founder and CEO of Moonshot AI (Kimi); and Zhang Xue, founder and CEO of Zhangxue Motorcycles, were honored. A total of 18 are directly involved in AI and embodied intelligence, while the other 22 come from fields such as new energy, healthcare, new consumer, and investment. Their industries differ, but one common trend stands out: AI is becoming a foundational productivity tool for the new generation of entrepreneurs and investors, and is redefining the boundaries of every industry.

The "Outlier" Proposition Behind the List

Eighteen years ago, Canadian writer Malcolm Gladwell attempted in his book Outliers to argue how much "era" matters in success.

The statistic in Outliers is that most top Canadian hockey players were born between January and March. Youth leagues group players by calendar year, so children born a few months earlier were taller and stronger, and after being selected by coaches into elite tiers, their advantage widened year by year.

Tech success stories offer another kind of proof: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Eric Schmidt were almost all born around 1955, and when the personal computer revolution broke out in 1975, they were just in their early twenties, founding companies and building business empires. As Malcolm's conclusion puts it, sharply and precisely: so-called geniuses may often simply be people who happened to catch a window of their era.

This year's Fortune China 40 Under 40 is almost the Chinese version of the same proposition, except the unit of time has shifted from "year of birth" to "year the company was founded." It means that most people on the list are not pursuers of the wave, but waiters for the wave — 18 months before general artificial intelligence became known to the public, they had already placed their companies where the tide would arrive. Back in 2021, still the tail end of the mobile internet, the metaverse and digital currencies were the hopes of the moment; looking back now, they started businesses at around 31 and made the list at 36. It was not achieved overnight, but rather being in position before the wave came, then using five years to turn an early move into reality.

Before the Wave Forms, Get to Where You Should Be

This logic of "waiting in position" also holds true in healthcare investment.

As a venture capital firm focused on innovative drugs and medical devices, Efung Capital has long chosen to patiently accompany companies through cycles amid periodic fluctuations. Efung has always believed that rather than chasing trends, it is better to get to where you should be before the wave forms; before the trend arrives, stand first where change will happen.

The Next Decade: Quiet Waiters, Steadfast Companions

The list is a lagging mirror of the wave; investment is a bet placed ahead of the future.

In 2025, Zhu Pai was named one of China's most promising business elites under 40. This inclusion in the Fortune China 40 Under 40 list, viewed over a longer cycle, is more like an echo of long-termism.

As Zhu Pai has said, biopharmaceutical investment cannot be impatient for quick results; it must resonate with the nation's development. Making innovative drugs and devices accessible and affordable is a mission of the times that capital should bear. In the next decade, AI is expected to rewrite the R&D and service systems of life sciences. Efung is willing to be a quiet waiter, a steadfast companion, and a long-term value discoverer.

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