Lei Jun donated 1.3 billion yuan to refute rumors and fake pictures, who is killing entrepreneurs?

The recent focus is Lei Jun.

On November 29, the day of the 130th anniversary of the founding of Wuhan University, Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi Group, a 1987 alumnus of the Computer Science Department of Wuhan University, donated 1.3 billion yuan directly to his alma mater!

It is understood that this donation has refreshed the largest single donation since the establishment of Wuhan University, and it is also the largest personal cash donation from alumni received by universities in China.

Lei Jun said that the donation mainly focuses on three directions: supporting the basic research of mathematics, physics, chemistry, literature, history and philosophy, supporting scientific and technological innovation in the field of computer, and supporting the training of college students. On the same day, Lei Jun, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi, attended the 130th anniversary of the founding of the university and donated 1.3 billion yuan to his alma mater, Wuhan University.

On the evening of the donation, Lei Jun posted that he was excited all day: "Today, I was very excited all day, and I couldn't calm down for a long time. Presenting a gift to the 130th anniversary of Wuhan University through personal donations, supporting basic discipline research, scientific and technological innovation, and the cultivation of college students, this is a journey of retribution for me. Thanksgiving to the alma mater and the times. ”

Why did Lei Jun dare to spend a lot of money? What confidence did he have?

01

Why is Lei Jun so generous to his alma mater?

It is worth mentioning that not long after Lei Jun's donation, two pictures of Lei Jun were circulated on the Internet, and the copy showed that "when Lei Jun was most depressed, there was only 4 billion left in the bank card."

This picture has caused a lot of controversy, some unknown netizens thought that Lei Jun was quite rich, Lei Jun himself quickly reposted the Weibo and said: "Life is never a cool article, it is a down-to-earth process, thank you for your understanding and support." ”

He also added in the comment area: "I hope everyone doesn't spread rumors and believe rumors!"

Although the screenshot is fake, it is true that Lei Jun has donated money to his alma mater over the years.

Some people have calculated that since 1997, Lei Jun's total donation to Wuhan University has reached 130 million yuan.

On June 20, Lei Jun appeared at the graduation ceremony of Wuhan University and gave a speech, giving two suggestions to the graduates: the first advice is to believe in yourself, everyone has infinite possibilities in life. The second piece of advice is not only to have dreams, but also to achieve goals step by step.

Why is Lei Jun so good to his alma mater?

"I started the journey of repaying my wish from the first donation to my alma mater 26 years ago, and today I have finally fulfilled my wish," Lei Jun once said, in the minds of him and many alumni, Wuhan University is the best university in the world, and in order to make Wuhan University better and better, everyone can give back to their alma mater with practical actions.

Lei Jun also said in particular that he has never advocated comparison with donations. In celebration of the 130th anniversary of Wuhan University, many alumni actively donated. Every donation is an alumnus' love for their alma mater, and it is equally weighty.

This sentence is not said casually, when he donated the teaching building before, Lei Jun proposed to donate one dollar less than alumnus Chen Dongsheng, so he donated 100 million yuan less. This 130th anniversary celebration of the school, the donation of 1.3 billion yuan in cash was also discussed with Chen Dongsheng alumni, and received support to present the 130th anniversary of the alma mater.

Why does Lei Jun have such a deep affection for his alma mater? He himself said that because he received a scholarship of 2,000 yuan when he was in college, which was a huge amount of money in the 80s of the last century.

Later, he vowed to give back 10,000 times more. Before donating this money, he donated 99,999,999 yuan to build a teaching building for his alma mater.

The reason why he can continue to donate 1.3 billion yuan is that Lei Jun is deeply grateful to his alma mater.

Wuhan University

It is said that when Lei Jun was a freshman, he read a book called "The Fire of Silicon Valley" and ignited the fire of his dreams. He began to have a dream that seemed outrageous, and that was to start a great company.

So he first set his first goal: to complete all the credits for four years of college in two years, and Lei Jun finally completed all the credits in two years. Subsequently, at the beginning of his junior year, he began to try his hand at entrepreneurship.

The reason why I can put down the academic pressure to start a business so early is also thanks to the relaxed system of Wuhan University, after Wuhan University fully implemented the credit system in 1981, by the summer of 1983, the first batch of 28 students graduated early.

A few days ago, Lei Jun also mentioned in his donation speech, "The most attractive thing about Wuhan University is that it pays special attention to the free development of people, has a diverse and inclusive style of study, never allows students to study to death, but allows students to fully develop independently, and the teachers are also very friendly, and the relationship between teachers and students is particularly harmonious." ”

How free is Wuhan University? Many Wuhan University people recall that at that time, students at Wuhan University could take courses in other majors at will, fall in love, dance ballroom dances, and wear the most fashionable bell bottoms. If you feel that the teacher's class is not good, you can not listen to it, this is what Liu Daoyu, the former president of Wuhan University, said on the first day of school.

From this point of view, Lei Jun is not right, without Wuhan University, there may really be no Lei Jun today.

02

Lei Jun's entrepreneurial history

Where does Lei Jun's wealth come from? Specifically, it mainly comes from several major listed companies, such as Xiaomi Group, Huanju Times, and Kingsoft Software. Take Xiaomi Group as an example, Lei Jun holds about 30% of the shares.

Today, Lei Jun has built a huge capital territory in China's venture capital industry. According to the incomplete statistics of Tech Planet, since the first investment in 2004, Lei Jun has invested in at least 600 companies, including a number of listed companies, covering IoT, culture and entertainment, e-commerce, finance and other fields.

Behind well-known companies such as Lakala, UC Browser, iQiyi, Weilai, Xiaopeng, Cargo Lala, Boss Zhipin, Xunlei, Cheetah Mobile and other well-known companies, there are Lei Jun's figures.

But among them, the most competitive and Lei Jun's biggest "golden signboard" is Lei Jun's Xiaomi mobile phone.

In 2012, the most beautiful enterprise, Xiaomi must have a name, Lei Jun at the annual meeting of China's Internet webmaster, Lei Jun once said that the Internet entrepreneurship methodology can be summed up as "focus, extreme, word-of-mouth, fast" seven words, he used this seven words to found Xiaomi, but also helped more than 20 companies to start a business.

Xiaomi has become "the pig on the tuyere", Lei Jun even said in interviews several times, "The last thing in my life is to make millet." ”

Xiaomi has helped Lei Jun's life experience achieve a huge transformation, but with the development of time, Xiaomi has also fallen into a trough many times.

For example, in 2015, Xiaomi mobile phones failed to meet the sales target of that year, thus entering a two-year trough period. You must know that once the sales of the mobile phone industry decline, it is difficult to reverse.

At that time, Lei Jun began to take the initiative to reflect,The real reason why Xiaomi fell into a trough lies in a number of difficulties inside and outside,The most important thing is that its own ability is not enough,It's just that many problems in the past have been covered by rapid growth,And once it stalls,These problems will be immediately exposed。

To this end, Lei Jun personally took over the mobile phone department, with the purpose of "delivery, innovation, and quality", to make up for the shortcomings in an all-round way, and with the unremitting efforts of the team, Xiaomi is gradually back on track.

Xiaomi's second trough, Lei Jun once mentioned, is in the past three years on Xiaomi's high-end road, at the beginning of the very unsmooth.

"The Xiaomi Mi 11 suffered a major setback. Everyone held their breath and put a lot of effort into making Xiaomi 12, but it still didn't meet expectations. Everyone didn't expect it to be so difficult to do high-end, let alone invest so much, and frustration spread in the company. ”

Xiaomi Mi 11

At that time, Xiaomi's high-end strategy was also full of controversy, but Lei Jun finally persevered, and even regarded the road to high-end as the company's "battle of life and death".

Still adhere to the concept of "experience first", Xiaomi has made high-end mobile phones with all its strength, self-developed keel hinges, self-developed aerospace fiber composite materials, and cooperated with Leica, etc. The Xiaomi 13 series finally ushered in a turnaround, and since then, including the folding screen, Xiaomi's high-end series has gradually been recognized.

Lei Jun later recalled this trough and said that it was the most painful and rewarding experience in the past ten years.

Now that the mobile phone industry is no longer a blue ocean outlet, 54-year-old Lei Jun is once again facing many problems in life.

In recent years, Xiaomi's former founders have been leaving.

Zhou Guangping, Huang Jiangji, and Li Wanqiang successively stepped down from Xiaomi senior management positions and left Xiaomi, Liu De basically bid farewell to the front line of business after 2018, Lin Bin rarely appeared after 2019, and Hong Feng and Wang Chuan withdrew from the front line of business one after another.

Behind the departure of the partners is the weakness of the fundamental business. In 2022, Xiaomi's smartphone business revenue decreased by 19.9% year-on-year. You know, this is Xiaomi's core business, with revenue contributing nearly 6%. In 2022, Xiaomi sold 150 million mobile phones, a year-on-year decrease of 20.9%, and sold 40 million fewer phones.

In the latest third quarter of this year, the revenue of the smartphone business fell by 2% year-on-year, while the average price of mobile phone shipments fell by 6% year-on-year. The smartphone market has also begun to peak.

Lei Jun, who was unwilling, soon found a new direction, that is, to build a car.

03

Lei Jun, who does not give up, has to rely on the tram to take off again

In March 2021, Xiaomi Group officially announced the construction of cars, and Lei Jun personally took the lead, shouting that it is expected to invest 10 billion US dollars in the next 10 years, and plans to achieve mass production in 2024.

This time, Lei Jun once again announced that building a car will be the last major entrepreneurial project in his life, and he is willing to bet on all his reputation in life to personally lead the team and fight for Xiaomi Automobile.

In order to reflect the importance of car building, Lei Jun said, "Since announcing the car construction in 2021, half of my time has been spent on cars, a quarter on mobile phones, and a quarter on other things."

But this has also been questioned by many people as burning too much money, according to Li Bin's previous statement, start-ups want to build cars, at least 20 billion or more funds, and even hold a "not optimistic" attitude.

At the same time, there are still many people who question that Xiaomi is an assembly factory, without a little core technology, and compared with Huawei, the gap is not half a star.

In the face of all kinds of doubts, perhaps Lei Jun has long been used to it.

Just as he used to make mobile phones, when he was in Jinshan, there would always be people who looked at him coldly and ridiculed, but the reality is that Lei Jun's company not only survived, but also succeeded, Lei Jun went from a college student with nothing to a wealthy tycoon with a net worth of tens of billions, which is the best proof in itself.

Lei Jun will always have an optimistic attitude, perhaps it is this kind of self-confidence and diligence that makes him silently slap many doubters in the face with practical actions.

For example, on the question of the lack of R&D capabilities, Lei Jun recently responded, "On the whole, Xiaomi does have a certain gap compared with the world's top technology companies." But as a 13-year-old company, Xiaomi's investment and strength in research and development are still quite strong. ”

Lei Jun also came up with data to prove that Xiaomi's R&D investment in 2022 will be 16.2 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 20 billion by 2023. And in the next five years, more than 100 billion yuan will be invested in technology research and development. "We didn't have a factory before, and if you want to hack, you can hack us, we are a leather bag company."

It is indeed not easy for Xiaomi to build a car, it is relatively late in terms of the time of entering the game, and the problems encountered by other players such as production capacity and sales, Xiaomi cars can't avoid any of them.

However, judging from past experience, from working in Jinshan to founding Xiaomi, Lei Jun has come out of countless difficulties. It's the same with building a car, no matter what problems you encounter next, perhaps, as Lei Jun said, life is a marathon, and the success or failure of a moment is not so important.

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