NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Sponsored Stories

Huawei boss no stranger to a fight

Sponsored by Huawei

17 Dec, 2019 11:00 AM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Ren Zhengfei, 75yo founder of Huawei, has humble origins & was 44 when he started the tech giant.

One of the side effects of US sanctions against global technology company Huawei is that it has seen its formerly reclusive, 75-year-old founder, Ren Zhengfei, take centre stage.

In a new video series (Who Is Huawei?), Ren is heading a push for Huawei to be better understood than merely the target of US sanctions after Trump administration claims the Chinese company is a security risk.

Interestingly, Ren – previously admired but little seen in the spotlight – has highlighted Huawei's humble beginnings and problems that will be familiar to any owners of start-ups, western or eastern. He is a veteran of battles with competitors, coming within a hair's breadth of financial disaster and intense work stress – once leading him to consider suicide, according to an Associated Press report.

Ren was 44 when he started Huawei with a capital of 21,000 yuan (about $4500 today) in an apartment in Shenzhen in 1987. He'd already had to endure leaving the military (where he was a lab technician) when China downsized its army and getting fired from his first job as he and other military men struggled with the demands of the new free market.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

He'd been born into a time when Chinese people were enduring mass hardships, including famine and the fallout from the Cultural Revolution. Hard work and suffering were commonplace and basic items such as cooking oil and salt were considered a luxury.

"We survived on cheap cereal crops throughout the year. We were slightly better off than our neighbours, because my parents were teachers," says Ren. "By better off, I mean we could add salt when we cooked."

However, the challenges and difficulties have not stopped now that Huawei has attained global status – passing Apple as the world's number two smart phone brand and the world's biggest manufacturer of network equipment for the world's telcos.

One of those current challenges is that his daughter, Meng Wanzhou, is being held in Canada on US charges she helped violate sanctions against Iran.

In one interview, Ren says: "For three decades, Huawei has been suffering and no joy. The pain of each episode is different."

However, he has some experience of pain. One of seven children raised by schoolteachers who managed to feed the family on a monthly wage of 40 yuan – his mother told biographer Tian Tao, co-author of The Huawei Story, that she painstakingly divided each meal into nine small portions, so no one would die.

In the army, he endured freezing conditions (sometimes -28C) and poor food when helping to build houses in the far north of China – also a time when he began to develop his engineering skills and powers of innovation.

In 2000, in a key episode of Huawei's evolution, Ren resisted developing the personal handy-phone system (PHS) as a low-cost alternative to mobile service. Ren rejected PHS as a distraction from work on next-generation mobile technology that promised to be cheaper and more reliable.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

It was a key decision, though Ren had to withstand appeals to back PHS as bills for 3G development rose to 6 billion yuan ($1.1 billion)
In another interview, Ren said: "Today's crisis is one-tenth or 1 per cent of the pressure at that time. Tian said Huawei employees told him Ren, unable to sleep, would call and worry aloud about how to pay a 300 million yuan ($77m) monthly wage bill.

Before the US sanctions, sales last year rose almost 20 per cent to US$105bn ($161bn) and Ren has steered Huawei towards becoming a self-reliant, self-contained technology creator – including work on an operating system (Harmony OS) which can power smartphones and other devices. This year's research spending is due to rise 20 per cent to $17 billion ($26bn).

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Sponsored Stories

Sponsored Stories

Is your dog or cat hiding pain?

07 Jul 03:49 AM
Sponsored Stories

Outward Bound NZ: How a South Auckland teen ditched his phone and found confidence off the grid

07 Jul 01:24 AM
Sponsored Stories

What rising optimism means for you

06 Jul 10:59 PM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Sponsored Stories

Is your dog or cat hiding pain?

Is your dog or cat hiding pain?

07 Jul 03:49 AM

Vet tips to spot arthritis early and support your pet’s health.

Outward Bound NZ: How a South Auckland teen ditched his phone and found confidence off the grid

Outward Bound NZ: How a South Auckland teen ditched his phone and found confidence off the grid

07 Jul 01:24 AM
What rising optimism means for you

What rising optimism means for you

06 Jul 10:59 PM
From Barrier beekeeper to global wellness pioneer: Alan Bougen’s 50-year journey with Comvita

From Barrier beekeeper to global wellness pioneer: Alan Bougen’s 50-year journey with Comvita

04 Jul 02:19 AM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP