On hearing that the 36-year-old head of one of China's most successful internet companies is passionate about ping-pong, and plays it most days with his predominantly twentysomething colleagues, it's hard not to think, “What a cliche”.
Arriving at UCWeb's Beijing office in Haidian, the city's university and high-tech district, I expect to find the usual array of romper rooms, video-game consoles and other paraphernalia that populate so many Silicon Valley-inspired start-ups.
Instead, I find the developer of China and India's most popular mobile browser on the 16th floor of a nondescript office block. The atmosphere is more colourful than contrived. Dozens of toy squirrels, the company's mascot, populate its reception area. The walls are decorated with posters made from headshots of UCWeb's employees, who have grown in number from 12 to 1,700 over the past decade, and pictures taken from its annual staff party. The latter include shots of Yu Yongfu, chairman and chief executive, dressed as Super Mario.