On June 15th, at the opening ceremony of the 2026 World Youth Development Forum, Xiaomi founder, Chairman, and CEO Lei Jun shared two key insights with young people.
Lei Jun stated that the first piece of advice is to find something you are truly passionate about and persist in doing it. Only with passion are you willing to invest yourself, and only with genuine passion can you truly persevere over the long term. This is because truly valuable endeavors are often very difficult. When you can turn what you love into a career, the entire process doesn't feel like hardship; instead, it becomes endlessly enjoyable.
The second point is to let high goals guide you, to dare to think and act, and to have the courage to set ambitious targets. Even if they seem impossible at the moment, as long as you break them down step by step and tackle them piece by piece, you have a chance to achieve them.
Below are excerpts from the speech:
Pursuing Passion as a Guiding Principle
First, find something you are truly passionate about and stick with it. This is the most important lesson from my life. Only with passion are you willing to invest yourself, and only with genuine passion can you truly persevere over the long term. Truly valuable things are often very difficult. I believe that when you can turn what you love into a career, the whole process doesn't feel bitter; instead, it's full of enjoyment.
Let me give a small example. Not long ago, I did a 15-hour live stream, driving our new-generation Su 7 from Beijing to Shanghai. We got up a little after 4 a.m., set off a little after 6 a.m., and drove for 15 hours straight, live-streaming the entire journey. Throughout the process, I received a lot of concern from friends. They said, "I woke up and you were live-streaming, I had lunch and you were live-streaming, I'm about to go to sleep and you're still live-streaming?" Many people probably thought this process was very tiring. But sitting in a car meticulously crafted by our own colleagues, demonstrating its range and various features to netizens all along the way, and interacting with them, I felt the whole process wasn't really that hard.
I thought about it: if you are doing something you truly enjoy, the entire process might feel infinitely fun. So what I want to share is that only by understanding a field and loving it can you truly excel in it.
The Power of Setting Ambitious Goals
Second, let high goals guide you, dare to think and act, and have the courage to set a high target. Even if it seems impossible right now, as long as we break it down step by step and tackle it piece by piece, we have a chance to achieve it.
I'd like to talk about the transformation of Xiaomi over the past five years. Many people feel that Xiaomi has undergone earth-shaking changes in the last five years. In fact, it was when Xiaomi celebrated its tenth anniversary that we conducted a half-year-long period of reflection and summarization.
We asked ourselves: What kind of company do we want to build? Where did Xiaomi come from? Where is it going? After this lengthy half-year review, we reached a conclusion. We set a very high goal for ourselves: to strive to become a global leader in the next generation of hardcore technology over the next ten years.
It was under the guidance of this goal that we decided to invest 100 billion yuan in research and development over five years, focusing relentlessly on hardcore technology. In the end, over those five years, we invested 105.5 billion yuan. With such investment, as everyone has seen, whether in automobiles, chips, smart manufacturing, robotics, or foundational large models, Xiaomi has achieved a series of breakthroughs from zero to one.
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