Xiaomi CEO Celebrates Company’s 10th Anniversary in a Heartfelt Message

To commemorate Xiaomi’s 10th birthday, Lei Jun, Chairman and CEO of the company, posted a congratulatory message on WeChat recalling the company’s road from a small startup to a global enterprise.

Lei wrote, “Recalling our ten-year history, I was filled with emotion. Ten years ago, ten of us, in a small office in Yingu Building, Zhongguancun, drank a bowl of millet (Xiaomi in Chinese) porridge together and started a business. We didn’t have any hardware R&D or manufacturing experience at the time, and we dared to say that we wanted to make the best mobile phone, sell it for half the average price, and promote the popularity of smart phones around the world.”

The CEO also answered several frequently asked questions in the interview section of his post. When asked what advice he would give himself if he could go back ten years, Lei said: Be inexplicably confident, no matter how difficult what you’re doing is! The mobile phone industry is very hard, but it’s nothing, just put a smile on your face and it will be alright.”

Xiaomi went from founding to listing in a mere nine years. It is the youngest Fortune 500 company in history, and the fourth Chinese tech company after JD.com, Alibaba, and Tencent to make the list.