Lei Jun, via Sina Tech
Lei Jun, the CEO of Xiaomi, has a big personality. He also has a history of success when it comes to tech startups and investment in China, which means people take what he says pretty seriously. Today, he was profiled in the China Youth Daily, and while the full article is probably worth a read for Lei Jun fans, it’s full of interesting insight into Lei Jun’s mindset and the way he runs his current startup, Xiaomi.
On age: “There’s nothing great about starting over at age 40,” Lei Jun says, “but people are great because they have dreams. As long as I have dreams, I’ll never have regrets.” The article also notes that Lei Jun started Xiaomi at the same age Steve Jobs returned to Apple (42). Speaking of Steve Jobs…
On Steve Jobs and inspiration: “I hope that one day I can change something about the world like Steve Jobs [did].”
On what’s hot right now: “I think mobile phones are the biggest opportunity of this era going forward,” Lei Jun told the CYD reporter. “If you still want to do a startup in this lifetime, you should be doing [something related to] mobile phones.”
On building a team at Xiaomi: “We’ve already gathered together the best people in the world, the best resources, and enough capital, so of course whatever we do hinges upon our attitude [...] we need to be happy [...] I don’t want Xiaomi to be a company where people suffer like Jinshan, that’s in the past already.” For this reason, the Xiaomi offices are relaxed, and people don’t need to clock in or out, Lei says.
On building a community: “Our phone is alive. We bring our loyal fans into the development group and let them manage it with us. One-third of our MIUI OS’s innovations come from the contributions of fans, and we upgrade once a week, so there’s a lot in the Xiaomi phone that is based on the habits of Chinese users.”
On pricing and profits: “As long as there are users, I’m not worried about profits.” Lei specifically cites Baidu and Tencent as examples of the power of this philosophy.
Say what you will about Lei Jun, but it is hard to argue with his record of success. Chinese startups out there would be wise to give his words some thought.
Incidentally, China Telecom users out there will be interested to learn that the CDMA version of the Xiaomi M1 finally will be coming out at the end of March. It’s going to cost you 2199 RMB though, 200 RMB more than the WCDMA version that’s out already.