On the evening of February 3, Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi Technology, posted on Weibo that Xiaomi decided that Lu Weibing, President of Xiaomi Group, is also the general manager of the Xiaomi brand, and the Xiaomi mobile phone conference will also be delivered by Lu Weibing in the future, and the first is Xiaomi 14ultra. At the same time, Wang Teng will take over as general manager of the Redmi brand.
On the surface, it is equivalent to two less wonderful "Science and Technology Spring Festival Gala" every year. Behind this, it is not only the change of the keynote speaker, but also marks that Lei Jun has officially shifted the focus of his work from mobile phones to cars.
Of course, it's not quite right to say that it's completely "gone". Friends who like to watch Lei Jun and Yu Chengdong "love and kill each other", but there is no need to feel sorry, they just changed tracks. At the press conference of Xiaomi Automobile, we can still see Lei Jun's figure.
There is no doubt about the importance of car building for Xiaomi and Lei Jun. Lei Jun also emphasized at the press conference announcing the car building that making a car is the last major entrepreneurial project in his life, and he will gamble all his achievements and reputation in life to fight for Xiaomi Auto.
Even the cover of the red envelope sent by Lei Jun*** is a photo of him and Xiaomi Su7. It can be seen how important Lei Jun regards to building cars now.
Perhaps many people can't understand that Lei Jun, as the head of a large enterprise, still has to do everything himself? Screws don't need to be drawn by Lei, and drawings are not drawn by Lei, why can't you take care of mobile phones and cars?
In fact, Lei Jun, who is already a "model worker", made this decision, not only has to do it, but also is the best choice.
Saying that Lei Jun is a model worker is not just an adjective, because he really is. In 2020, Lei Jun was awarded the title of Beijing Model Worker.
And Lei Jun's "model worker" story is also a lot. Lei Jun once told such a memory in public: During the trough period of Xiaomi, he once held 23 meetings a day and worked 16 hours. Even now, Lei Jun works from morning to night all day, and in 2020, Lei Jun's Douyin recorded Lei Jun's day, from the first meeting at 9:30 in the morning to the end of the meeting at 11:30 in the evening, and there will be a meeting later. Although there may be a certain element of deduction, this must be a true portrayal of Lei Jun's daily work.
In other words, Lei Jun himself has been "saturated" in the mobile phone business. And building a car, especially from scratch, is a grinding thing.
Some time ago, He Xiaopeng, the founder of Xiaopeng Motors, joked on an interview column that if you want to "harm" someone, let him build a car. It can be seen that the energy required to build a car is definitely not lower than that of building a mobile phone.
And the founders of many new car-making forces have also put down their former business and devoted themselves to car building. For example, from Wei Xiaoli's example, the founders of the three companies have all had successful entrepreneurial experiences before.
In 2000, the founder of Li Auto, Ideal founded Bubble.com and began to operate, and since then it has founded the automobile portal **Autohome, which has been successfully listed on the U.S. stock market. In 2015, Li Xiang officially entered the field of new energy vehicles and established Chehejia (the predecessor of Li Auto), and it was in that year that Li Xiang stepped down as president of Autohome.
The founder of another automotive portal** also chose the track of new energy vehicles. In 2014, Li Bin, the founder of BitAuto.com, officially founded NIO. Although Li Bin did not immediately devote himself to the car-making business like Li Xiang, he also stepped down as the CEO of Yiche in 2018 and stepped down as a legal person and director of Yiche in 2021. 2018 is also an important year for NIO to start deliveries of ES8, ES6 to be listed, and NIO to be listed on the U.S. stock market.
He Xiaopeng, the founder of Xpeng Motors, who also came from the Internet, also began to go all out after a few years of building cars. In 2004, He Xiaopeng and Liang Jie officially founded UC Youshi, and in 2014, UC was integrated into Alibaba Group, and in the same year, He Xiaopeng and several partners co-founded Xiaopeng Motors. In 2017, He Xiaopeng left Alibaba and officially joined Xpeng Motors as chairman.
From these examples, we can also see the truth that one person can't drive two big boats. In the days when the mass production of Xiaomi cars is imminent, it has to be said that it is also the result of comprehensive consideration.
In fact, Lei Jun also has another option - delegating power to professional managers. After all, with Xiaomi's size, it is not difficult to recruit an experienced professional manager with experience in the automotive industry. There is also no shortage of car-making "veterans" with domestic and foreign experience in Xiaomi Auto.
But the founder leads the team, which is actually a very valuable and very important asset of a company.
In the past, when we evaluated some traditional car companies, we would attribute their slow transition to new energy vehicles due to the fact that fuel vehicles were too burdened and unwilling to abandon existing profits. But we ignore the "human" factor.
Traditional car companies are basically led by professional managers, and even some family-style managers like Akio Toyoda cannot be compared with the original founder of the company.
In response to this problem, Li Bin, the founder of NIO, once expressed his opinion that the company helmed by the founder will consider long-term interests more and do things that are beneficial to the long-term, while professional managers will be constrained by the performance of their tenure.
When the company deviates from the right track, the founder can also make adjustments to the company more effectively and quickly, and it is difficult to ask professional managers to change the traditional way of doing things in a traditional enterprise, which is equivalent to needing to deny those predecessors who have made many achievements.
In the early stage of entrepreneurship, another major advantage of the founder's leadership is that he is responsible for "clapping" the team. Take the current new energy vehicles as an example, the future development trend is definitely not single and unique, and there may be a variety of technical routes. For example, whether to use lidar or pure vision, lithium iron phosphate or ternary lithium, whether the first car is a sedan or an SUV, etc., if the team spends a lot of time and energy on the debate of the development model, or even begins to fall apart, it will definitely outweigh the gains.
But if there is a founder with "absolute right to speak" at this time, I believe that everyone will no longer have opinions.
Presumably, this is also the reason why Lei Jun decided to lead the team himself. This is the most efficient and successful approach.
In 2016, when Xiaomi mobile phones were in a life-and-death situation, Lei Jun directly took over the mobile phone department and led the company through the difficulties. When the time comes to 2024, although Xiaomi is no longer in the same tragic situation as it was at that time, Pinjia believes that Lei Jun will still look forward to "good things about to happen" for Xiaomi cars with the same state and enthusiasm.