Some people believe that it is Ren Zhengfei's personality that has brought Huawei to where it is today.The Meng Wanzhou case is the culmination of Ren Zhengfei's personal battle to transform Huawei into a global leader.
When Ren Zhengfei went to the United States for the first time, he made full preparations.Armed with $10,000 in cash sewn into the lining of his jacket, the founder of Chinese telecommunications equipment maker Huawei set out to explore the country, seeing the US as the young Huawei's gateway to global markets.
It was 1997.Ren Zhengfei, a former officer in the People's Liberation Army, was 53 at the time, and Huawei was only 10.After initially selling foreign program-controlled switches in China and later manufacturing its own switches through reverse engineering, Huawei at that time began to expand overseas.
Mr. Ren's trip included visits to Bell Labs and IBM, where he marveled at IBM's engineering prowess and modern management methods, as well as a trip to Las Vegas to walk around the casinos.
The story of how he managed to get through U.S. customs with his stash of cash was one of his favorite anecdotes, long afterward.
Now, those memories may come back with a tinge of bitterness: U.S. authorities are going after Huawei even more ferociously.Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Ren Zhengfei and Huawei's chief financial officer, has been detained in Vancouver pending a judge's decision on whether to extradite her to the United States, where she will face fraud charges for allegedly defrauding Western banks to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran.
The case is the culmination of Ren Zhengfei's personal battle to transform Huawei into a global leader and puts Huawei at the center of an escalating technological rivalry between the United States and China.In his speech to employees in January this year, he said: We will definitely reach Everest... Our future is bright, but our road may be difficult and difficult.
When Ren Zhengfei first set foot on U.S. soil, Huawei’s revenue was less than $1 billion, and it looks set to reach $100 billion this year.In 1997, Huawei had just completed its first export deal to Hong Kong telecommunications operator Hutchison Whampoa, but now, Huawei is the world's largest supplier of telecom network equipment and the second largest smartphone brand.
In the US, Huawei's meteoric rise caused unease early on.Western national security officials say Huawei has close ties to the Chinese military and may be helping the People's Liberation Army spy on the United States.The U.S. government has banned Huawei from making acquisitions and bidding for network equipment contracts in the United States, and is now even urging allies to ban Huawei from bidding for 5G contracts.
While Huawei has repeatedly denied the allegations, employees view their boss as a fearsome figure capable of anything.A former executive said: The company is today, thanks to him.He does not look back when he looks for the target, and he does not hesitate to do things.
Born in 1944 in the impoverished Guizhou province in southwestern China, Ren Zhengfei started his career as a technician in the People's Liberation Army.Ren Zhengfei said he was demobilized during the 1982 disarmament, and he found it ridiculous that his military experience gave Huawei a special relationship with the Chinese military.
Although Ren Zhengfei likes to laugh at himself, saying that he had a rough start in business and was a country bumpkin who knew nothing about the outside world, this claim has been questioned.
According to the former executive, the first decade was flat, and then the company took off like crazy.People suspect that something must have happened to help the company's business, but even within the company it's a mystery.
There are signs that Ren Zhengfei has support at the highest level.In 1994, he reported to Jiang Zemin, then leader of the Communist Party of China and President of China.A few years later, Huawei undertook the construction of the People's Liberation Army's first nationwide communications network.
However, many Huawei employees and customers believe that it is Ren Zhengfei's outstanding personality that has brought Huawei to where it is today.According to his colleagues, he only has a basic understanding of technical details and has little interest. He leads 180,000 employees with iron-like authority.
While Ren Zhengfei refuses to be defined by his military years, his management and speaking style have a distinctly military tinge — not unusual for a Chinese man his age.
In his speech to employees in January this year, he also wrote that Huawei’s newly launched aircraft carrier needs thousands of heroes to paddle, and urged employees to get rid of their shortcomings and mistakes, so that we can become great fighters.
Employees know that this is effectively saying that they should make sacrifices for the company -- away from their families, long and difficult postings, long weekends -- and the relentless demands of job performance.One executive said: He would name and criticize people in front of a room full of colleagues.The founder had several senior employees write public apologies or self-criticism, a practice in China's totalitarian past.
It is difficult for foreign employees to accept this, and they often stay in Huawei for less than a year.A European engineer who left Huawei after 10 months on the job said: You will never be able to enter the inner circle of Chinese people, and you will not get the kind of respect that you may have been used to at Ericsson (Ericsson).They want to be seen as one of us, but they will never be the same.
But Huawei's Chinese employees rarely complain.The most important thing is that Ren Zhengfei himself leads by example.Years ago, he fulfilled an appointment with the FT despite being ill.At that time, a Chinese medicine doctor was performing acupressure on his hands, and he asked his assistant to put an empty champagne ice bucket under his feet.He laughed in case I spit it out, and continued the conversation.
The author of this article is the Financial Times Greater China reporter
Translator/He Li
