Resigned to a new way of life

Within days, thousands of strangers have tried to add Guo as a friend on WeChat. Their most common question is "how much did you earn?"

Living a comfortable life in the Japanese capital and driving a Bentley Continental GT, Guo owns several properties, including a couple of three-story buildings in the city, which came from previous income and investment. The rental income, at a yield of about 10 percent, reaches tens of thousands of yuan every month, which is equal to his salary at ByteDance and, according to Guo, the main reason he began to think about his resignation.

He has also invested in the stock markets of Hong Kong and the United States.

"From a consumerist perspective, many people misunderstand financial freedom, which is not about the money, but about personal freedom behind a positive free cash flow," Guo says in his Sina Weibo post.

Guo's story is not just one of luck in embracing the internet age at the right time, but also of his talent and endeavor to achieve financial freedom at an early age, according to a post by his friend of 10 years, Luo Lei, on Zhihu.

In his eyes, Guo is changing from an unconventional man into an unconventionally rich man and his success cannot be duplicated.

Road to riches

Born in 1991 in rural Jiangxi province, Guo spent most of his childhood with his grandparents before following his parents to Shenzhen, Guangdong province, when he was in junior high school.

In his words, he recalls he had little choice at the time but to obey his parents' decision. He hoped that one day he would have control over his own life.

In 2008, while in the 3rd grade of senior high school, Guo got his first laptop because he wanted to set up a website to keep in touch with his high school classmates. It was then that he started to teach himself how to code.

Studying political science and public administration at a college in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, Guo describes his college life as "depressing" adding that he spent most of his time coding in the dormitory.