On January 22, 2017, Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court made a verdict in the case. The second defendant was sentenced to a fixed-term imprisonment of two years and six months, his illegal gains were confiscated, and he was fined 7.5 million yuan.
The fine is hefty, but to this defendant, it is the least worth mentioning.
The defendant is Li Yinan. He became the deputy general manager of Huawei's Central Research Department at the age of 23. At the age of 27, he became the vice president of Huawei and was even called the "Huawei Prince".
In addition, Li Yinan founded Harbor Network and Niu Dian Technology, served as chief technology officer of Baidu , CEO of China Mobile's 12580, and partner of Jinshajiang Venture Capital and Plum Blossom Angel Venture Capital.
Every step of Li Yinan
's resume is glittering, so the money lost is not a problem, but the loss of reputation is the biggest disaster for this proud man.
How did Li Yinan step by step from the envied business elite and the prince of Huawei to a prisoner?
Li Yinan was born in Changsha, Hunan in 1970. He has been an eye-catching genius since he was a child. At the age of 15, he was admitted to the junior class of China University of Technology, which was known as the "cradle of scientists" at that time.
In 1985, it was the first youth class of China University of Technology. The criteria for selecting students were: middle school and high school students with an IQ of around 130, comprehensive moral, intellectual and physical development, and under the age of 15.
At that time, only 23 "prodigies" with extraordinary IQs across the country met the standards and were selected to enter the juvenile class.
Li Yinan is one of them.
HCG attaches great importance to the junior class. The junior class implements a "tutoring system" and the school selects a group of outstanding teachers from relevant departments to serve as "tutors".
The 23 students in the junior class live on the same floor as the doctors, and every two students share a dormitory. They respond to the reasonable requirements of the junior class and are dedicated to cultivating "outstanding talents" for the country.
The students in the junior class have become "campus stars". They are not only the envious eyes of the college students of China University of Technology, but also the pride of the city in their hometown.
Li Yinan's growth at this stage may be the smoothest and most moderate process in his life.
He neither fell prematurely like some "prodigies" because they were unable to adapt to social life, nor did he climb up the ladder at an unstoppable sprint speed like a true genius.
In the youth class, a place where extraordinary young people gather together, Li Yinan's qualities are relatively balanced in all aspects, and he is successfully studying in China University of Technology. He is higher than his peers but not too far ahead.
Li Yinan decided on his development direction when he was 22 years old. Continuing further studies and becoming a scientist was not the life he aspired to. On the contrary, he couldn't wait to leave the ivory tower and start a career.
Li Yinan was very lucky. In the early 1990s, all industries in China were booming at a high speed, but the high professionalism of his subject field made his employment opportunities very narrow.
Many of Li Yinan's classmates have gone abroad for temporary development opportunities, but racial discrimination and promotion ceilings in Europe and the United States have kept most of them from doing anything.
Li Yinan got an opportunity that seemed ordinary at the time but was later worth hundreds of millions. When he was in his second year of graduate school, he entered an internship in a private enterprise.
, a private enterprise, was actually inconspicuous at the time because it had no foreign investment background and was not involved in the fashionable and easy-to-make real estate industry. It just focused on technology and industry in a down-to-earth manner. The company
is now the famous Huawei.
In that impetuous era, Huawei was indeed a rare but worthy "technology enterprise". Many of the company's technical backbones were Li Yinan's seniors at China University of Technology.
Huawei’s boss Ren Zhengfei has always been well-known for his desire and emphasis on talents. In the early 1990s, newcomers with prestigious school or professional backgrounds would receive his personal attention and communication.
After in-depth exchanges with Li Yinan, Ren Zhengfei became very interested in this thin but enthusiastic young man, and even had the urge to meet him late.
In the early 1990s, the telecommunications industry and Huawei were both standing at a foggy intersection. There were many forked roads on the other side of the fog, and each of them seemed to lead to the future.
But entrepreneurs with forward-thinking and strategic vision like Ren Zhengfei understand that there is only one right direction. The sooner you get on the real track, the greater your advantage will be. Once
takes the lead, the market share and dividends it captures will be huge. However, if it runs on the wrong track, even if it can be reversed, there will be little room for error. If
wants to break through this fog and run, Huawei needs newer, faster and more powerful technology research and development capabilities as its own engine.
Ren Zhengfei had a strong hunch that the young man in front of him, wearing glasses and looking unattractive, could give him the answer he wanted.
When Li Yinan was still an intern, Ren Zhengfei entrusted him with an important task and asked him to take the lead in developing a new project. Because
is a brand new project, Li Yinan has to start from scratch and build an entire R&D team. In addition to selecting talents, more importantly, he must equip the hardware equipment.
The core equipment selected by Li Yinan was priced as high as 200,000 US dollars at the time. Although this amount of money seems not worth mentioning now, it was still a huge sum of money in 1992.
More importantly, Huawei had very little capital on its books at that time, and it even had to negotiate with employees to delay the payment of salary accounts or exchange salaries for shares.
In such a difficult financial situation, Ren Zhengfei still took the initiative to purchase equipment for research and development. The reason is very simple. If a worker wants to do his job well, he must first sharpen his tools.
What is dramatic is that just when the equipment passed through customs and entered the factory after many twists and turns, the excitement of Li Yinan and the team had not expired. Because of the industry-specific protocol standard update, the equipment directly became a scrap.
The reason why Ren Zhengfei agreed to purchase this expensive equipment was because Li Yinan made judgments on the technological development of the industry based on his own ideas and foresight. Unexpectedly, he was kicked out of the iron plate and paid the tuition. The cost of the
equipment at that time (including exchange rate , equipment customs clearance costs, R&D personnel costs, etc.) had exceeded 2 million, and it was all in vain.
Due to financial constraints and the conflict between the new technology research and development direction represented by Li Yinan and the veteran officials and the inherent technical team, this failure suddenly pushed Li Yinan to the forefront.
Ren Zhengfei did not put the responsibility on Li Yinan. Instead, he took the responsibility directly against all opinions.
also continued to reassure the anxious Li Yinan. On the one hand, he emphasized that the purchase and scrapping of equipment were the company's decision and had nothing to do with Li Yinan. On the one hand,
continues to encourage Li Yinan not to be afraid of failure, but to always maintain the courage and courage to innovate boldly and practice.
Ren Zhengfei’s attitude not only comforted Li Yinan, but also built up his confidence in Li Yinan, who was new to the workplace, giving him a good start in the next few decades.
's unlimited tolerance, real support and enthusiastic encouragement for enterprising young people is one of the driving forces for Huawei's development.
But for some people, such tolerance, support and encouragement also nourish the slightly darker derivatives in their hearts, that is, arrogance and ambition.
They are not satisfied with the playing field created by Huawei. They can't help but want to break out of Huawei and try and challenge in their own way.
In fact, there is no right or wrong for this kind of person. Whether he and his old club go hand in hand or turn against each other, it all depends on the means and standards. I don’t know whether it is lucky or unfortunate, but Li Yinan is both.
In 1993, Li Yinan joined Huawei immediately after graduating with a master's degree. In the following years, he, Ren Zhengfei and Huawei became a perfect match.
Huawei is a company that strongly encourages the development and rapid growth of internal talent competition. Its incentive methods are sometimes quite radical, and its corporate culture is full of "wolf" nature.
But even in this "bloodthirsty" wolf pack, Li Yinan's rapid rise and rapid progress is also jaw-dropping.
Li Yinan was promoted to chief engineer only two weeks after joining the company, deputy general manager of the Central Research Department half a year later, and promoted to chief engineer/president of the Central Research Department of Huawei two years later.
's rapid promotion did not just rely on the trust of his boss. As Ren Zhengfei wished, Li Yinan became Huawei's new technical core engine, leading Huawei into the fog without hesitation.
Li Yinan made outstanding contributions in the development of the CC08 10,000-door digital program-controlled switch. The subsequent results enabled Huawei to stand out in the competition with international giants.
Li Yinan insisted on developing communication technology GSM. Afterwards, GSM technology became the core of the mobile communications industry's first golden decade, thus establishing Huawei's dominance in the world's mobile communications.
Li Yinan's technical contribution to Huawei has increased Huawei's revenue by 50 times from 410 million yuan per year to 20 billion yuan, opening up overseas markets and ushering in Huawei's prosperous age.
Four years after joining Huawei, Li Yinan became the company's vice president. When he achieved this achievement, he was only 27 years old.
Because of this unprecedented (and probably unprecedented) promotion speed, the topics surrounding Li Yinan are becoming more and more popular.
The most widely circulated one is a slightly derogatory nickname - "Huawei Prince", which mocks Ren Zhengfei's high support for technical talents as support for his godson.
This narrow and unflattering metaphor only illustrates the dark side of competition within and outside the company, and is purely a harmless nonsense.
Li Yinan rushed too fast and had no time and disdain to take care of these young people. However, after taking the nominal second-in-command position in the company, he felt real pain.
At this time, Huawei has broken through the fog under the leadership of Li Yinan and is running on the fast lane of the industry. However, the brutal growth has also brought new crises. In this regard, Huawei's helmsman Ren Zhengfei once again saw the opportunity.
's non-standard management has brought potential risks of violations and violations. In order to avoid going astray, Ren Zhengfei introduced an external guidance team to sort out and standardize Huawei's management structure and procedures. The
specification means formality, and it also means putting a halter on the wild horses that are used to running wildly. As the "leading horse", Li Yinan was one of the first major people to feel dissatisfied.
To put it bluntly, although Li Yinan already holds a high position in a large company, in terms of working years, he is still a young man who has just passed the rookie stage.
In terms of experience, Li Yinan, who was protected by Ren Zhengfei in the ivory tower, has never experienced any beating from society.
From the time Li Yinan entered Huawei and reached the top of the management pyramid, he has always been protected by people, whether it is the general direction of development or the sunk cost of and .
From this perspective, Li Yinan indeed enjoys the treatment of "prince" in Huawei. The boss is like a father and a brother, so that he always carries the passion and fearlessness of young people.
But Li Yinan also has the unscrupulousness and arrogance of an over-spoiled child. These qualities have become the driving force for Li Yinan to break through, and they are also the black hand that pushed him into the abyss.
Huawei's increasingly standardized management procedures made Li Yinan, who was accustomed to wild growth and rapid advancement, feel uncomfortable.
Because of independent research and development, he and Ren Zhengfei have a good understanding. Because of standardized management, he and Ren Zhengfei have gone further and further.
At the same time, others still regard Li Yinan as Ren Zhengfei's successor, and with Huawei's strength in the mobile communications industry, awareness of this label has spread from internal to external.
But for scientific and technological elites like Li Yinan, who have a smooth life, achievements and results are always tied to a towering tree and are not real glory.
Li Yinan dreams of creating his own glory.
In 2000, Li Yinan finally made up his mind to leave Huawei. He used more than 10 million yuan from Huawei's equity settlement and dividends as start-up capital to establish Harbor Network in Beijing.
Ren Zhengfei gave Li Yinan very high-profile support for his self-establishment, just as he did technology research and development back then.
In addition to holding a grand farewell party for Li Yinan, Ren Zhengfei also gave a big gift, making Harbor Networks a senior distributor of Huawei's enterprise network products.
Huawei is like a mother body, providing protection and nourishment for this new enterprise.
Li Yinan accepted this arrangement when he left, but he left Huawei just to establish a sect, so naturally he could not accept being just a vassal of Huawei.
So it didn’t take long before Li Yinan led Harbor to launch products that directly competed with Huawei. When recruiting talents and winning customers, he directly poached Huawei.
At this time, Li Yinan was like a son or grandson who was still "gnawing at the old age" after getting married. Although he had established his own family, he still had to rely on his family of origin to make ends meet. In order to fight against Huawei,
did not hesitate to contact Huawei's main competitors such as Siemens , hoping to introduce new "backers".
If the conflict between Li Yinan and Ren Zhengfei was just an "internal conflict" at the beginning, Li Yinan launched competing products and flirted with competitors, making them "foreign enemies".
Ren Zhengfei's attitude towards competitors is always ruthless. Huawei even established a "Hong Kong Office" to deal with Li Yinan and Harbor Network.
After several years of pulling and pulling, this "infighting" finally ended with Huawei acquiring Harbor Network.
A tragic struggle that hurt both sides wiped out the trust and affection established by Li Yinan and Ren Zhengfei over many years. After
, Li Yinan stayed at Huawei for a short period of time. The disagreement in ideas made them no longer have any nostalgia for each other. After running away for the second time, he began his "wandering journey" like a revolving door.
Baidu, China Mobile, Wuxun Qizong... In just four years, Li Yinan came and went in these companies. When he left, he was highly anticipated, but when he left, he left sadly.
What Li Yinan gained during this journey was not the growth of being able to move up and down, bending and stretching, but a disguised worship of money and power.
This turned Li Yinan from a pure science and engineering man who focused on research and development of technology to an upstart capitalist who is devoted to the money game.
In 2011, Li Yinan officially entered the venture capital world, the world's most profitable and risky money arena. Li Yinan was already in his forties when
joined Venture Capital, but he still maintained some of the naivety of a science and engineering technical guy. He thought he had seen enough "bloodthirsty wolves" and could withstand any test.
Li Yinan didn't understand that the "wolfishness" and "bloodiness" displayed in the industrial industry for the sake of creation were not the same thing as the unscrupulous "bloodthirstiness" displayed in the financial industry in order to take advantage of the rules.
He doesn't like the free personality restricted by standardized rules, which makes him full of loopholes.
At the beginning of June 2015, the first product of Niu Dian Technology founded by Li Yinan, the Maverick Electric Bicycle, was released. This was Li Yinan’s new attempt and impact on the industry.
But two days later, Li Yinan, who had been so high-spirited at the press conference just now, was detained by the police at Shenzhen Airport.
Because of his illegal operations in financial transactions, Li Yinan had long been targeted by the police. The investigation had been going on for a year, and the evidence was basically conclusive when the action was taken. After
, there was nearly two years of long litigation, which did not come to an end until January 22, 2017, when the second instance was pronounced guilty.
The investigator investigating Li Yinan's case expressed regret over his dismissal:
"People must learn to respect themselves. He has such a good material foundation and has made such a great contribution to society."
"There are seniors and juniors. He was sentenced and unable to take care of his family. The negative impact on his family and children was an immeasurable loss. "
The brilliant prodigy, genius, and elite in the past finally shed all their aura behind bars and made a living for themselves. He has learned a painful lesson from his carelessness, recklessness and contempt for regulations.
html Nearly half a century later, Li Yinan finally really grew up.
