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Ren Zhengfei – The Founder of Huawei

Founder, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

Revolutionary ideas are changing the way we live (of living) our lives. Humans have surpassed their genius and brought innovations which are making this world a better place. As they say, there’s no age limit for you to take charge of your life and invent something that would bring a revolution in the world. While most of today’s innovative start-ups are coming from youngsters the story of Huawei is something entirely different. The Chinese tech giant came into existence when its founder was in his forties. His determination led him to start a company which now is valued over $140 billion.

Early Life

Born on October 25th, 1944 in Anshun, China, Ren Zhengfei to a school president father and schoolteacher mother. His father worked as an accounting clerk in a government arms factory. Ren completed his secondary school and went on to attend Chongqing University in 1960. From there, he joined People’s Liberation Army research institute, to work as a military technologist in the IT unit. Due to his innovations and achievements, he was recognized at various levels and was selected to attend the National Science Conference in 1978 as a PLA delegate.

He retired from the army in 1983 after nine years when the Chinese government discontinued the whole engineering unit. After retiring, Ren went on to work with Shenzhen South Sea Oil Corporation. But soon left the job in 1987 as it was not as satisfactory work as per his talent. By the time he left Shenzhen, he had capital of about sh10 million.

The Beginning of Huawei

Ren founded Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd the same year as he left Shenzhen. With the initial investment of 21,000 yuan (about $5000) Huawei’s first business was to sell telephone exchange equipment from Hong Kong. He took the position of Chief Executive Officer and lead the company to make it the world’s third top smartphone selling brand after Apple and Samsung.

Ren Zhengfei
Image Source: www.flickr.com

Huawei focuses on manufacturing different components required for the electronic gadgets. Almost every electronic gadget is made with components made by Huawei. Apart from smartphones and small components, Huawei dominates the market in producing the highest mobile devices like routers, broadband, and 4G network devices. Huawei became the first firm to roll out 5G network across the world.

Ownership

Unlike other big firms, Huawei’s ownership is held by its 85,000 employees. All the employees hold a percentage of the company’s share. That leaves only 1.4% share stake with Ren Zhengfei valued at $450 million, as of 2010. Ren still remains the founder of Huawei and is respected by the employees.

Joe Kelly, Huawei’s VP for international media relations, says, “Zhengfei relinquished ownership of the firm to employees to guarantee its continuity and attract talent.” The company’s campus at Shenzhen in Guangdong province is surrounded with trees and makes a beautiful sight for the workers.

Unique Working Style

Huawei is probably the only company to follow a unique leadership style. Most of the decisions are made by the engineers in the company. Company’s day to day activities are run by three different executives, each one of them retains the position of CEO every six months on a rotational basis. Ren introduced this strategy which was inspired by the migration of the birds. Kelly further added, “Birds migrate in a ‘V’ formation, and engineering shows that the bird at the apex takes the heaviest burden.”
ally, this rotation system helps the company from facing bad politics. Often workers in a corporation tend to follow a certain person, which might create an imbalance among the company’s workforce. But, the rotation system gives equal chance to each one of the leaders to show their talent and take the company forward.

Investment in Research

Huawei is an active investor in innovative research projects and invests 10% of its annual revenue into R&D. The research department holds over 10,000 patents and keeps innovating each year than the previous one.

Ren is an active supporter of Communist Party of China. The company is growing rapidly and Forbes has estimated Zhengfei’s wealth at $2.1 billion. Although he is a billionaire, Zhengfei prefers a low profile lifestyle and even travels on the public transport. He lives with his daughter Cathy Meng who is also the CFO of Huawei.

William Ding Lei

Founder, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

“Life is just like chocolates with liquor and you never know what’s inside”, said a man who dreamt of being an excellent mechanical engineer and is now the richest person in China. Being the most populated country, China also offers numerous opportunities to individuals to invent a product or a service that millions of people can use on the go. William Ding , the founder of NetEase, did just the same. Keeping money as his secondary target Ding aimed for something extraordinary that would evolve China.

Early Life
Born on 1st October, 1971 in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China, Ding was interested in electronics from the early age of 13. And at 16 he managed to assemble electronic parts to make six transistor radios. Ding earned a bachelor’s degree from Chengdu College of Electronic Science and Technology. Just after graduation he took a job as an engineer in the local state department. He quit that job soon to join Sybase in Guangzhou. After working there for a while William Ding decided to go on his own and start a company.

The Birth of NetEase
It was 1997 when Ding finally started his own venture with dozen other employees. The company, for first two years, focused on development of Internet applied software, one of its kind in China, a bilingual e-mail system. The e-mail system quickly earned popularity and became buzz of the town. William Ding then conceptualized and brought the company into new light by hosting a search engine platform and microblogging on NetEase. The next thing they knew was NetEase becoming the largest internet portal in China.

NetEase then ventured into their most profitable launch ever – multiplayer gaming. NetEase’s gaming portal has thousands of massively popular games one of which is World of Warcraft. Millions of players from China as well as the whole world visit NetEase to play these multiplayer games. This web portal has made Ding Lei the richest man in China with billions of net worth. Popularly known as the ‘video game billionaire’ in China Ding Lei has made it to the top by creating opportunities for himself. In one of his interviews Ding Lei said, “Smart guys seize opportunities and never let them slip between their fingers. And those who think themselves weak always wait for opportunities.” The engineering genius considered Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison as his heroes. His intellect and love for reading always made him stand out among his classmates. During his college he chose to read as many IT books as possible from the school library rather than to focus on getting high marks. Ding Lei often raised questions which would be so unique that they sounded weird.

His constant reading and practicing what he believed led him to write an entire software code unlike his other classmates. He also quit good paying job to pursue his dream.

Ding Lei’s Goals
Lei considers NetEase as a responsibility towards users, clients, investors, and employees. His aim was to make gaming enjoyable, educational and believes that the next decade will see a massive rise in e-business. William Ding believes in talent and spends both time and money to upgrade skills his employees through training. He prefers to personally recruit people from his own alma mater and other colleges and universities.

Apart from the internet business Ding Lei plans to bring the farmers who have lost their farms for factories back into business. He plans to invest in organic farming to produce quality food. He can, thus, bring some of the country’s capital towards countryside. His another share for the Chinese people is to make them literate. Lei has appointed a team who translated American college lessons into Mandarin with subtitles.

Despite of his busy schedule, Lei has particular time devoted for his study. He likes to read as many books on IT as possible and to increase his knowledge base. In 2004 he was awarded as the ‘Technology Change Agent for Innovative use of Technology’. He lives in Guangzhou with his wife Wang Xunfang.

Liu Chuanzhi Founder of Lenovo

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Hardships are the rigorous tests in a determined person’s life. Hardships come in numerous faces and it is this time when a human being’s ability and patience to deal and overcome the difficult time is tested. Those who come strong out of this deadly storm are the one’s who create history and make a difference in the world. Liu Chuanzhi is one such person who despite of humongous political constraints, managed to build a company which now ranks number two in the production of computers in the whole world.

Born on April 29, 1944 in Shanghai, China, Liu Chuanzhi grew up during the worst of times. Liu’s father was an executive with the Bank of China in Shanghai. However, his connections with the Chinese Communists would create a problem in Liu’s future. Liu’s childhood was encompassed with the years of unstable politics and tension in the government. In 1961, he admitted himself in Xian Military Communication Engineering College. Due to his father’s political connections Liu was not allowed to study sensitive subjects and he completed his graduation in 1966 specializing in Radar Systems. This course, however, exposed him for the first time to the computing world.

Just two years after graduation, Liu’s past yet again haunted him and sent him down for labor work. This time it was due to his anti-revolutionary ideas which led the officials to send him to work on a state-owned rice farm as a laborer and learn by living among the peasants from 1968 to 1970. By this time, the Chinese Academy of Sciences was reopened which was closed due to Chinese Cultural Revolution. Liu returned to his job at Beijing and went on to work as an engineer and an administrator. Liu provided a lion’s share in developing the 757 mainframe computer. He resigned from his job in 1984 to join Chinese Academy of Sciences – the place where the computer producing giant Lenovo would be born.

Early Days

After joining Chinese Academy of Sciences Liu stumbled upon an idea to start a computer company. But, there were multiple barriers standing in front of him and his dream. First, the Chinese government did not encourage start-ups and ran a strictly planned economy. So the funding from government was out of question. Second, for a scientist to jump into business was considered below one’s dignity and, therefore, the company Liu would start won’t have a single market expert who knows how the business should work. Despite of this barriers, Liu received a 200,000 yuan ($24,000 USD) loan from his superior at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Liu’s computer company, initially named Legend, was compared to the early days of Apple. The company’s manufacturing unit began in a small 20 square yards room in Beijing. The company worked on the research of magnetic storage technology in its initial stage. In 1985, Legend did something which no other computer company had ever done, they built a Chinese character set for computers. Since, the Chinese language consisted of huge number of characters it was almost an impossible task to bring all those characters in digital form. But, the development of a character set put Legend multiple steps ahead of any other company. Due to the lack of business knowledge the company often faced opinion problems among the members. But, Liu’s leadership and his study of other big companies like HP and IBM helped him to sketch an influential business and marketing strategy.

Legend started selling computers six years after its foundation, i.e., in 1990. And by 1996, the company climbed on top of the computer manufacturing company’s list surpassing IBM. Liu believed in young people in their energy and talent which could pave a way to keep the company on cutting edge of innovation and technology. Most of the company’s higher staff included young people during the 90s. By developing Pentium II processor Legend once again proved that they are and will always be on the top of the market.

The company saw its massive success in 2004 when they were declared as the largest PC manufacturing company. In 2006, Legend was renamed as Lenovo Group to enter into the UK and Europian market where the name ‘Legend’ was already trademarked. Legend also became the first company to join the sponsorship for Olympic Games held in Turin, Italy in 2006.

In 1995, the Chinese government honored Liu as the Model of National Work Force and Man of Reform in China. In 2005, Liu has also been listed in Time’s one of the 25 most influential global executives.

Steve Jobs of China: Lei Jun Founder of Xiaomi

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Recognized as the ‘Steve Jobs’ of China, Lei Jun  the Founder of Xiaomi has amassed a net worth of $8.4 billion. Xiaomi Inc. is the world’s fastest growing mobile phone company, who climbed to fourth position in a short span of time.

Lei Jun is not just an entrepreneur but much more than that. He is the mastermind behind the quick and astounding growth of Xiaomi Inc. Since the incubation of this company ten years back, today the company’s net worth is a whopping $45 billion. The company’s motive is to provide quality smartphones with high-end features in affordable price range. And they have stood to their point delivering the smartphones loved by the whole world.

Success only comes after a huge struggle and Lei Jun has faced all those hard times to become the most influential personality today. He was born on 16th December, 1969 in Hubei, China. Jun’s childhood was spent in an under developed industrial area of Wuhan, Central China. He graduated from Mianyang Middle School in 1987 and further went to Wuhan University to take a degree in Computer Science. And in 1991, he came out as a Bachelor’s student of Computer Science.

The most common ‘next step’ after gaining a degree is to find a suitable job. Lei Jun was also in the race to find one. His graduation days were spent in reading about the tech revolutionary Steve Jobs and dreaming to become like him one day. After wandering for a job Lei landed a job offer from Kingsoft, a software giant in China. Just within seven years Lei Jun was announced as the CEO and President of the company. During his time as a CEO Jun started an online bookstore. Joyo.com, in 2000 which went on to become so famous that it became number one fan base for the book lovers till 2004. The rising popularity of Joyo grabbed Amazon’s attention and they acquired it for a mind-blowing price of $75 million.

Lei Jun has made a unique image by not just being a CEO of Kingsoft. He is an active investor who has invested in numerous startups like Vancl.com, YY, UCWeb, etc. Jun has successfully funded more than 70 startups. In the year 2007, Lei Jun faced health complications leading him to resign from the CEO post and settle on Vice Chairman instead. This was when he seriously started thinking upon founding his own dream company, Xiaomi Inc. The company was started and garnered success Jun never even thought of.

Jun was featured in the Top 10 IT figures in 1999, 2000, and 2002. In 2012 the China Central Television chose him as one of the top 10 business leaders in China. Fortune has named Jun as the most powerful business personality in the whole Asia. Jun lives with his wife and two children in China.

Jack Ma: A self made billionaire

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E-commerce is one of the fastest growing segments in the industry. Many young entrepreneurs have tried their hands in this field but very few were able to taste success. One such hugely successful eCommerce business is Alibaba.

The man behind this extremely successful ecommerce business is Jack Ma. Today Ma the founder and executive chairman of Alibaba Group has an estimated net worth of $25 billion. Who would have imagined that a 5 feet tall Chinese man will lead Alibaba to a record breaking $25 billion IPO and become 18th richest person in the world? Alibaba’s IPO was bigger than Google, Facebook and Twitter combined.

Determination & persistence paves the way
Ma was born in Hangzhou, China. Lack of resources was never a excuse for him to learn or do something. In Childhood Ma developed a desire to learn English, so he started to converse with foreigners. For nine years he used to guide foreigners around the city for free to learn English. This opened the door to many entrepreneurial skills; from interacting with people to knowing their thought process; this somewhere pushed him to develop his own views on capitalism and entrepreneurship. During this course he became pen pals with one of these foreigners, and she nicknamed him “Jack”, because his real Chinese name Ma Yun was too difficult to pronounce.

But before he became the richest person in China, Ma went through a lot of rejections. Can you imagine the man behind Alibaba’s success was rejected by three universities?Quote JackMa2

Today world’s top universities and business schools like Harvard take pride in inviting Jack Ma for guest lectures whom once they were not ready to give admission. He was rejected by Harvard 10 times as a student. Jack Ma learnt from failures than through the formal channels of education.

He applied for 30 jobs and got rejected. Jack Ma once said, “When KFC came to China, 24 people went for the job…23 people were accepted. I was the only guy who wasn’t.” His journey from a failed man to a successful tech leader & entrepreneur is exemplary .

Ma’s first date with internet and rise of Alibaba
“Beer” was the first word that Jack Ma searched for on the internet- Really? Beer? Well, during his trip to US, he searched for “Beer” and then “China”, when no results came up, he decided to set up a Chinese website. He saw the web as the future of business and even tried to register the name Internet!
In 1995 he along with his wife and a friend founded an internet company called China Yellow Pages. This company made 5,000K Chinese Yuan (US$800K).

In 1999 he started Alibaba, a B2B marketplace along with his 17 friends. He chose the name Alibaba since it was unique and easy to spell and people were able connect with this name very easily. Alibaba.com allows merchants and companies to trade products online. Within a short period of time Alibaba became one of the largest websites online.

Ma is a larger-than-life figure. Even after reaching the great heights, Jack Ma is the exceptionally optimistic and determined. His journey to success is definitely one which will inspire you even in your darkest days. Jack Ma believes that “If you are still poor at 35, you deserve it!” His journey is a perfect example of a rag-to-riches story. The most important lesson is- when the dream is big enough, the facts don’t count.

Most of us indulge so much in making excuses about things that we even forget to make the best of every situation. We all give countless excuses everyday like lack of money, lack of good education and people around us always discourage us. The same was the case with Jack Ma, he had nothing to push him forward but his strong desire to excel made him the man he is today.

“We are never in lack of money. We lack people with dreams, who can die for those dreams” – Jack Ma