Lei Jun

Lei Jun was born on December 16, 1969, to schoolteacher parents in rural Xiantao, Hubei Province, China, growing up in poverty without influential connections. He earned a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Wuhan University in July 1991. In 1992, he joined Kingsoft Corporation Limited, quickly advancing through senior roles and becoming CEO by age 28. In 2000, Lei founded joyo.com, an online retailing platform later acquired by Amazon in 2004. He rejoined Kingsoft in July 2011 as chairman and has held key positions there, including director at Beijing Kingsoft Office Software since December 2011 and chairman at Kingsoft Cloud Holdings since April 2015. As an angel investor, he has backed companies like JOYY Inc. and UCWeb. In 2010, at age 40, he co-founded Xiaomi with partners including former Google executive Lin Bin, starting with a small team in Zhongguancun to disrupt the smartphone market via online sales, flash sales, and high cost-effectiveness. Xiaomi's Mi One smartphone launched in 2011, securing over 300,000 pre-orders in its first week and reaching a $10 billion valuation by 2013. Despite a 2015 setback with declining sales from 80 million to 55 million units, Lei rebuilt supply chains through negotiations with Samsung. The company expanded into AIoT in 2017, creating the world's largest consumer IoT platform, and entered high-end phones with the Xiaomi 10 series in 2020. In March 2021, Lei announced Xiaomi's entry into smart electric vehicles, personally leading a $10 billion investment over a decade. Politically active, he was elected a deputy to the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress in 2012 and the National People's Congress representing Guangdong since 2013. In December 2013, he founded Beijing Xiaomi Payment Technology Co., Ltd.