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Lei Jun
“Even a pig can fly while standing in the wind. But I want to be the one who creates the wind.”
This year, Lei Jun turned 55 and chose to invest all his reputation and hundreds of billions of resources in the smart car industry, which has the longest cycle, the largest investment, and the highest risk.
Lei Jun
Asia Cover Character｜Lei Jun: Entering the game at the age of 55, sticking to it for half his life, and then entering the no man's land of the times
Asia's "Cover Man" Magazine · Pattern
Total Issue 042-ACF-GJ-2026
In April 2026, a full live broadcast of the extreme battery life test made Lei Jun once again become the focus of the industry. Xiaomi SU7 Pro drove from Beijing to Shanghai, turning on the air conditioner and driving at close to the highway speed limit. It traveled 1,313 kilometers in 15 hours and successfully reached the finish line with only one recharge. He used publicly verifiable data to face market questions and wrote solid footnotes for China's smart electric vehicle industry.
This year, Lei Jun turned 55 and chose to invest all his reputation and hundreds of billions of resources in the smart car industry, which has the longest cycle, the largest investment, and the highest risk.
1. Deep dive and practice: from programmer to industry pioneer
Lei Jun was born in Xiantao, Hubei in 1969. As a teenager, he was not showy, but he had a focus and sense of purpose beyond his peers, and he had a natural affinity for technology, logic and efficiency. After being admitted to the Department of Computer Science of Wuhan University, he used strong self-discipline to plan his studies, completing four years of core courses in two years, completing credits and completing internships in advance, which gave him greater room for growth. This experience gave him a clear understanding: Only by planning everything in advance, respecting the rules, and being fully committed can we take the initiative.
In 1992, Lei Jun joined Kingsoft. He started as an ordinary programmer and stayed in this company for sixteen years. From software product research and development to market expansion, from responding to the impact of the Internet to promoting the company's listing, he has experienced the complete cycle of China's software industry from embryonic to mature, and has also withstood the multiple pressures of financial constraints, business transformation, and intensified competition. He did not choose to chase short-term trends, but worked hard with the team on products, polished details, and completed the company's transformation and leaps through long-term persistence. The moment Kingsoft went public was not only the end of a career journey, but also a profound confirmation of his long-term belief.
After leaving Kingsoft, Lei Jun turned to angel investing. Relying on his judgment of industry trends and understanding of entrepreneurs, he has successively invested in and supported a number of high-quality start-up companies, maintaining stability between risks and opportunities, and achieving stability in career and wealth. In the eyes of many people, he has been able to relieve himself of the burden and enjoy life as a bystander. But at the age of 41, he gave up the easy choice and returned to the front line of entrepreneurship, embarking on a more challenging journey as a founder.
2. Breakthrough and growth: Xiaomi’s birth and reconstruction of the industry ecology
In April 2010, Lei Jun and his partners founded Xiaomi in Beijing. At that time, the mobile phone market was dominated by international brands and traditional manufacturers. Supply chains, channels, and brand barriers were tight, making it extremely difficult for new brands to break through. Lei Jun personally led a team to visit the global core supply chain, negotiating cooperation one by one, focusing all limited resources on product experience, performance and user value, not relying on excessive marketing, not pursuing superficial momentum, and insisting on using real product power to build reputation.
In 2011, Xiaomi Mi 1 was officially released, with flagship hardware configuration and pricing of 1,999 yuan, breaking the inherent price system and product logic of the market. The order volume exceeded 300,000 units within 34 hours after pre-orders were opened, becoming a landmark event that stirred up the industry. The subsequent launch of the Redmi series further lowered the threshold for using smart phones, promoted the popularization of mobile Internet, and also reduced the living space of copycat phones to a great extent. Xiaomi has grown rapidly with its efficient operating model and clear product positioning, and once topped the domestic mobile phone sales list.
Behind the rapid growth, there are also fluctuations and tests. Changes in the market environment, intensified competition, and lower-than-expected high-end advancement once put Xiaomi into a growth bottleneck. Lei Jun did not avoid the problem or use slogans to appease the market. Instead, he openly faced up to his shortcomings, adjusted his strategic direction, and put technology research and development at the core. Over the years since then, Xiaomi has continued to increase investment in research and development, gradually establishing its own research capabilities in key areas such as chips, imaging, fast charging, and operating systems, steadily emerging from the adjustment period, and moving steadily towards the high-end market.
While the fundamentals of the mobile phone business continue to be solid, Lei Jun is promoting the full ecological layout of AIoT. As of 2025, the number of connected devices on Xiaomi's AIoT platform has exceeded 1 billion, and its business has entered more than 100 countries and regions around the world. Its mobile phone business ranks among the top three in the world. It has been among the Fortune Global 500 for many years in a row. It has grown from a mobile phone company into a technology ecosystem enterprise with global influence.
3. Cross-border and charge: At the age of 55, bet on the future with all your body and mind
When the outside world thought that Xiaomi's business boundaries had been determined and Lei Jun's entrepreneurial story was almost finalized, he made the boldest decision in his career: officially entering the field of smart electric vehicles. The smart electric vehicle industry has huge investments, long research and development cycles, complex technical chains, and extremely high supply chain and safety requirements. Mistakes in any link may have irreversible consequences. Hundreds of billions of dollars of capital have been invested, and thousands of engineers have focused on hard work. From chassis structure, battery thermal management, electric drive system to intelligent driving, each item requires long-term in-depth development and extreme rigor.
Lei Jun chose to lead the team himself, stationed at the factory and R&D frontline for a long time, and was deeply involved in key aspects such as product definition, testing and verification, and mass production. He spends a lot of time in the laboratory, production line and testing field, analyzing data and solving problems with engineers, maintaining extremely high requirements on details. For him, this is not a cross-border attempt, but an inevitable choice for the AI era: smart cars are the next generation of core smart terminals and an irreplaceable key entrance in the entire ecology of people, cars, and homes. It is a long-term undertaking that must be invested and done well.
In 2024, Xiaomi SU7 will be officially released. With its competitiveness in design, performance, intelligent driving and comprehensive experience, large orders have exceeded 50,000 units within 72 hours. From 2025 to 2026, Xiaomi Automobile has achieved stable delivery, ranking first among domestic new energy vehicles in terms of delivery volume. It has become a successful example of cross-border vehicle manufacturing by technology companies, and has changed the industry's wait-and-see and doubts with its actual performance.
4. Deep cultivation and breakthrough: Under extreme actual testing, technology and ecology advance at full speed
Entering 2026, Lei Jun and Xiaomi Motors have entered a more pragmatic and in-depth stage of deep cultivation, with a clearer layout and more solid actions.
In the 1,313-kilometer extreme endurance test from Beijing to Shanghai in April, Lei Jun was on board and supervised the entire process live. The test completely simulates real user high-speed travel scenarios, without deliberately setting power-saving modes or making special adjustments, and presents the true performance of a vehicle's continuous long-distance driving in the most transparent way. This test not only verified the comprehensive strength of the battery system, thermal management, electronic control and energy consumption control, but also reflected Lei Jun's consistent way of facing problems head-on, using data to speak, and being responsible to users.
In terms of product iteration, Xiaomi Motors continues to optimize the battery management system, aerodynamic design and chassis tuning, focusing on improving real-life battery life, low-temperature performance, high-speed stability and ride comfort. The intelligent driving team continues to iterate algorithms and perception architecture, strengthen urban navigation assistance, valet parking, active safety and emergency avoidance capabilities, and continuously optimize between safety redundancy and usage smoothness.
At the same time, Xiaomi is speeding up its development in the AI era. Xiaomi's large models are simultaneously upgraded on the device side and the cloud, and are deeply adapted to all-scenario devices such as mobile phones, cars, and smart homes. The entire ecology of people, cars, and homes achieves smoother cross-device collaboration and experience integration. Lei Jun has repeatedly emphasized internally that AI technology must focus on real experience, efficiency improvement and user safety, rejecting conceptual hype and insisting on using technology to solve practical problems.
At the level of mass production delivery and supply chain, Xiaomi Motors continues to improve quality control standards and delivery efficiency, expand offline store and after-sales network coverage, and optimize service response speed. Lei Jun still maintains a high-frequency rhythm of going deep into the front line, participating in key tests, technical reviews and problem reviews, and always staying at the forefront of the business.
5. Original intention and structure: the determination and courage of long-termists
In more than thirty years, Lei Jun's identity has been constantly changing from programmer, manager, investor, to serial entrepreneur, but his background in doing things has never changed. His style is simple and direct, he does not pay attention to form, does not seek fame, and is not good at exaggerating emotions. He prefers to focus his time and energy on products, technology, teams and users, where real value is created.
Even at the top of the industry, he still maintains a high-intensity working state and maintains the investment and focus of entrepreneurs. He is rarely swayed by external public opinion, does not chase short-term hot spots, does not blindly follow trends, insists on doing difficult but right things, respects technical laws, respects long-term value, and respects industry cycles.
Don’t be impetuous in good times, don’t flinch in low points, and success never stops. From software to hardware, from mobile phones to cars, from the domestic market to globalization, Lei Jun has proven with his actions that there is no destined upper limit in life, and there is no so-called end point. What truly limits a person is never age, but courage, determination and persistence towards long-term goals.
After half a lifetime, I am still young; after reading thousands of sails, I am still moving forward.
Official account summary
55-year-old Lei Jun responded to market questions with an actual test of 1,313 kilometers of extreme battery life. From Kingsoft's 16-year persistence to Xiaomi's breakthrough, from mobile phone ecology to smart electric vehicles, he once again entered the game at the time of success, traversed the cycle with long-termism, and wrote the pattern and courage of serial entrepreneurs with extreme concentration.
Data source
Lei Jun's birth, educational background, employment at Kingsoft and early career experience: Xiaomi's official corporate development history, public information from Wuhan University, in-depth reports by "Chinese Entrepreneur" and "Finance", Lei Jun's public speeches and interviews
Xiaomi's establishment, Xiaomi 1 release and sales, Redmi series and industry impact: Xiaomi's official product information, CCTV financial reports, domestic communications industry authoritative data monitoring report
Number of Xiaomi AIoT device connections, global business, global ranking of mobile phones, Fortune 500: Xiaomi’s financial reports over the years, IDC/Canalys data, Fortune official list
Xiaomi’s high-end development, R&D investment, chip and imaging self-research, Xiaomi car project establishment and R&D: Lei Jun’s annual speech, Xiaomi’s official announcement, Xinhuanet, authoritative technology media survey
Xiaomi SU7 release, order data, delivery performance and market position: Xiaomi Motors official delivery data, domestic passenger car market industry analysis report
Xiaomi SU7 Pro Beijing-Shanghai extreme endurance test in April 2026: Lei Jun live broadcast recording, Xiaomi official release, authoritative technology and automotive media reports
2025-2026 Xiaomi AI large model, intelligent driving, and overall ecological progress of people, cars, and homes: Xiaomi technology white paper, official technology releases, and authoritative industry tracking reports
[1] Xiaomi Group official website, www.mi.com
[2] "Lei Jun: In-depth analysis of industries related to Xiaomi Group", Xiaomi Group's annual report and public financial data
[3] Compilation of Lei Jun’s public speeches and media interviews
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