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n 1987, Ren Zhengfei was abandoned by mainstream society at the age of 44. This is a significant age, because the number 4 sounds the same as the Chinese character for death, but 4 doubled is equal to 8, which sounds like the Chinese character for prosperity in the southern dialect. Four times 4 is 16, which means a smooth road ahead.This age is, therefore, full of different metaphors concerning fate and marked the beginning of Ren’s entrepreneurial journey. In fact, he had spent three years in the business world already before, but the experience had ended in failure.
Since founding Huawei Technologies, a private company, at 44, Ren’s fate has become inseparable from that of Huawei. Huawei was dismissed in the early days of the great reform, and Ren Zhengfei was the Chinese Don Quixote who dared to challenge opposition alone.
In the late 1970s, Deng Xiaoping started an economic revolution in China. Within a mere decade, from 1978 to 1988, the Chinese economy and society underwent drastic changes. For thousands of years, China had been dominated by politicians and men of letters, and agriculture was the key or even the sole source of economic power. Merchants had no position in the country, and even the most successful, such as Lü Buwei (292 b c–235 b c) and Hu Xueyan (1823–1885), survived as dependents of politics. Through the reform program, Deng Xiaoping created an oppor- tunity to change this rigid tradition.
Deng Xiaoping is acclaimed for his political courage and foresight because he was the driving force behind the commercial revolution that had far-reaching impact. This reform shone broad beams of hope for mer- chants in the country who, as a social class, have since gained increasing value.
In the 1980s, the country was stirring and all classes were full of pas- sion and desire. There emerged a number of forerunners and immediate followers of the reform movement, including Bu Xinsheng, Ma Shengli, Mou Qizhong, Nian Guangjiu, Zhang Ruimin, and Liu Chuanzhi. They were rebels against the old system and adventurers in a whirlwind, brought to a new world by a tidal wave.
Former military engineer Ren Zhengfei was also carried by this whirl- wind. He became an individual merchant, whether he liked it or not.
At first, Huawei traded telecom equipment and was dismissed as a “minor vendor.” Just as surely, however, Ren placed high expectations on the company and himself: to become a world-class telecom equipment manufacturer within two decades.
Heroes are made in an age of turbulence. Who, then, would become the leaders in a world of tumult? Nassir Ghaemi, a professor of psychi- atry at Tufts University, says that such leaders are found among the men- tally ill or mentally abnormal. In fact, he discovered that all outstanding leaders in times of crisis had psychological problems. This is also true with Ren Zhengfei. He suffered serious depression and anxiety during the darkest days of the company. Twenty years ago, when Ren announced his dream to be world-class, the small audience was divided, as some were convinced, while others suspected their boss had gone mad.
Of course, there were many dreamers like Ren Zhengfei, as his was a passionate and peculiar generation. Liu Chuanzhi, the founder and chair- man of Lenovo, was also a dreamer. He dreamed of challenging IBM, and that dream came true. Another dreamer was Mou Qizhong, who declared he would draw water from the Brahmaputra River to the Yellow River through the Himalayas, and who traded China’s socks for Russian jets. He ended up in prison, but not even the prison walls or the barbed wire on top of the walls could repress his passion and dreams, according to recent reports.
In the telecom industry, there were also a number of eccentric mer- chants that emerged with such magnificent names as Great Dragon and Datang. Dragon is a representative symbol of China, while the “tang” in “Datang” refers to the Tang Dynasty, one of the most powerful and
prosperous dynasties of China that, to some extent, represents the best of China. Another appealing appellation was provided by Zhongxing Semiconductors (now the ZTE Group)—the name Zhongxing literally means “China is reviving.” Last but not the least, the name Huawei means “China is rising and taking action.”
These are the most successful telecom manufacturers in China, but they all started with the odds stacked against them, suffering from a lack of capital, technology, and human resources. To make matters even worse, they faced Western giants, most of which had been established for over a century.
They were playing a game of ants versus elephants, and only crazy dreamers could believe that they would eventually see victory. Let’s take a look at four middle-aged, but imaginative idealists: Wu Jiangxing of Great Dragon, Zhou Huan of Datang, Hou Weigui of ZTE, and Ren Zhengfei of Huawei. Over the past two decades, they have all played an excellent game in the Chinese and global telecom markets, and created tragic– comic legends full of twists and turns and ups and downs.