Why Did China’s Xiaomi Mock Steve Jobs’ Death?

Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun on stage. Image source: Xiaomi's BBS.

Xiaomi’s founder, Lei Jun, is apparently a popular figure in China as shown by the large number of fans following him on Sina Weibo. I’m doubting his team’s intelligence though, as Xiaomi’s recent comments on Sina Weibo about Steve Jobs were seriously insensitive and utterly lack respect.

Sure, we all have people we might not like but to mock someone publicly who has contributed so much to the tech world after his death is going way overboard. And Xiaomi’s timing is suspect as its smartphone is poised to be launched in about a week’s time, on October 15.

Come on, shouldn’t the team be busy working on the product launch? (Especially with so many complaints about the Xiaomi test sets)

We have written much about Xiaomi and even wished the company luck. Our team respects Xiaomi’s work for embracing the open nature of Android, and improving it visually and practically in China. Nonetheless, it is stupid for the team to make mindless comments about Jobs’ death publicly. The messages on Sina Weibo were deleted and Lei Jun, the founder, said that he was shocked to learn about the messages. An anonymous employee is said to be the one responsible for the weibo posts.

What’s done is done but I must admit I do have doubts about his explanation and leadership, especially after reading his somewhat crazy article two weeks ago. Even before the world lost Steve Jobs, Lei Jun made his insensitivity painfully clear:

乔布斯有一天也会死，所以我们还有机会。我们生存的意义就是等待着他挂掉.
Translation: Jobs will die someday, so there are still opportunities for us. The meaning of our existence is just waiting for him to kick the bucket.

Anyway, Xiaomi is lucky in that few people were paying attention to the comments because it is a ‘golden week’ in China — a national vacation week. Not many folks in China are writing about this stupid act, so we thought it is only fair to give Xiaomi the publicity it deserves.

Disclosure: I’m a Steve Jobs and Apple fan. I own an iPod, iPhone, iPad, and MacBook.