Zhihu's name carries a question: "Do you know?" For its first two years you could only join if someone invited you. Zhou Yuan started the question-and-answer site in late 2010, and its early members wrote long, careful answers. It opened to everyone in 2013 and grew into one of China's largest content communities. By the end of 2020, 43.1 million creators had posted 315.3 million questions and answers. Zhihu filed for its New York IPO in March 2021.

Invitation Only

Zhou Yuan founded Zhihu in late 2010, and the site went live in January 2011. Between 2010 and 2012 it stayed invite-only, which kept the answers careful and the tone serious. Once registration opened, the community spread from tech into careers, history, science, and daily life. Zhihu started selling ads in 2016. Later it added paid memberships for premium content.

New York, Then Hong Kong

Zhihu priced its IPO at $9.50 per American depositary share and began trading on the NYSE as ZH on March 26, 2021. It had 75.7 million average monthly users in the last quarter of 2020. Affiliates of Tencent and JD.com bought shares alongside the offering. Beijing's crackdown on its tech giants hit Chinese stocks soon after. Zhihu added a second listing in Hong Kong in April 2022 and still trades in both cities.

Cover: Homer Dictating, Pier Francesco Mola. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a sage dictating to listeners (questions and answers).