Lei Jun

Lei Jun is the visionary founder, chairman, and CEO of Xiaomi, one of the world's largest smartphone manufacturers and a pioneering force in making high-quality technology accessible to consumers everywhere. Often called the 'Steve Jobs of China' for his charismatic product presentations and relentless focus on user experience, Lei Jun built Xiaomi from a startup in 2010 into a global technology giant with annual revenues exceeding $40 billion. His innovative business model — offering premium-quality hardware at near-cost prices while building an ecosystem of connected devices and services — disrupted the global smartphone industry and proved that excellence and affordability could coexist.

Before founding Xiaomi, Lei Jun had already built an impressive career in Chinese technology. He served as CEO of Kingsoft, one of China's oldest software companies, and was an early and highly successful angel investor in companies like UCWeb and YY. These experiences gave him deep insight into both software development and consumer behavior, which he synthesized into Xiaomi's unique approach to building products. His ability to combine the best elements of hardware engineering, software development, e-commerce, and community building into a single cohesive strategy set Xiaomi apart from its competitors.

Xiaomi's expansion beyond smartphones into a vast ecosystem of smart home devices, wearables, electric vehicles, and lifestyle products has been one of the most ambitious product diversification strategies in modern technology. Lei Jun's vision of connecting every aspect of daily life through affordable, well-designed technology has resonated with hundreds of millions of consumers, particularly young, tech-savvy users in emerging markets. His recent bold move into electric vehicles with the Xiaomi SU7 demonstrates his continuing willingness to take on new challenges and expand the boundaries of what Xiaomi can achieve.

Lei Jun was born in 1969 in Xiantao, Hubei Province, China. A precocious student with a passion for technology, he was deeply inspired by a biography of Steve Jobs that he read during his freshman year at Wuhan University. That book ignited a lifelong ambition to build products that would change the world. Lei Jun completed his four-year computer science degree in just two years, graduating as one of the top students in his class. After graduation, he joined Kingsoft, a Chinese software company, where he rose rapidly through the ranks to become CEO by age 29. He led Kingsoft for over a decade, growing it into one of China's leading software companies and taking it public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. But it was his founding of Xiaomi in 2010, at the age of 40, that cemented his legacy as one of China's most important technology entrepreneurs.