Rebirth 2010: I taught Mr. Lei how to make a mobile phone

Chapter 18 Xiaomi is eager to recruit talents

"Please come in."

Pushing the door open, Guan Yingzhi saw Mr. Bin staring at the computer, wondering what he was thinking about.

She said with a little respect, "Boss Bin, here is a resume and written test questions. The technical department can't confirm it, so I'll show it to you."

"Put it here. I'll take a look at it later."

"OK, all right."

Lin Bin looked at the interview results of some technical managers in the computer system and found that most of them failed in the third round, including some candidates recommended internally. This gave him a headache.

When Xiaomi was founded, there were 14 people in total. They drank a bowl of millet porridge together and embarked on the entrepreneurial journey, just wanting to make mobile phones.

But how to do it? He and Lei Jun only discussed a rough idea, wanting to develop both software and hardware in parallel, and both hands must be strong. Now it is a stage of crossing the river by feeling the stones.

Everything was in a state of disarray. Lei Jun and him had a clear division of labor. Lei Jun was responsible for continuing to attract investment. After all, if they wanted to make a mobile phone, the initial capital was only 500 million US dollars at most. At first glance, it seemed like a lot, but the problem was that this was for making a mobile phone, and this amount of money was only enough to make a mobile phone case.

His main responsibility at present is to build up the technical team.

Currently, Li Wanqiang serves as the technical director, and his subordinate Huang Jiangji serves as the technical manager. There are also some talents brought in from the former employer, such as Fan Dian, Liu Xinyu, Sun Peng, Li Weixing and others who played football together on the Microsoft football team.

Lei Jun also poached some people from Kingsoft, including the chubby Qu Heng, Qin Zhifan, Li Wanqiang's former subordinate Wang Haizhou, and Guan Yingzhi in front of him.

Together with some recently recruited technical personnel, these make up Xiaomi’s current technical team.

However, it is easy to get thousands of soldiers but difficult to get a good general. The position of hardware manager is currently vacant, and Huang Jiangji is still lacking a deputy.

Lin Bin took off his glasses and rubbed his temples. It was easy to recruit people internally, but recruiting people from outside was like finding a partner, it all depended on fate.

I looked up and found that the other person had not left yet, and then I remembered, "Oh, resume, right? Let me take a look now."

At this time, he picked up the resume beside him and looked at it with disapproval.

Then he frowned. What a crap! A junior engineer from a small company with an ordinary undergraduate degree is showing it to him.

Did Guan Yingzhi make a mistake? But after all, she worked in human resources at Kingsoft, so she wouldn't make such a low-level mistake.

Lin Bin patiently read the resume and continued to look at the written test questions.

Hmm. I answered the questions about mobile programming okay, but I left some conceptual stuff blank and only wrote half of it. Is it because I don’t know how to do it or because I didn’t have enough time?
Then I continued to look back.
Guan Yingzhi saw that Mr. Lin's brows were getting deeper and deeper, and he looked dissatisfied, so he knew what was going on.

"Mr. Lin, this guy named Chen Mo spent an hour on these two sets of questions, and I think he just wrote them randomly. I'm going to call and inform him that he's been eliminated. You're so busy, and I'm sorry to bother you with such a small matter."

After saying that, Guan Yingzhi prepared to leave.

"Hey, wait, come back first!"

Ga?
What's going on? Aren't you dissatisfied?

Guan Yingzhi's head was full of question marks.

Unexpectedly, Lin Bin asked inexplicably, "You said that these two test papers only took one hour?"

Guan Yingzhi nodded subconsciously, "Yes."

Lin Bin murmured, no wonder.
Then he frowned and found the blind spot of the problem.
"His resume is so ordinary. It looks like he is applying for a software engineer position, but he did two sets of questions for mobile engineer and technical manager. What do you want to say?"

Lin Bin pointed out the unreasonableness of the situation. Guan Yingzhi thought about it, explained the cause and effect, gritted his teeth and told his true thoughts at the time, and finally admitted his mistake to Mr. Lin.

"Well done, otherwise we wouldn't have discovered this talent."

Huh? Compared to being praised instead of criticized, Guan Yingzhi was obviously more concerned about the second half of Mr. Lin's sentence, and he even stuttered, "You said he is a talent?"

"From the written test, it seems that this person has something to say and is a versatile person. However, he may have been pressed for time and answered the questions hastily. Some questions only have the key points but no details. What a pity."

Of course, Lin Bin only said half of his words to Guan Yingzhi, because even he felt that some of Chen Mo's answers to design questions were too novel and seemed far-fetched, but after careful consideration, they seemed feasible, which made him extremely curious.

Then Lin Bin asked, "By the way, where is Mr. Lei? Do you know?"

"It seems he is meeting with an investor outside."

"Forget it, I'll give him a call later. When this guy named Chen Mo comes back in the afternoon, Mr. Lei and I will meet him alone. I'll ask Lei Jun about his time and let you know when the time comes. Go ahead and get busy."

Guan Yingzhi left Lin Bin's office, secretly shocked. He didn't expect that this guy named Chen Mo was really a genius.

Who knows, this guy might become my colleague in the future.

It seems that I should adjust the way I communicate and interact with him in the afternoon.

A private kitchen with great environment and privacy not far from Xiaomi.

In one of the rooms, two people were eating and chatting. One was Lei Jun, who had just founded Xiaomi two days ago, and the other was Liu Qin, a partner of Morningside Capital.

In 2000, Liu Qin joined Morningside Venture Capital and eight years later, he co-founded Morningside Capital with Shi Jianming. Backed by Hong Kong Hang Lung Group, it has made remarkable achievements in recent years and invested in many star companies.

Since they met in 2003, by chance, he and Lei Jun jointly invested in more than a dozen projects including Lakala, UCWeb, YY Voice, and Duokan Reading. During the process, the two hit it off and had a great time chatting.

A few days ago in the middle of the night, Liu Qin received a call from Lei Jun. The two chatted all night. Lei Jun's words "Xiaomi can replicate Apple's success" touched him, which led to this meeting.

In China, most business deals are done over wine.

But this time was a little different. Although Lei Jun spoke Xiantao Mandarin at the dinner table, he described the triathlon entrepreneurial model combining "software + hardware + Internet" in a very attractive way.

Liu Qin also nodded repeatedly as he listened, looking very interested, but he had not made up his mind yet.

After listening to Lei Jun's remarks, Liu Qin put down his chopsticks and wiped the corners of his mouth with a towel.
"I probably already knew enough about the situation that night. To be honest, Morningside has also been researching Xiaomi these days. I am personally very optimistic about Xiaomi's development prospects, but how should I put it? Xiaomi is too small at the moment, and the mobile phone market is too deep. Even if you want to swallow an elephant, there are opportunities, but the risks are still a bit too high."

Lei Jun leaned forward slightly, "The higher the risk, the greater the benefit. 3G has been fully rolled out in China. There are reports that 4G network has been put into commercial use. It is conceivable that mobile network will be available in less than two years, and the mobile phone market will also transform from traditional mobile phones to smart phones.

Last year, smartphone sales increased by 3300 million units. Note that it is an increase, not a reach!

The current smartphone market is a blue ocean, and in the next few years it will revolutionize the entire era just like PCs did.

Now is the time for the wind to change direction. Don’t miss this opportunity.”

Although Lei Jun speaks Mandarin with an accent, the content is extremely provocative.

Unfortunately, the person sitting opposite him was Liu Qin, a man he had dealt with many times.

Liu Qin was seen drinking tea, unmoved and steady as a rock.

(End of this chapter)