On November 29, 2023, Lei Jun, founder, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi Group, donated 1.3 billion yuan in his own name to his alma mater, Wuhan University. This is also the largest individual cash donation from an alumni received by universities across the country. This week, "Face to Face" interviews Lei Jun exclusively.
In 1987, Lei Jun was admitted to the Computer Science Department of Wuhan University. When he was studying at Wuhan University, Lei Jun received a lot of scholarships. During his four years in college, he basically relied on scholarships and helping teachers with projects to support himself through college. Lei Jun positioned this donation to his alma mater as a votive journey.
Lei Jun: One time I received a relatively rich scholarship. At the award ceremony, when I stood on the stage, I was thinking, if I have money one day, I will definitely pay it back a hundred times, a thousand times or even ten thousand times. .
With this donation, one of the main directions Lei Jun is assisting is the research on the six basic disciplines of mathematics, physics, chemistry, culture, history and philosophy at Wuhan University.
Lei Jun: These basic subjects have been relatively weak in universities in the past few years. Applied subjects may be relatively valued in schools because they are easier to produce results and obtain scientific research funds. We have been in business for more than 30 years. Today, it is becoming increasingly clear that if you want to do something great, you must be a long-termist. Recently, I often say within Xiaomi that greatness is achieved through hard work.
The story of Lei Jun and Xiaomi is not unfamiliar to the public. In the past 13 years, Xiaomi has become a technology brand that has penetrated deeply into people's lives, an electronic product that can always bring surprises in the competition, and a startup company full of stories.
In the library of Wuhan University, Lei Jun read a book called "Fire in Silicon Valley" and began to build his life-long dream, because "Fire in Silicon Valley" tells the story of Steve Jobs' entrepreneurship. So in the 1980s, Steve Jobs was Lei Jun’s first idol.
Lei Jun: Precisely because I know Steve Jobs very well, I feel that I am actually not a person like Steve Jobs. I feel that I cannot be like Steve Jobs, but this does not prevent us from making different products in another direction.
With this fire of dream, Lei Jun embarked on his own entrepreneurial path. In 1991, after graduating from Wuhan University, Lei Jun and his friends founded Kingsoft to develop WPS office software to compete with Microsoft's Office office software. An unknown small company's fight against the behemoth Microsoft was destined to be an extremely difficult battle. Kingsoft once faced the dilemma of "product failure, business collapse, and the company almost closed down." At Kingsoft, Lei Jun completed the transformation from a programmer to a business manager, and experienced the process of the company from being in trouble to re-emerging. Personally speaking, Jinshan’s more than 20 years were Lei Jun’s youthful years. As far as the world is concerned, those 20 years were a time when the first wave of the Internet was shaking things up. Lei Jun passed by this wave unknowingly. . Many years later, Lei Jun expressed his famous emotion - "Standing on the wind, even a pig can fly."
Lei Jun: Because I am an engineer and an entrepreneur who started as a programmer. Everything we do is either something I am interested in, or we meet several users who all talk about this product and want such a product. We decided to start the project and go for it, rarely considering whether it was a major opportunity of the times or whether it had the possibility of explosive growth. Therefore, such a company has a strong survivability and will not die easily, but it is not easy to become very big. That’s why I talked about the trend theory. I think we should not only bury our heads in pulling the car, but also look up at the road. This is a huge correction for my own business.
In order to catch up with the first wave of the Internet, Lei Jun founded Joyo.com, which mainly sells books and audio-visual products online. But at this time, the Internet bubble had burst, e-commerce had not fully emerged, and financing capabilities were insufficient. In September 2004, Lei Jun reluctantly sold Joyo.com to Amazon.
Lei Jun: We should have essentially missed that point in time for the Internet. We are just thinking about when the next opportunity will be. We already know four or five years in advance that the future opportunity is the mobile Internet. I just don’t know when the explosion will be. What kind of thing, so after the iPhone is released and Android is released, I think the mobile Internet opportunity will be fully developed.
Faced with the opportunity, Lei Jun chose to start a business again. On April 6, 2010, in a humble office in Zhongguancun, Beijing, Lei Jun drank a bowl of millet porridge with more than a dozen colleagues and founded Xiaomi.
relies on a clear business model and accurate market position. In just three years since its release in 2014, Xiaomi mobile phones have occupied the market position of No. 1 in sales in China and No. 3 in the world. In November of this year, at the first World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Lei Jun made no secret of his high spirits. But in less than two years, Xiaomi encountered its biggest crisis since its founding. The pure online model has hit a growth bottleneck, and Xiaomi's mobile phone sales have declined significantly. Reporter
: In 2016, you also mentioned a description in your speech, saying that this is not a life for humans, and even cats and dogs may not be able to stand it.
Lei Jun: Because the company is actually at the moment of life and death, the entire mobile phone industry at that time felt that we were going to die soon, so once it feels that you are dying, all suppliers may reduce their support for you. It is a company that is highly dependent on the industrial chain for survival. In an industry, if the entire industry chain does not support you, the entire Xiaomi may close down. In that case, I joked with them at that time. I said if I don’t go to hell, who will go to hell? I said I would just do it myself.
In October 2016, the release of Xiaomi MIX full-screen mobile phone injected hope into Xiaomi, which was in the trough, and also won Xiaomi the respect of the industry. From this year on, Xiaomi made strategic adjustments and began to focus on hard-core technology. work hard.
2020 is Xiaomi's tenth anniversary. In this year, Xiaomi has further established its strategy to become the world's new generation of hard-core technology leader in the next ten years, providing consumers with high-end technology products.
Making high-end technology products requires not only technical accumulation and technical research, but also a high degree of control over the entire industry chain. During the process of developing Xiaomi's first-generation high-end phone, Lei Jun and his team once started a military training-style collective life.
Lei Jun: We want to become the best company in the world. Only by unswervingly moving towards the high-end market and unswervingly investing in core technology can we have a chance.
In October 2023, Xiaomi’s new generation of high-end phones, the Mi 14 series, was released and went on sale. Sales quickly exceeded one million units. Due to the high market enthusiasm, the Mi 14 series quickly went out of stock.
In terms of mobile operating systems, Apple has its own iOS system, Huawei has its own Hongmeng system, and the "Paper OS" equipped on the Xiaomi Mi 14 series is the "Renchejia" full ecological operating system developed by Xiaomi itself. For a long time in the past, Chinese companies have often faced doubts from the outside world about "lack of core and soul". The birth of Xiaomi's Thermal OS marks a breakthrough for Chinese companies in the field of operating systems.
Lei Jun: We have been exploring operating systems since the beginning. We made up our minds to start working on it seven years ago. More than 5,000 engineers have invested. Xiaomi's ThePaper OS was just released not long ago. This time, we have positioned the operating system as the achievement. People-centered.
has become the layout of hard-core technology companies, making car manufacturing an inevitable choice for Xiaomi. Made by itself, without mergers and acquisitions, or OEMs, Xiaomi has been working quietly on this new track for nearly three years. Xiaomi cars will be launched next year.
Lei Jun told reporters that he thinks Xiaomi has many natural advantages in making cars, because the essence of today’s smart electric cars is the integration of the automobile industry and the consumer electronics industry. It is a big integration, so entering the automobile industry is a challenge for Xiaomi. Overall The difficulty is controllable.
Lei Jun: We invested 3,400 engineers in our first car, and the entire R&D investment exceeded 10 billion. We spent more than 10 times the investment. After having this confidence, I did it in a determined way anyway.
In the past six years, Xiaomi's R&D investment has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 38.4%. It is expected that the total R&D investment in 2023 will exceed RMB 20 billion, and in the next five years, R&D investment will exceed RMB 100 billion. High-intensity R&D investment has injected strong impetus into Xiaomi's upward growth.
Lei Jun: We feel that today in these market areas where Xiaomi is located, there are still a lot of unmet needs. I think Xiaomi has just started. On the one hand, we have to take root in the Chinese market and do a good job in internal circulation. At the same time, we must strengthen our confidence in globalization. I think this is the path Xiaomi has chosen, and there are huge opportunities on this path.
In his 2023 annual speech, Lei Jun officially announced the upgrade of Xiaomi's technology strategy and announced Xiaomi's technology philosophy: choose technology fields that have long-term value to human civilization and insist on long-term continuous investment.
Lei Jun said that the core driving force for Xiaomi’s continuous progress and evolution comes from its dreams and goals.
