Lei Jun

Lei Jun is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Xiaomi Corporation, one of the world's largest consumer technology companies. Born in 1969 in Hubei Province, Lei was already a tech industry legend before Xiaomi — he led Kingsoft Software (China's Microsoft equivalent) for 16 years and was an angel investor in numerous successful startups. He founded Xiaomi in 2010 at age 40, inspired by Steve Jobs's approach to product design. Lei's genius was the realization that hardware margins were going to zero, so he built Xiaomi around a radical business model: sell smartphones and IoT devices at near-cost, then profit from internet services, MIUI software, and an ecosystem of connected products. This approach let Xiaomi offer flagship-level specs at half the price of Samsung and Apple, rapidly capturing market share in China, India, and Southeast Asia. By 2025, Xiaomi was the world's third-largest smartphone maker with a massive IoT ecosystem of over 800 million connected devices. In 2021, Lei announced the most daring pivot of his career: Xiaomi would build an electric car, and he would personally lead the project as "the last major startup of his life." Skeptics were abundant — no tech company had successfully entered the auto industry. But the Xiaomi SU7, launched in March 2024, became a phenomenon. Priced competitively against the Tesla Model 3 and styled to rival Porsche, the SU7 accumulated 100,000 orders in its first month. Lei's social media presence — millions of followers watching him personally test-drive and explain engineering details — created marketing that no traditional automaker could match. Lei Jun's decisions on EV production ramp-up (targeting 300,000+ units in 2025), the SU7 Ultra performance variant, international EV expansion timing, and maintaining smartphone margins while funding automotive losses are the key variables for Xiaomi's stock. His unique ability to generate consumer excitement through personal charisma and internet-native marketing makes him the most culturally influential CEO in Chinese tech.