Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun revealed that the company’s ideology was influenced by the teachings of the Buddha, reports the GizChina edition.
Jun said that he and like-minded people thought for a long time about how to name the created company. According to him, such proposals as “Red Star”, “Red Pepper” and “Black Rice” were shortlisted. A top manager of the corporation said that the word “rice” – mi in Chinese – did not appear by chance and eventually stuck in the name.
At some point during his brainstorming session, Jun recalled his favorite quote: “The Buddha views a grain of rice with as much significance as Mount Meru.” After the Xiaomi co-founders adopted the word “rice”, they decided to add the word “small” (Xia in Chinese) to it. Jun stated that the idea came to investor Liu Qin. “The Internet is inherently evasive. We do not take big, but small,” – quotes the words of Qin CEO of Xiaomi. Jun admitted that the name was immediately liked by everyone in the audience.
Lei Jun also spoke about what influences the greatness of an IT corporation. In his opinion, Xiaomi’s success is based on three aspects – technology, good products, focus on user experience. The top manager emphasized that success is definitely not related to the name, however appropriate it may be.
At the beginning of the year, Lei Jun told how the name Xiaomi appeared. According to him, “mi” at the end of the word means the mobile Internet, which the corporation focuses on. There is also a version that the ending is an abbreviation of the title of the movie “Mission: Impossible”, the idea of which correlates with the ideology of the company.