Xiaomi Founder Lei Jun: The People’s Entrepreneur
- Kachun To
- 25. Apr.
- 9 Min. Lesezeit
This blog explores what distinguishes innovative Chinese tech companies and their leaders as global pioneers. Its goal is to distill entrepreneurial, strategic, and managerial insights that anyone can learn from. This blog does not conduct a 360° examination, it takes on the perspective of the author as an entrepreneur and business man to distill lessons we can adopt. As with all individuals and entities who have accumulated wealth and power, there is wider societal and moral impact associated with their success. However, these aspects will not be my focus.
Today we shed a light on Xiaomi founder Lei Jun.
Often hailed as the Steve Jobs of China, Lei Jun superficially shares many similarities with the late visionary Apple founder. Lei Jung openly admits that Jobs inspired him in his early youth through the book Fire in the Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer. He emulates Jobs' style with simple clothing when announcing new products and, most prominently, he founded Xiaomi, the world’s third-largest smartphone manufacturer, known for its quality at affordable prices.
In this article, I explore Jun’s journey and find that it redefines what it means to be a "people's entrepreneur" in the digital age. In an era where tech moguls often seem detached from everyday realities, Lei Jun stands apart as being seen as someone who built a $170 billion empire while staying rooted in the struggles and aspirations of ordinary people. He embodies a rare trifecta: a visionary who emerged from the masses, innovates with the masses, and dedicates his work to the masses.
While most famous for Xiaomi phones, his career encompasses much more. As CEO of Kingsoft, Lei Jung competed head-to-head with Microsoft Office. He has invested in hundreds of companies, including the streaming platform iQiyi and EV manufacturers NIO and Xpeng. Though Xiaomi started with smartphones, it has since become an Internet of Things (IoT) company with a vast product portfolio (the "Xiaomi ecosystem") and has recently ventured into the EV market its Xiaomi SU7 Series. The leap from smartphones to electric vehicles is especially notable given Apple’s highly publicized failure to do the same despite over a decade of development and billions spent.
When Lei Jun launched Xiaomi in 2010 he was already 40. Although he had led office software maker Kingsoft to an USD80 million IPO in Hongkong in 2007, he was disappointed. “We battled Microsoft for 16 years, held our ground, but lost the golden 10 years of the internet,” he later reflected.
Since the age of 18, he had wanted to "create a global leader," but Kingsoft had failed to achieve worldwide relevance. His next venture, however, would revolutionize the meaning of a tech company and change the lives of millions across the globe.
By the People: The Crowdsourced Tech Revolution
Unbeknownst to many outside China, Lei Jun has a massive social media following (over 25 million followers on weibo, China’s third largest social media platform with over 600 million monthly active users) and a fiercely loyal fan base. He is known for his down-to-earth personality and approachable nature, both online and offline.
When he started Xiaomi, he turned Silicon Valley’s "genius founder" model on its head. Instead of dictating innovation with a top-down vision, he harnessed the collective wisdom of his customers with two revolutionary means:
Direct Customer Engagement: When Xiaomi was founded, every Xiaomi team member, including product managers and engineers, was required to interact directly with customers via internet forums and social media. Users were frequently invited to participate in product development meetings to share their needs and feedback.
User Led Development: Lei Jun built a Xiaomi Community inviting power users and super fans to be part of the development process. Their suggestions and feedback were taken into account and new features are updated every week in MIUI OS beta version, which would go on to be integrated in the stable version every 1-2 months). Jun let the community vote for which features to develop and prioritize.
This frequent interaction allowed Xiaomi to crowdsource innovative ideas from its community of hundreds of thousands of passionate "hobby product designers" instead of telling their users how to use any feature. When users complained about the difficulty of recording calls without a 3rd party app, Xiaomi added a one-tap recording button on the call screen. When users wanted a more fast and polite way to decline calls, Xiaomi introduced an option to send an automatic message, which could be customized. Features that we take for granted now but were not obvious at that time and are among the many examples that Xiaomi pioneered
This approach goes beyond traditional customer-centricity. Xiaomi doesn’t just listen to customers—it acts on their feedback, integrating their ideas into real product features in a timeframe that matters to the users asking for the same.
Lei Jun’s humility and trust in his user base have led to superior quality and exceptional value for customers. Unlike Steve Jobs, who was revered as a lone genius, Lei Jun is celebrated as a friend to users, “Make friends with users and be the coolest company in the users’ hearts” is Xiaomi’s vision statement. His fan base is so devoted that they serve as Xiaomi’s most powerful brand ambassadors, driving sales through enthusiastic word-of-mouth while the affordable pricing helps, especially in cost conscious but big market countries like India
For the People: Technology Egalitarianism
Lei Jun’s friendship with customers extends beyond listening to them—it’s about offering true value for money. In his biography, he pointedly asks "Can you call yourself a friend if you overcharge?".
This philosophy has saved millions of customers money worldwide. Compared to Apple and Samsung, Xiaomi consistently offers devices with similar specs at significantly lower prices.
Lei Jun states in his biography, that to make sure Xiaomi’s first smartphone had comparable quality with Apple, he only used the same suppliers Apple was using - from display to the tiniest screw. How does Xiaomi offer almost half the price of its competition? Direct sales without distributors help cut out the middleman, but the true reason is: Xiaomi hardly makes any money on its hardware.
In 2018, Lei Jun made a bold pledge: Xiaomi’s hardware profit margin would never exceed 5%. Since then, the company has maintained an even lower margin, averaging around 1%.
To cement that the pledge would be kept even after Lei Jung was not at the helm anymore, he made it a part of its IPO prospectus at the Hong Kong stock exchange. Investors were furious, but the whole management team was united in making the pledge irrevocable. At the end Lei Jun convinced their investors that “Good companies earn profits, great companies win hearts - if you agree to this, you are going to own a great company”.
His mission didn’t stop at smartphones. Since 2016, Xiaomi expanded to become an Internet of Things company. He has disrupted industries by producing high-quality smart home appliances at accessible prices—from TVs and kitchen devices to vacuum cleaners and even smart plugs. His goal? To force industries to offer customers a better deal. “Going for quality is not a convenient strategy—it is a test of your values,” he says.
This philosophy, which he calls "technology egalitarianism," is based on the belief that technology should be accessible to everyone. Millions of Xiaomi customers around the world can attest to this impact.
Unlike many tech billionaires, Lei Jun seems to really walk the talk of using technology to improve people’s lives. How did he become the humble people’s entrepreneur?
Of the People: A Son of Humble Beginnings
Born in 1969 to schoolteacher parents in rural Xiantao, Hubei, Lei Jun grew up in poverty with no connections to speak of. In 1969, Hubei’s GDP per capita was just USD80. Rural China at that time meant poverty, far from the middle-class lifestyle one might associate with teacher parents today.
Lei Jun lifted himself out of poverty through education and relentless hard work. After graduating from Hubei Mianyang Middle School, he joined Wuhan University’s prestigious computer science program. With exceptional talent and diligence, he completed his degree in just two years instead of the usual four.
He began making money through programming, including developing China’s first antivirus program, Immunity 90, in 1989. His work earned him both financial success and a strong reputation in the software industry. However, the gruelling all-nighters took a toll, and he was hospitalized with a tuberculosis infection.
Where most would have slowed down after such an illness, Lei Jun never wavered. In 1992, he started as the sixth employee at Kingsoft, an office application company. There, he earned the title of "model worker" (劳模), working relentlessly for 16 hours a day. His philosophy was simple: "Through diligence, I can close the gap with genius."
At Kingsoft, Lei Jun fought an uphill battle against the software giant Microsoft. Yet, through relentless effort and many worked through nights, he and his team managed to compete with a dominant rival. Today, WPS is China’s leading office software, boasting 271 million monthly active users (MAUs) on desktop and 328 million MAUs on smartphones—a testament to Lei Jun’s success.
Even today, despite his success, he hasn’t slowed down. His work ethic revolves around mastering what he calls "stupid work"—a term associated with the Chinese phrase “Intelligent people must do the dumb work” (聪明人更要下笨功夫). This refers to the tedious but essential groundwork that many "smart people" try to avoid: paying attention to details, double-checking results, and putting in the extra mile. According to Lei Jun, not taking shortcuts but internalizing these habits separate the talented from the truly successful.
Despite his talent, Lei Jun doesn’t consider himself special—he simply puts in the "stupid work," believing it levels the playing field for those without natural genius. This work ethic is universally accessible, making him an inspiration for underdogs everywhere.
His humility stands out in the tech world, where big visions and "fake it till you make it" attitudes dominate.
The People’s Capitalistic Activist
Lei Jun’s ethos extends to his latest venture: Xiaomi’s SU7 electric vehicle. Despite being 54, he still works 16-hour days, taking bold risks in entirely new industries. Its competitive pricing at launch has already pressured rivals to cut costs. His reasoning? "I want to drive the EV industry to become better."
Perhaps it’s fair to call Lei Jun a capitalist activist—a rare breed in today’s tech world. In today’s tech world where everyone is building barriers of entry with their technology, brand or economies of scale to skim off ever larger margins, his promise to keep hardware margins under 5% makes him sound more like an activist for the people than a tech entrepreneur.
Lei Jun also engages in other ways to help people and give back to the community. He has reportedly donated 5 billion CNY, out of which 1.3 billion went to his alma mater, Wuhan University, in hopes of lifting more children out of poverty through education, just as he did.
He has invested in hundreds of startups and has offered his network and advice to the tech community. His investment philosophy is to “help without disturbing.”
Despite his immense success, Lei Jun remains humble and continues to be an entrepreneur of the people: On the big stage during product announcements, he performs deep 90-degree bows to his audience as a gesture of gratitude and respect. He actively reads and listens to user feedback, ensuring he stays connected with his customers. He even goes as far as personally opening car doors for his customers, demonstrating his down-to-earth nature. It’s rare to see someone reach such heights of influence and wealth and remain so grounded—especially when compared to another high-profile EV entrepreneur Elon Musk, who often draws criticism for his brash and arrogant behavior, from dismissing critics on social media to making bold, unfiltered statements that alienate investors and customers.
After his exhausting battle during the Kingsoft days, when he missed out on the “golden 10 years of the internet,” he famously remarked that, in the future, he wanted to be a “pig in the eye of the storm.” Most people interpreted this as Lei Jun expressing his desire to enter the right market at the right time, ensuring his next venture would be positioned for success.
In his biography, however, he later clarified the real meaning behind this statement: he is the pig. The point of the metaphor was not just about catching the right market wave but about being humble, persistent, and open to learning. He concludes that a pig may seem an unlikely creature to fly, but if it relentlessly prepares by doing the “stupid work”, when the storm comes, it will take off.
This philosophy defines Lei Jun’s career—a man who never forgets his modest beginnings and continues to inspire others to believe that they, too, can become a flying pig.
Lei Jun is an exceptional entrepreneur in his own right—one who should not stand in Jobs’ shadow. In reality, he displays many characteristics that are the complete opposite of the notoriously stubborn Steve Jobs, making him an entrepreneur of the people, by the people, for the people.
If there’s a Chinese entrepreneur, executive, or company you’d like to learn more about, feel free to reach out!
Further Readings:
Lei Jun’s biography 小米创业思考 ISBN: 9787521745276