In 2010, Lei Jun founded Xiaomi and started by selling smartphones. Little by little, he built an ecosystem of 200 products — including TVs, scooters, and robot vacuums. All connected through one app.
Within just nine years, Xiaomi became the youngest company ever to enter the Fortune Global 500, ranking higher than Coca-Cola and General Electric. Today, its smartphones hold the third-largest market share in the world.
In 2021, Trump banned Xiaomi, calling it a security threat. Xiaomi sued the U.S. — and won. The ban was lifted.
Facing uncertainty, Lei Jun vowed to build electric vehicles to diversify his business even more. He personally test-drove 200 cars, wrote 200,000 words of notes, and got his racing-car license at age 55.
It took Xiaomi just three years to launch its first EV. In the first nine months after launch, Xiaomi delivered 135,000 cars.
In the video above — that’s Lei Jun himself drifting a Xiaomi EV. Not bad, huh?