On November 25, a big event happened at Xiaomi: a Xiaomi executive lost his position because of saying "diaosi".

The incident happened on the 21st at the Talent Development Forum of China's Leading Enterprises. Wang Mei, vice president of Qinghe University of Xiaomi Group, said that Xiaomi believes that "in the future world, those who win the diaosi will win the world."

After this comment was posted online, the rice fans quit:

"For eight years, I have always thought that I was a rice fan. Outsiders called us losers, and I couldn't help it. Crying. I didn’t expect that the official of the brand I have always loved thinks that we are losers.”

“It’s OK for consumers to laugh at themselves, but it’s very disrespectful for businesses to say this.”

It stands to reason that the head of a top-notch Internet company in a ghost town would end up saying "Are you not ok" just because the executive said something stupid?

The fear is that the leader himself is working hard to clean up the floor, while his subordinates are risking their lives to splash dirty water.

Early in the morning on November 19, Lei Jun showed off a wave of "Versailles-style" operations on Weibo: Last night at the Yabuli Forum, I told entrepreneurs about society's attitude towards Xiaomi. Several common misunderstandings.

Yabuli Forum, this is a place where popular entrepreneurs gather.

Lei Jun just finished explaining the misunderstanding in such a "high and high" place. Three days later, Xiaomi’s executives began to deepen their misunderstanding.

Suddenly, the trend in Lei Jun’s Weibo comment area changed drastically:

Having said that, isn’t Xiaomi’s reputation always like this? Why did Lei Jun feel aggrieved?

Thinking back to that night five years ago, Lei Jun and Xiaomi were so excited that they could not sleep all night because they became the "Machine King" in the eyes of "diaosi".

01

On November 10, 2015, the sky was getting dark little by little.

In the Xiaomi Company building in Qinghe, Beijing, Lei Jun led a group of Xiaomi backbones from the company to light a stick of incense.

He raised the incense high above his head and bowed devoutly three times to the statue of Guan Gong.

Immediately afterwards, this group of technical people worshiped Tmall dolls, transport truck models and transport aircraft models in sequence.

As soon as they bowed, everyone trotted back to their work stations, and no one made fun of them the whole time. Everyone understands that Xiaomi 5 has been postponed and whether the annual sales target of 100 million yuan can be achieved depends on Double Eleven.

"Xiaomi's Double Eleven is not just for one day, November 11, but for the first 11 days of November." Lei Jun encouraged all employees.

Lei Jun looked serious.

Previously, Lei Jun was famous for his hunger marketing. I have been wearing the "Monkey King" hat for several years, and it's time to take it off.

He announced to fans early that Xiaomi had fully prepared goods for this carnival.

Half a month ago, employees set up rows of camp beds in the company and piled tens of thousands of cans of Red Bull drinks into a mountain.

Xiaomi has prepared a 1 billion yuan purchase subsidy. This discount is the No. 1 among 3C electronics brands.

"It's going crazy! It's really crazy!" The designers in the copywriting team scratched their heads. Several people have been working for 45 days to optimize the page.

Lei Jun often "airborne" to the copywriting team, personally checking everything from the page structure to the font color.

A few hours before Double Eleven, Lei Jun called the design team together again: "There are still a few places that we will change."

We are fully prepared to become the sales champion.

However, Lei Jun did not expect that in the first 12 hours starting from midnight on the 11th, Meizu ranked first, Huawei ranked second, and Xiaomi only ranked third.

After 12 noon, it was revealed that Meizu was insufficiently stocked, and Xiaomi seized the opportunity to overtake. But Xiaomi only grabbed the second place.

There are more than 2 hours left on Double Eleven, and Xiaomi is still stuck in second place.

"In the past Double Eleven, we could play whatever we wanted. This year..." Zhu Lei, the sales president at the time, was a little discouraged and muttered.

Lei Jun took out his calculator and calculated repeatedly with a frown. He gritted his teeth and decided to issue another wave of mobile phone coupons: 50 yuan off all Xiaomi mobile phone categories.

Don’t underestimate 50 yuan. The more cost-effective a product is, the more sensitive it is to price.

In the last hour, the gap between Xiaomi and Huawei gradually narrowed; in the last half hour, Xiaomi made a comeback for the first time.

But it was quickly overtaken again. In the last 10 minutes, the first place was still changing...

The 24 o'clock bell rang, and Xiaomi finally stood on various e-commerce platforms. top of the list.

When the rankings were fixed, Xiaomi headquarters burst into violent cheers, and some employees burst into tears on the spot.

In this 24-hour battle, Xiaomi, a company that has just been established for 4 years, sold 1.16 million mobile phones, nearly 200,000 more than Huawei.

Xiaomi became the "King of Machines" and became a god.

"We have gone from being a pursuer in the industry to being pursued by the entire industry." Half a month later, Lei Jun wrote in an internal letter.

However, this is not the first time Lei Jun has become a god.

Before founding Xiaomi, Lei Jun was someone else’s child, standing on the top of a mountain and looking down at the world.

"My life was really perfect at that time!" Lei Jun said.

In 1987, Lei Jun, a top student from Hubei, successfully passed the Wuhan University. And this year, he was ignited by "Silicon Valley Fire".

After reading it, Lei Jun lay down, then got up to read the book, lay down again, then got up again to read the book. He was so excited that he couldn't sleep for several nights. "It felt like a fire was burning in my heart." ”

Inspired by this book, he set himself the first short-term goal in life: to complete the course in two years. For this reason he gave up his nap habit.

In his junior year, Lei Jun’s classmates were still rushing around in the teaching building for credits, but the program “homework” written by the genius Lei Jun had been included in the textbooks of Wuhan University.

After completing his short-term goals, Lei Jun still wants to do something bigger: change the world.

Fortunately, he is not only a genius, but also a model worker.

In early 1992, Lei Jun joined Kingsoft Company at the invitation of Qiu Bojun.

Upon entering Jinshan, Lei Jun devoted himself to the company. He works 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, and only takes 4-5 hours of rest every day.

In 6 years, he was promoted from development manager to deputy general manager, and soon to general manager.

Two years later, with the reorganization of Kingsoft’s shares, 31-year-old Lei Jun has become Kingsoft’s president.

On October 16, 2007, Kingsoft was listed in Hong Kong. At this time, Lei Jun, as chairman, was assigned shares worth more than HK$600 million and achieved financial freedom.

At this time, he was only 38 years old.

However, the world has changed at this time.

02

One month after Kingsoft was listed, in November 2007, Alibaba was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. On that day, Alibaba's market value reached US$26 billion.

The contrast between one’s own wealth and freedom and the wealth of others is too stark.

Recall that in 1998, 29-year-old Lei Jun served as the general manager of Kingsoft and was a man of the hour in Zhongguancun. At that time, Jack Ma was still raising money for the "China Yellow Pages" despite being called a "liar".

At that time, Ma Yun came to Lei Jun to ask for financing. Lei Jun, who was busy with everything, refused him and said: "With how busy I was at that time, it was not easy for me to meet you."

More than that. Jack Ma? That year, Ma Huateng was still busy promoting the stock bully card he developed; Robin Li was still working at a Silicon Valley search engine company; Zhou Hongyi only had some success and founded Beijing 3721 Technology Co., Ltd.

However, ten years later, this group of people has grown into the dominant players in the Internet industry.

On a snowy night in December 2007, friends gathered together to drink in a pub near Zhongguancun, Beijing, to wish Lei Jun his 40th birthday and to celebrate Lei Jun's achievement of financial freedom.

While drinking and drinking, Lei Jun was thoughtful.

"Forty is just the beginning, what are you afraid of!" Li Wanqiang, general manager of Kingsoft PowerWord, said to Lei Jun.

In fact, Li Wanqiang had long noticed the changes in Lei Jun.

"One time he came back and said that he was not used to this situation. He asked me how he had become a retired cadre."

"After Kingsoft went public, Lei Jun was very Lonely, saying that I was lost, I didn’t know what to do when I got up every morning.”

A few days after the party, on December 20, Jinshan received Lei Jun’s resignation letter.

Colleagues were very surprised. Lei Jun had always said that he could not leave Jinshan. Why did he just leave now?

In order to retain Lei Jun, Qiu Bojun talked to Lei Jun several times. He summarized Lei Jun’s core appeal: "How many 16 years can a person have in his life?"

Lei Jun worked diligently at Jinshan for 16 years from the time he graduated from college to 2007, and then he went to work for his fourth year in the blink of an eye.

Although Lei Jun received shares worth HK$600 million, how can HK$600 million be compared with US$26 billion?

At that time, Jinshan was suppressed by the two big mountains of piracy and Microsoft. It could only "support war with war", fight "guerrilla warfare", and pick up projects that the giants and piracy did not do.

"I don't know where food can be grown. We have to survive and pay wages. We are wandering between ideals and reality..."

Jinshan has not become world-class. Enterprise, Lei Jun was very sad.

After the birthday party, Lei Jun made up his mind to "end his efforts in one battle" and to realize his dream of a first-class enterprise in this life. He left Jinshan and started his own business for the second time.

In order to find the crux of Jinshan, Lei Jun thought at home for three years.

"I have been reflecting on it every day for the past three years. I woke up one day and realized that if you want to achieve success, diligence and hard work alone are far from enough." In 2010, Lei Jun lamented on Weibo.

He used his entrepreneurial experience in the first half of his life to condense: "When a typhoon comes, pigs can fly into the sky."

What is the typhoon of the 21st century? In Lei Jun's view, it is the Internet.

"We have experienced so many epochal opportunities. China's PC industry started, China's Internet industry started. There are so many historic opportunities for us. I didn't do it right at the right time. Things."

However, the typhoon of the Internet has turned into a red sea.

What Lei Jun is looking for is the next outlet.

As soon as Li Wanqiang heard that Lei Jun wanted to start a business, he came to follow Lei Jun.

"Do you know what I am going to do? Just follow me!" Lei Jun asked him.

"You want to make a mobile phone!" Li Wanqiang replied without hesitation.

He counted and found that he consumed and replaced 53 mobile phones in 16 years. On average, I replace 3 to 4 mobile phones a year. He feels that the potential of consumer electronics cannot be underestimated.

However, what Li Wanqiang did not expect was that Lei Jun would use Internet thinking to build consumer electronics.

In 2010, Lei Jun announced the establishment of Xiaomi.

The next year, Lei Jun entered the mobile phone market with the 1,999 yuan Xiaomi 1.

"Cancer"! "The pot-smasher"! Seeing Lei Jun's booming business and ultra-low selling prices, industry leaders scolded Lei Jun in unison.

Because at that time, new domestic mobile phones easily cost three to five thousand yuan, and the iPhone was once sold for more than 6,000 yuan.

But Lei Jun did not stop. He felt that the low-price high ground of Xiaomi Mi 1 would soon be lost as China Cool Alliance and Blue and Green Brothers accelerated their plans to sell products in the 2,000 yuan range.

Only by continuing to bargain down can we maintain our position. Lei Jun began to conceive of a smartphone priced at 1,000 yuan.

Two years later, Lei Jun successfully launched the Redmi series, priced at 699, 599, and 499 yuan, which was too low to be a genuine smartphone, or even a smartphone.

However, the first batch of 100,000 units of Redmi 1 was sold, and its pre-order customers have exceeded 9 million. More than 90 people competed for a Redmi.

Although the bosses were furious, they were not the ones Lei Jun really defeated. In other words, Xiaomi is not destroying its peers’ smartphones.

03

Whose market does Xiaomi occupy and rob?

Counterfeit phone.

Although copycat phones are not on the market, when Lei Jun was still ringing the bell for Kingsoft’s listing in Hong Kong, it was the well-deserved “King of Phones” in the domestic smart phone market.

In 2007, China's copycat mobile phone sales reached 150 million units, accounting for approximately 13% of global mobile phone shipments.

Speaking of copycat phones, one cannot fail to mention Huaqiangbei in Shenzhen.

This street of less than one kilometer was once home to 30,000 electronic product shops and 21 large-scale stores with an area of ??over 10,000 yuan, with an influx of 500,000 passengers every day, and annual sales of up to 37 billion yuan.

The reason why Huaqiangbei’s copycat phones are so awesome is due to the brutal and powerful performance of their products: super large speakers; 8 tickers; dual SIM cards and dual standby; MP3; MP4; MP5...

In other words, there is nothing you can't imagine but nothing you can't do.

The key is that a new smartphone costs three to five thousand yuan in the market, but in Huaqiangbei, you can get the "same model" for only one to two hundred yuan.

The reason why manufacturers in Huaqiangbei can realize ultra-low-priced copycat phones is inseparable from MediaTek, the "father of copycat phones." They purchase cheap chips from MediaTek and assemble them with cheap hardware. So, that's how it happened.

However, they did not expect that in 2011, MediaTek would transform and no longer be involved in copycat phones. Head to the genuine manufacturer without looking back. The low-price advantage of the copycat phones subsequently collapsed, and the price increased from one or two hundred to five or six hundred.

If genuine mobile phones and knock-off phones are priced at the same price, who would choose a knock-off phone?

As soon as the price of knock-off phones increases, Xiaomi will be in the spotlight.

After the sale of Red Rice, Huaqiangbei closed 1/4 of its stores, marking the first time there was a "tide of empty stores".

The net profits of major shopping malls fell by more than 10% in the first half of the year. The media called Lei Jun a "copycat phone killer."

For this reason, copycat phones also launched a crazy counterattack against Xiaomi.

In 2015, a "Xiaomi Store" was opened in Seoul, South Korea. Xiaomi officials just responded that the store was a copycat. Another copycat incident broke out in Germany as far away as Europe.

The problem of copycats in Germany has not yet been resolved, and imi has quickly gained popularity in Thailand and Southeast Asia. imi’s trademarks and dolls are very similar to Xiaomi...

30— 40 Xiaomi phones are all fake. The counterfeit rate of Xiaomi power bank is as high as 80%. The copycat phone made Lei Jun complain endlessly.

At the 2017 Two Sessions, Lei Jun denounced copycat phones.

However, just as Lei Jun put down the "copycat machine chaos", his own supply chain caught fire.

After the Battle of the Machine Kings ended in 2015, the sales of Xiaomi mobile phones began to decline sharply. Xiaomi, led by the genius Lei Jun, was originally in a good situation, but why did it suddenly encounter a crisis?

Supply chain.

Around the Spring Festival in 2015, Japanese mobile phone material suppliers flew to Beijing to meet Lei Jun at the scheduled time. However, there was a problem with the coordination of the supply chain department, which made the Japanese supplier wait at Xiaomi headquarters for three hours.

Xiaomi held a supplier conference. Several suppliers did not wear the clothes distributed by Xiaomi. When it came to the photo session, the person in charge of Xiaomi's supply chain pushed these people off the stage...

After several things happened, Lei Jun did not seriously criticize the person in charge of the supply chain. Until they offended Samsung.

In February 2016, the Xiaomi supply chain team had a fierce dispute with the senior executives of Samsung Semiconductor China at the headquarters. As a result, Samsung senior executives resigned and decided to "sanction" Xiaomi and stop supplying Xiaomi AMOLED screens.

There is an unspoken rule in the mobile phone industry: Samsung Semiconductor is very powerful in the industry and can control whoever it wants.

After Samsung cut off supply, Xiaomi’s shipments were cut in half.

In the first three months of 2016, Xiaomi dropped from first place to fifth place in shipments. There are 40 pages of posts on Sina Weibo criticizing "Xiaomi for playing monkey".

There are endless voices that badmouth Lei Jun, and the mobile phone industry has begun to wait for Lei Jun to make a joke.

"The public feels that Xiaomi is deceiving and hyping up." Lei Jun realized that he needed to "make up lessons" and Xiaomi needed to "reborn."

On May 18, 2016, Lei Jun directly took over the mobile phone R&D and supply chain teams. These two departments need to report directly to him.

He also invited Zhang Feng, who had the best relationship with manufacturers, to help manage the supply chain, and promoted Xiaomi's former R&D director Yan Kesheng to head the R&D department, because Yan Kesheng was good at being the "balancer" of the team.

In order to show Xiaomi’s sincerity in “reforming”, Lei Jun flew to Samsung headquarters four times to apologize, although Samsung blocked the door the first three times.

Thanks to Lei Jun’s personal efforts, Xiaomi has returned to the peak of cost performance.

When Lei Jun took over, Xiaomi’s annual sales were only more than 5,500 units. By 2017, Xiaomi’s annual sales reached more than 90 million units. In 2018, it exceeded 100 million units, and has grown year after year.

Generally speaking, after a company goes downhill, it is difficult to return to its glory days.

Lei Jun once again created a miracle.

On Double Eleven in 2020, Xiaomi announced that it had once again become the sales champion of Android phones across all platforms. The whole network was overwhelmingly celebrating Lei Jun’s victory.

Although Xiaomi's sales are booming, it cannot divide the money and eat meat...

Today, the annual shipments of Xiaomi, Huawei, Apple, Samsung and other mobile phones are 100 million units scale.

Apple mobile phones have long accounted for more than 60% of the profits of the global smartphone industry. Samsung’s is about 20%, followed by Huawei, followed by OPPO and other mobile phones.

Xiaomi is often at the bottom...

After all, Lei Jun once promised: "The comprehensive after-tax net profit margin of the hardware business will not exceed 5."

Mid- to low-end Although the "Machine King" hat is good, it is still a bit "starved".

Fortunately, Lei Jun is still burning the flames of Silicon Valley and has the dream of high-end mobile phones.

Epilogue

Five years ago, after the 2015 Machine King War, Xiaomi gained a firm foothold in the mid- to low-end market. At the same time, the imprint of mid- to low-end products is difficult to wash away.

"Should we continue to be cost-effective to stabilize this group of users? Or should we explore upward and develop more markets?" At the transition point, Lei Jun also wavered.

In 2015, Lei Jun cautiously threw out a pathfinder-Xiaomi Note, priced at 2,999 yuan.

As if he was afraid of comments from rice fans, Lei Jun took the lead in playing the bitterness card.

"The cost of accessories is high" and "the yield rate is low", Lei Jun repeated and complained over and over again at the tasting meeting.

Xiaomi can still make a push into the mid-to-high-end ranks.

In the winter of 2016, he tried to release the MIX series. MIX exceeded 3,000 yuan for the first time and was priced at 3,499 yuan. The price of the subsequent MIX series has stabilized at around 3,500 yuan.

Three years later, the MIX Alpha with a price tag of 19,999 yuan was born.

Seeing the price of MIX Alpha, most fans have noticed Lei Jun’s ambition. They argue online. Some netizens ridiculed Lei Jun for being incompetent, and some even cursed Lei Jun for betrayal.

Faced with the criticism, Lei Jun could only use cleverness to resolve it. He said that MIX was purely for fun, while Alpha was originally intended to "come as expensive as it comes" and was purely a scientific research project. I hope everyone won’t take it too seriously and don’t get serious with him.

However, Lei Jun’s high-end dream has not stopped. He formulated the next 10-year plan for Xiaomi.

On February 13, 2020, Lei Jun went all out and priced Xiaomi Mi 10 at 3,999 yuan.

"Selling it for 3,999 yuan is really a way to make friends!" This time, he continued to put the cost-effectiveness label and continued to talk about how difficult it was to make such a mobile phone at this price.

Sure enough, Lei Jun's humble attitude made netizens feel distressed: "Rebus originally wanted to go high-end, but had no choice but to make a cost-effective mobile phone."

In August this year, Lei Jun directly Launched the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra Commemorative Edition priced at 5,999 yuan. He took another tentative step forward.

Xiaomi 10 is the starting point for Xiaomi’s next 10 years that Lei Jun expects. In the next 10 years, Lei Jun will lead Xiaomi to compete head-on with high-end mobile phones.

"No matter how much uncertainty there is in the world, Xiaomi people can turn success into a sure thing!" Lei Jun kept motivating himself.

Lei Jun will be 51 years old next month. He has passed the age of knowing his destiny. But he did not accept his fate.

In the first half of his life, he experienced many peaks and troughs. This spirit touched many people.

However, the fact is that there are still 600 million people in China whose monthly income is less than 1,000 yuan. They need Xiaomi and don’t want Xiaomi’s main business to shift from low-end to high-end.

They don’t want to be regarded as “losers” by brand owners.

If Xiaomi has successfully transformed, it will focus on high-end mobile phones. In order to reflect the opponents who are still struggling in the low-end field, they can also risk the collapse of their character and gloat about "the one who wins the diaosi will win the world."

Nowadays, Xiaomi has just entered the high-end field, and it is really unkind to turn back and "mockery" the users who have supported itself for a long time in the past and will continue to support itself in the future.

If you want to be a high-end person, you have to act and speak more high-end.