When the ideal rises again

1994 is the golden age of movies. That year, cam- has flourished and kept pace with Hollywood. When True Lies and Forrest Gump appeared on computers in every dormitory, everyone was shocked.

The wind blown by Xiaoping's southern tour two years ago has been bred into a torrent in that year. From Mohe to Hainan Island, everyone is talking about one thing: getting rich in the sea. Unlike the "profiteers" and "ten thousand households" in the1980s, this time, all intellectuals took action: since the ideal doesn't work, let's go into business! Their comfort is: "Take control of your own destiny."

China society has begun a thorough commercial transformation. Open an advertising company, open various factories, steel-making, pharmaceutical, prospecting, oil-digging, real estate ... going to sea, each showing its ability.

That year, Ma Yun first heard about the Internet. Ma developed paging software in Shenzhen Runxun. Lei Jun has just joined Jinshan Company. Liu He is still in college, and they use their spare time to set up stalls to make money. These people who shocked the world 20 years later don't know what their future destiny is at the moment. The younger ones, Wang Xing, Zhang Yiming and Li Xiang, are still in middle school.

Three years later, The Shawshank Redemption appeared on the booth in Beijing. At that time, its name was Stimulus1995-no one knew it was also filmed in 1994. This jewel-like pearl shines brightly in the next 20 years, killing several generations.

These people watch Hollywood blockbusters while watching the Internet change China. The list of rich people is changing. 20 19, before 10, among which 6 people became netizens.

One day, neighbor Lao Guo drank half a bottle of red wine and said, "Under the torrent of the times, there will always be some lucky people selected." His daughter-in-law glanced at him and said lightly, "But you have to climb eighteen levels of hell first, just like Andy."

Lao Guo's daughter-in-law was very beautiful when she was young. She is a dancer and has played a hot role in several unknown TV dramas. When I met Lao Guo, Lao Guo worked as a marketing consultant in a large central enterprise. In the first year, Lao Guo's company went bankrupt and his ex-wife kicked him out. Since then, Lao Guo has no contact with the Internet and no longer dreams of starting a business. He only does two things: accompany his wife and earn money to buy a house. At most, he has 20 suites and a string of shops in Beijing. In 20 16, they immigrated to the United States with their six-year-old son. Every time he comes back for a drink, he says, "This is the life." Everyone laughs when they get used to it.

Starting from 1996, several generations of Internet entrepreneurs, like Lao Guo, mostly followed the American style: drinking American wine, copying American models and taking money from American investors. An old fruit disappeared, and more young people rushed up. They have the same label: knowledge hero. Open mouth silicon valley, close mouth wall street, English words often pop up.

Li Xiang is an obvious alien. In 2000, Li Xiang graduated from high school, China officially joined the WTO, and the booming economy of golden decade began. On the one hand, it is the multiplication of import and export trade, on the other hand, the urbanization process is advancing by leaps and bounds. PC, digital products, real estate, cars and other commodities quickly entered urban families, and the opportunity of vertical Internet was born.

This child who grew up in Shijiazhuang has seized this precious decade. But he doesn't have the advantages of Internet predecessors such as Zhang Chaoyang, Ma Yun and Li Yanhong: international vision+knowledge reserve. These advantages are almost decisive, helping them to quickly connect with overseas capital and management systems. When they stood in the center of the stage as knowledge heroes, Li wanted to climb the grid silently at home with his friends.

His English is not good and he has never been to college. Shijiazhuang can't help him gain a broader vision, knowledge and contacts. Even if he doesn't compare with those celebrities, he has no advantage over countless young people of the same age in Beijing and Shanghai. However, this young child, from assembling the first computer in senior one to writing the evaluation of the use of various electronic products, showed two obvious characteristics: abnormal sensitivity to products and enthusiasm for continuous efforts.

The limitation of vision and the lack of external resources have made his nature: independence, concentration and progress. Besides, he didn't go to college and made a living by selling articles. He found an expression that can attract users and suit himself: simple, direct, concrete and true. Rhetoric does not exist and is unnecessary. Just 1234.

These qualities have followed him closely for 20 years without any change. Interestingly, these characteristics just echo the basic values and methodology of the Internet world. After the publication of 20 10, the third part of "Three-body", a word in it was picked out by Ali's people and later spread all over the streets: dimensionality reduction.

But this fancy statement has nothing to do with Li Xiang. He didn't know or care. He went forward by instinct and nature-after earning 654.38+10,000 yuan by writing the evaluation draft, he persuaded his parents to support him not to go to college, and founded bubble net with this money.

In 2000, this was a key step in his growth: he arrived in Beijing. He went from a small hill to a big mountain range. In this big mountain range, there are countless mountains waiting for him. This timely teenager is about to start his 20-year "grassroots counterattack" journey.

In the early autumn of 2065438+2006, at the dinner table of Gongwangfu, Qin Zhizheng was drinking red wine and slowly talking about himself and his car, as if talking about others. This jade-faced scholar, who graduated from Harvard and returned from studying abroad, knows well the operating rules of modern commerce and the cruelty and coldness of capital. "I beat them. In fact, I want to leave from Li, and this ending is settled. "

As early as 20 1 1, Li Xiang had the idea of leaving. At that time, car home had been sold to Telstra, and the founding team lost control of the company. Qin Zhi stopped him: "You have to go public anyway, and then go with a market value of $5 billion."

Car home is the second key step for Li to grow up. The mistakes made in the bubble net era have become his teaching materials, and new and more challenging courses will also appear during this period.

Car home was established in 2005, and became the first in the whole industry in 2007, leaving the four gateways of auto channel far behind. "At that time, manufacturers engaged in activities and didn't take them to play. Their editors could only peek at the car and build a photo library that no one looked up to." In the summer of 20 16, in the coffee shop of Sohu Building, Lao Yan said, "In 2007, everyone came back and found that the situation was wrong. They want to catch up, but they can't catch up. "

In the past three years, Li Xiang has fought three battles with a group of college students who have just left school: the battle of taking photos, the battle of updating time, and the battle of early release. In the first battle in 2005, car home did not release the official map provided by the manufacturer, but went from obscurity to the top five in industry traffic. In World War II in 2006, articles were updated every morning and every weekend, rising from the fifth to the third. In the third battle in 2007, after participating in the manufacturer's test drive, the test drive draft was released on the same day, instead of rising from the third to the first three days later.

20 13 Li wants to review this passage and says, "Will you go to the store to take pictures?" ? Get up early every morning to update and work one more day on weekends, okay? After the test drive, will you go back to the hotel to write a manuscript instead of drinking and chatting? These are the simplest and most basic jobs that every ordinary person can do. The question is: are you willing to do it, do you go all out and persevere? "

This experience made Li Xiang and his team more convinced of one thing: independence, dedication and diligence. 100 scores 60 points to win users, and ordinary people can do extraordinary things. This mountain king spirit has been firmly engraved in the soul of car home's founding team, and has a profound impact on their future choices.

In 2006, Xue Manzi's investment brought Li Xiang into contact with capital for the first time, which also opened his international horizon for the first time. Therefore, Qin Zhi, who returned from studying abroad, was recommended to Li Xiang by Xue Manzi, bringing modern enterprise management knowledge. In 2007, he became the CEO of car home, and Li wanted to be the president, reporting to.

This passage was later repeatedly praised, saying that Li Xiang had a high emotional intelligence and was scheming. In fact, this passage is exactly the same as the story that UC was invested by Lei Jun and introduced Yu Yongfu to join. Two ordinary teenagers, in the process of fighting monsters to upgrade, found that their weapons and skills were not enough, and their strong self-motivation and desire to learn made them become students in front of two knowledge brothers and established friendship. They are not so much emotional intelligence as "juvenile innocence", but this innocence is precious and scarce, and it is often easily misunderstood.

This should be a beautiful story. Li Xiang laid a mountain and endowed the team with soul. Qin zhilai established a modern management and operation system, which made the company commercialized rapidly. But the black swan came, and the financial crisis in 2008 almost killed car home.

Just when Li wanted to look around for investors, his partner wanted to kick him out of the board. If he hadn't been stopped, Li would have gone out then. Modern business and modern capital taught the boy a thrilling lesson. In desperation, in 2009, Li Xiang and Qin Zhi decided to sell 55% of the shares to Telstra, and the valuation at that time was only US$ 65.438+RMB 50 million.

20 13 13 In February, car home was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, with an opening market value of 3170 million US dollars, which means that the investment of Telstra has increased 20 times in four years. After IPO, Li Xiang holds 4.9%, Qin Zhi holds 3%, and the largest shareholder, Australia Power, holds 66.2%, enjoying more than 565,438+0% voting rights. Prior to this, President Chen Yongzheng began to serve as Chairman of the Board of Directors of car home on 20 12.

2065438+June 2005, Li Xiang set his sights on a bigger hill. He left car home, founded Che He Jia, and took a stake in Weilai Automobile. Qin Zhi chose to stay and continue fighting. On April 20 16, when Qin Zhi tried to sell most of his shares to Ping An Insurance, he organized a buyer group with Sequoia and Gaoyou to privatize car home, but it failed in the end. Car home fell into a safe bag and was soon purged by the management.

Today, the market value of car home is 654.38+00 billion dollars. But everyone who conquered the country is gone. This experience not only made Li want to achieve financial freedom, but also taught him a lot: how to make products, how to make profits, and how to interact; How to run a company systematically; How to deal with capital? He said frankly:

"If you start a business again, you must master the control, no matter what method you use."

NIO in 20 17 and 12? Japan is an important event in the history of modern automobile marketing in China. Weilai Automobile chartered planes and high-speed trains to transport as many as 8,000 people to Beijing Wukesong Gymnasium. That night, one of my friends in the car circle, Lao Peng, stood in the aisle on the second floor, watching the tsunami scene below, patting the bar and saying to himself, "Shit, how can we play in the future?"

When 10 told the judges that Li Bin and Li Xiang, as the founders and co-founders of Weilai Automobile, came to the stage to release ES8, they were full of heroic deeds, which not only caused the little girl to scream, but also shocked the industry: Is it really time to start again?

20 18 in the summer, an automobile tycoon asked, "What do you think of Li Bin?" The boss cares about Li Bin because he wants to know what new tricks he has. Since then, the golden age of China automobile market has passed, and the sustained growth for many years has disappeared, followed by a continuous decline. On September 12 this year, Weilai Automobile was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and the market value of that day reached11900 million US dollars.

If netizens are allowed to vote for 20 18 handsome entrepreneurs, Li Bin will definitely be elected. Everything is a match made in heaven, from investors to teams, from products to technology, from brands to terminals, from education to looks. 20 18, Li Bin was born like a god. The name of his daughter-in-law Wang Yizhi has also spread all over the world, and I wonder how many young girls are jealous.

Li Xiang obviously doesn't have this charm. NIO in 20 17? A few days later, he disappeared from public view. He has no top match. Whether investors or teams, including offices and R&D centers, the initial configuration can only be considered simple. The news from the car and home is not good either: SEV project dismounted and the first card was blind; At the same time, in another addition, a large SUV is buzzing around. "Both products are biased," said a technology giant. "Universal Volt has proved what is the future of extension programs? Nonsense! " That tone, and two days ago, the CEO of Volkswagen China called the plan "nonsense".

He met a lot of investors, almost all of them institutions, and everyone was generally not sure about the plan to increase their holdings. There are also suggestions within shareholders, or a pure electricity should be set up, which is good for financing. Li wants to be silent.

"Insisting on doing the right thing, not the simple thing, is his value," said Huang Ming of Shi Ming Capital. "It is relatively easy to make pure electricity, and investors love to listen to it, but Li wants to say that I make products for users, not investors." Huang Mingming chose to firmly support Li Xiang, not only because car home proved Li Xiang's profound insight into users, but also because the Shi Ming team did a lot of research, which proved that Li Xiang was right this time: in the current environment in China, adding programs is indeed the best solution.

But this will not convince other investment institutions. In 20 19, the situation reversed, the economic downturn and the bursting of the asset bubble superimposed, which made the investment community stay away from the new forces of car manufacturing. Zhang Wei of Cornerstone Capital publicly wrote that "they have not created any new value", which triggered a strong counterattack from He. Li Bin is in a serious crisis. First, ES8 was recalled. Second, the Shanghai base was destroyed. Yizhuang and Huzhou SDIC stood him up. By June 10, the share price of Weilai Automobile had fallen to only 1.3 USD, and the company's book cash was only enough for four months.

This is the year when death lingers at the door. Everyone's eyes were on Li Bin, and they didn't pay much attention to Li Xiang's difficulties.

Without Wang Xinghe, does Li still want to live? 2065438+August 2009, the $500 million Series C financing is very important for Li Xilai: with this money, he can build a car. Ming Ming said: "At that time, only super entrepreneur Xinghe dared to pull the trigger." Dare to pull the trigger, of course, and Li Xiang himself. "Fortunately, car home's share price is ok, and I still have some bullets to use." After this round, he's all finished? Are you online? Yes

In the autumn, Li ONE finally went offline, and investors and the media began to watch one by one. The user who paid the order finally touched the real car. It's sensational. The comment you can hear is "Too tm!"

With the growth of orders and delivery, Li's investment share began to become hot. By June 2020, it has reached the level of "breaking the head and not robbing". Wang Xing and his team continued to spend $500 million. With the help of the sword shown a year ago, Wang Xing now clearly expressed his hope to acquire more shares of Li.

"Many people underestimate Li Xiang. I believe that he will become a top entrepreneur in China in the future. He is an entrepreneur who has never been to college ... He is different. " He told analysts at the earnings conference that when he said it in his garden, his tone was more relaxed: "Those friends who think that Li wants to trade 100 billion dollars are still underestimating by an order of magnitude."

Over the years, Wang Xing rarely praised a person so openly except to express his respect for horses. On the mountain of smart cars, Li Xiang has shown the potential to take off after five years of hard exploration. According to the latest retail data of China automobile data terminal, Li ONE? Cumulative sales in 20201-August have surpassed Lexus RX? 450h, Weilai ES8, Porsche Cayenne? E-Hybrid and so on. For 8 consecutive months, it has maintained the first place in China's new energy medium and large SUV market (including hybrid, plug-in hybrid, pure electric and extended-range electric).

A group of less dazzling people, a few common words: 60 points, 100 points; Do the right thing, not the easy thing; Crazy to meet the needs of users. After five years of hard work, Li went public with a market value of $654.38+0.39 billion, surpassing car home.

In 2020, Jiangsu experienced continuous thunderstorms, and three new car-making enterprises, Lindsay, Bojun and Baiteng, announced that they would stop production. The prosperity dispersed, and the factory was located in Changzhou Li, almost becoming the only child in Jiangsu.

"In such a difficult industry, we must cultivate a startup company that climbs from 18 hell. Only when we get out of the ground can we be more competitive."

Because of Li Xiang, Li people are famous for "digging": digging for money, digging for people and digging for time.

10 people from other companies did the work, and the two of them did it. In addition, words must be done; The set goals will be achieved.

According to Li Xiang, this is very simple, that is, "scientifically set goals, do a good job in processes and training, and everyone only does the right and important things, and in the process, it is fully transparent and enjoyable." But according to Brother Hui, it's not that simple.

"A car is a product, and enterprises and organizations are also products, which need system drive, that is, goals, structures and operations." Brother Hui is Li's minister of strategy. "The correct production of these three elements requires the corporate culture and management means of all employees."

After joining Ideal from Baidu, Huige, HR and Li Xiang set up a set of management tools: LSA, OKR, LBP and CFR. These management tools and corporate culture together constitute Li Xiang's current focus: product strategy+organizational development.

"Regarding the corporate strategy, Li used to think alone, but now the strategic responsibility team of 12 people is thinking. In the future, we hope that the members of the organization have the same idea, but how to achieve this step, we still have no answer. "

According to Hui Ge, the ultimate efficiency+online system is the main goal of Li's organizational development. For example, at present, Tesla's whole-process sales rate in the domestic market is 1 1%. The ideal goal is not only lower sales rate than Tesla, but also higher customer satisfaction.

While organizing more than 3,000 people, Li Xiang has to deal with the research and development of software and hardware, the production and management of complex supply chain, and the judgment of the direction and even rhythm of future products and technologies. Li Xiang keenly put forward the new development goal of "extreme efficiency+online system", and as always, he used the simplest methods and processes to learn tools, build tools and improve all employees.

Fighting monsters has risen to a new height, and the new equipment in the arsenal has been at the forefront of Internet companies in the same period.

This is a magical thing. Another ordinary person, like him, walked down his path step by step. Can he reach today's height in 20 years? Most people will say: no, because time and space cannot be copied. But Li wants to say: Yes, because history always tells the same story over and over again, but most people turn a blind eye.

In 20 18, he wrote an article, "This is my 100 suggestions for work and growth", which was published in Weibo, making people dizzy. Translated, his enterprise development arsenal is mainly like this: 1, clear user portrait, insight into user needs; 2. Make products independent, dedicated and progressive; 3. Information sharing is the basis of building trust; 4. Be good to those who work hard and kill those who don't work hard; 5, the goal is clear and quantifiable, and everyone knows it; 6. Clear process and simple standard,100%; 7. The values are simple and clear; 8. The tool is easy to use and can be iterated; 9, system-driven, achieving the ultimate efficiency; 10, the founder has control.

Every article is written in the vernacular, which you can understand and learn. But why are so few people able to do it? "Most of them are lazy and greedy, and a few are stupid and smart." When Li wanted to say this, my colleague Dalu said:

"He is too abstruse."

In the summer of 20 14, Li Bin faced the Tesla model he bought. History rubbed his teeth. "This car is really not so good." He decided to do it himself. With him, besides Li Xiang, there are a group of people: He, Shen, He, Zheng Gang, Bao, Huang Ximing, Dai Lei, Zhang Hailiang, Zhu Jiangming and Jia Yueting. ...

In the winter of 20 16, almost all these people were in Beijing, except Jia Yueting. I asked a question: "Everyone must think that this road is a narrow escape. What if that day comes? " That night, everyone had a young man's smile on his face, which was simply the most beautiful painting in 10 years.

No one expected that this day would come so soon. No one expected that he would be called a "black sheep" or even a "liar" three years later.

In the summer of 2020, in a teahouse in Minhang, Shanghai, Huang Ximing, who was announced to "run to America", said, "I'm not going anywhere, I'm here ... no matter how difficult it is, I'll build the car."

"Is a liar, look at everything first? In, "Li wanted to say," he and I both invested 200 million dollars. " All of them? Not only the three of them, but also Bao,,, and Jia Yueting.

However, why have only, Li Xiang and He escaped so far?

Most of my friends say this: These three brothers are familiar with those investment institutions and have helped them make money, so they dare to throw money at them. Only Lao Lu said so: nonsense! These three people can run out because they have completed the training of entrepreneurs. They practiced the big market and crossed the big pit.

When I heard Lao Lu say this, I quickly gave a thumbs-up and said that Lao Lu was really awesome. But now, I find that Lao Lu is only half right, or even only a small part right. Those friends who are regarded as "nonsense" by Lao Lu are right!

The night before yesterday, I asked Lao Lu a question: "In the past 20 years, people from all walks of life have made a fortune. Why, only the Internet has really changed China? " Lao Lu smoked three cigarettes and gritted his teeth and said, "Because they connected knowledge with human reorganization." When he said this, his face flushed and his head seemed to be smoking.

That night, we sat on a hillside in Libo County, Guizhou Province, looking up at the stars. We want to understand a truth: history is a river, and it has its own direction, just like the Milky Way above.

From the beginning, Zhang Chaoyang, Ding Lei, Ma Yun, Ma, Zhou, Liu, Lei Jun, Wang Xing and He are all in this river. In the past 20 years, they and countless Internet entrepreneurs have only done two things: reconnecting knowledge and reconnecting people.

Now, it's Li Bin's turn, Li Xiang's and Xiao Peng's. Their task is only one: to reconnect everything.

That's why when Li wanted to open a "car and home" on 20 15, Huang Mingming immediately understood what he meant. "They" are familiar with him and dare to throw money at him just because they are all in this river, and they know the direction of this river.

Of course, Lao Lu was right at first. Tens of millions of people jumped into the river, and few were not submerged, because the entrepreneurial ability was extremely scarce. According to Li Xiang's growth stage theory, ordinary people, excellent people, excellent managers, excellent leaders and business leaders will be drowned if they fail to reach the fourth level of cultivation.

But most of them are not liars.

After 1994, not only the word "ideal" is no longer popular, but almost all "big talk" is less and less commonly used. By the time Ali Tencent took off, "Ant", "WeChat", "Xiaoer" and "Little Brother" became more and more popular. In recent years, it has spread to the automobile circle, such as "little ants", "black cats" and "big dogs". These car names make people laugh.

The more specific the name, the more grounded it is. The latest examples are: Lei Jun brand electric cars and Li Xiang brand prawns.

But after 20 15, this generation of entrepreneurs began to use big words again: Weilai (future), ideal, future, horizon, singularity, clouds, Weimar, Nezha, zero run (leading) and horizon.

Why is "big talk" popular again in this generation? Lao Lu said: because they are standing in this river, someone is lighting the way ahead.

Lao Lu is absolutely amazing, and it is definitely worth dragging him on the hillside for another night.

In the summer of 20 16, in Weilai's office in Shanghai, I asked Li Bin: Why do you want to blog when there are listed companies? Maybe, we will lose everything. Li Bin said:

"Buddies only have one chance to enter history in this life."

I've only heard this sentence once in 20 years.

At that moment, I felt that history was fair. Those who left their desks with great pain, those who were helpless and confused in the world of mortals, when their years of struggle, struggle, confusion and destruction gradually passed, finally a new generation dared to shout out this sentence, what they thought at first. It's just a very different meaning.

It can be said that under the illumination of Internet predecessors such as Wang Zhidong, Zhang Chaoyang, Li Yanhong, Ma Yun and Ma Hua Teng, they are more determined about the flow of this river and more clear about their mission. You can also say that after the reorganization and connection of knowledge and people, the infrastructure of modernization and transformation in this country has been built, and they are more confident to face themselves and the world than their predecessors.

The value of Li Xiang lies not only in the great possibility of his personal and organizational growth in this great era; What's more, it took him 20 years to prove that an ordinary child who didn't go to college can improve himself step by step along a brand-new road and create miracles.

When "Che He Jia" was renamed as "Li" in 20 19, the logo of "Li" on the national flag fluttered in the wind. At that moment, I really hope that Lao Guo can be present and tell me what he saw when his ideal rose again.

(The first electric Cassie Wang also contributed to this article)

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.