A Bowl of Congee: Lei Jun and His 'All-Star' Partners

Prologue: The Last Bet at Forty

In the winter of 2009, the Beijing wind cut like a knife. On the night of his 40th birthday, Lei Jun invited a few close friends for drinks at a small restaurant. After a few glasses, as the mood in the private room grew lively, Lei Jun suddenly fell silent. He stared at the swirling liquor in his cup for a long time, then looked up, his eyes filled with a rare confusion. "I feel like I can see the end of my life."

His friends quieted down. At that moment, Lei Jun was financially free, successful, and as one of China's top angel investors, he was a kingmaker, sought after by countless entrepreneurs. He had reached the pinnacle of conventional success. But he knew that deep down, the dream ignited 20 years ago on the Wuhan University sports ground by Fire in the Valley still glowed like a hot coal, never extinguished.

"To personally build a world-class technology company, to do something truly great." This thought was a thorn in his side. He felt that if he didn't act at 40, it would be too late, and he would live with regret for the rest of his life.

He decided to give up the comfortable life of an investor, to bet all the reputation and wealth he had accumulated in the first half of his life, and to go for it one more time.

He had a clear direction, formulated through years of investment observation: mobile internet. More specifically, making smartphones. He saw the epochal shift brought by the iPhone and Android, and he also saw that the market was flooded with either expensive and user-unfriendly international brands or low-quality counterfeit phones. He believed there was an unprecedented opportunity.

But making phones, the "crown jewel" of manufacturing, was far more complex than software. It was a vast and precise system, involving hardware, software, supply chain, marketing, retail... each part was a mountain to climb. It was impossible for him to do it alone.

He needed a team. A team like the one in the movie Ocean's Eleven, composed of top experts in every field—an "all-star" team.

Act I: Assembling the Avengers

Lei Jun knew that for a startup, especially one of this magnitude, finding the right people was the first and most difficult step of a long march. He locked himself away for a few days and drew up a "dream team" list. Every name on it was, in his mind, the "world's best" in their field. Then, he began a months-long "recruiting" journey that could be compared to the "three visits to the thatched cottage."

First target: Lin Bin, then Associate Dean of Google China's Engineering Research Institute, a technical perfectionist.

Lei Jun and Lin Bin were acquaintances, but not close. He knew Lin Bin was a top global engineer and technical manager, one of the most powerful people at Google China. Lei Jun invited him to a coffee shop in Zhongguancun and got straight to the point: "Brother, I want to start making phones. Are you in?"

Lin Bin's coffee cup stopped mid-air. He was startled by Lei Jun's idea. His career at Google was at its peak, with millions in stock options and a bright future. For Lei Jun, a man with a background in software and investment, to say he wanted to make phones sounded too crazy, too unreliable.

Lin Bin politely declined.

But Lei Jun didn't give up. Over the next few months, he approached Lin Bin more than a dozen times. Sometimes he would wait for him downstairs at the Google office, other times he would invite him for tea or a meal. Lei Jun never talked about equity or salary. He only talked about a dream, a dream that excited him to his core—"to use the internet model to completely disrupt the expensive and user-unfriendly traditional phone industry, to make a phone that allows everyone to enjoy the fun of technology."

Lin Bin's heart was stirred again and again. He saw in Lei Jun's eyes a burning, unquestionable conviction. Finally, after a long conversation, Lin Bin decided to take a gamble. He gave up his millions in Google stock options and his stable future to join this "paper company" that had only a dream.

Second target: Li Wanqiang (A'li), Design Director at Kingsoft, one of China's earliest UI/UX experts.

With technology secured, he needed design. Lei Jun made a call to his most trusted former subordinate at Kingsoft, Li Wanqiang. "A'li, stop making games at Kingsoft. It's boring. Come out and do something big with me."

A'li was in charge of Kingsoft's PowerWord and gaming businesses, both of which were performing well. But when he received the call, he agreed with almost no hesitation. "I wasn't in it for making phones," A'li said later. "I was in it for Lei Jun. I believed that whatever he set out to do, he would succeed."

Third target: Zhou Guangping, Chief Engineer at Motorola's Beijing R&D Center, a top hardware expert.

Software and design were from the internet world, but to make a phone, he needed a heavyweight hardware "guru." Lei Jun found Zhou Guangping. Zhou had been at Motorola for over a decade and was an absolute authority in hardware. But for that very reason, he was full of doubt and disdain for the idea of "a bunch of internet guys making a phone."

To persuade Zhou, Lei Jun resorted to a "human wave" tactic. He mobilized his entire network, asking countless friends and former colleagues of Zhou's to lobby him in turns. He himself visited Zhou time and again, never talking about money, but patiently explaining his "triathlon" business model of "software + hardware + internet."

Eventually, Zhou Guangping was won over by this imaginative business model he had never heard of before and agreed to join.

In just a few months, like a fanatical "evangelist," Lei Jun, relying on the reputation he had built over the past two decades and that exciting dream, successively persuaded Lin Bin (ex-Google), Li Wanqiang (ex-Kingsoft), Zhou Guangping (ex-Motorola), Huang Jiangji (ex-Microsoft), Hong Feng (ex-Google), Liu De (ex-Art Center College of Design professor)...

This founding team's background covered almost all the top tech companies on the planet at the time, perfectly spanning all core areas of software, hardware, design, and operations. The sheer luxury of the lineup was unprecedented in the history of Chinese technology.

Act II: A Bowl of Congee for an Opening Ceremony

On April 6, 2010, at the Yingu Building, Baofusi Bridge, Zhongguancun, Beijing.

In an office of less than 200 square meters, the walls were freshly painted and still smelled of cheap paint. There were no flowers, no ribbon-cutting, not even a proper company sign—just a printed A4 sheet of paper taped to the door. Lei Jun and his 12 co-founders and early employees, 13 people in total, gathered together.

The company's startup capital came entirely from the personal savings of the founding team. Lei Jun told everyone, "We are now a company as small as can be, so we have to do everything ourselves."

The opening ceremony was simple, almost shabby. The company's first administrative employee went to a supermarket, bought a cheap Xiaomi rice cooker for a few dozen yuan, and a bag of millet, and cooked a large pot of congee in the pantry.

When the congee was ready, steaming hot, Lei Jun served a bowl to everyone, then raised his own and said, "Today, our company is officially open. Our small company is called 'Xiaomi' (millet). Mobile Internet. We want to be in the mobile internet space. 'Mi' plus 'rifle' (the character for 'millet' is 'mi,' which sounds like 'me,' and is also part of the Chinese word for 'rifle'). We hope that with 'millet and rifles' we can conquer the world. But more importantly, I hope we can make a bowl of genuine and honestly priced millet congee for Chinese consumers."

"Let's finish this bowl of congee, and then let's get to work!"

Everyone raised their bowls together and drank the warm congee in one gulp.

This simple ceremony has since become an inseparable part of Xiaomi's corporate culture. This bowl of congee also marked the beginning of a legend. It represents Xiaomi's original aspiration: to make a good product that is honestly priced and touches people's hearts, with sincerity and passion.

Epilogue: Dream Partners

Xiaomi's success can be interpreted in countless ways: its model, its marketing, its timing... But without a doubt, its initial "all-star" founding team was the cornerstone of all its stories.

Lei Jun later summarized his entrepreneurial experience by saying, "Starting a business is, first, about finding people; second, about finding people; and third, still about finding people. Finding people is what I spent the most time on and the most important thing." He believed that the highest cost for a startup is the cost of hiring the wrong person.

He used a "Partnership" system to completely subvert the traditional "Boss-Employee" relationship. He was not looking for employees to clock in and out, but for partners who could watch each other's backs and treat the company as their own life's work. With a dream big enough and an equity distribution plan sincere enough, he tightly united this group of the industry's top minds.

That day, in that modest office, those 13 people drinking congee probably had no idea what a magnificent era they were about to kickstart.

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Key Takeaways

1. A great dream is the only 'magnet' to attract top talent: When recruiting, Lei Jun didn't first talk about salary and stock options, but repeatedly communicated the dream of "changing the mobile phone industry with the internet model." This grand and clear vision was the fundamental reason for moving those already successful industry veterans.
2. When building a team, the most important thing is to find 'partners' with aligned values and complementary skills: Xiaomi's star-studded founding team consisted of individuals who were leaders in their respective fields and highly complementary to each other, forming a powerful force. Lei Jun was not looking for subordinates, but for "partners" who could stand on their own and share the risks.
3. A simple sense of ceremony can become the starting point for team culture and shared memory: The simple and sincere opening ceremony of "drinking congee" had a very low cost but was highly symbolic. It deeply embedded the name "Xiaomi" and the original aspiration of "born for fever" into the team's DNA.