探秘华为：挑战英伟达的中国芯片巨头

引言：AI芯片领域的潜在挑战者

Joe Weisenthal: Hello and welcome to another episode of the OddLots podcast. I'm Jill Weisenthal and I'm Tracy Aloway. Tracy, we recently did that episode with McKenzie Hawkins talking about, you know, some of the geopolitics of AI and chips, etc. And when it comes to AI chips, it basically is Nvidia and nobody else. But there is one other company that's clearly like lurking out there in the picture.

Joe Weisenthal: 大家好，欢迎收听新一期的 OddLots 播客。我是 Joe Weisenthal，和我一起的是 Tracy Alloway。Tracy，我们最近和 McKenzie Hawkins 做了一期节目，讨论了人工智能（AI）和芯片等领域的地缘政治。谈到AI芯片，基本上就是英伟达 (Nvidia：全球领先的图形处理器和人工智能芯片设计公司) 一家独大。但显然，还有另一家公司正在悄然崛起。

Tracy Alloway: Huawei.

Tracy Alloway: 华为。

Joe Weisenthal: Yes. Right. So that was one of the things that came up, which is that yes, Nvidia has this huge dominance within AI, but you know, there is this Chinese company as we said, Huawei, that is making a lot of progress. If there's one area of concern or if there's one possibility that another company's tech could really sort of like form the backbone of AI, this is is probably them.

Joe Weisenthal: 是的。没错。这就是当时我们提到的一个重点：尽管英伟达在AI领域拥有巨大的主导地位，但正如我们所说，有一家中国公司——华为，正在取得长足的进步。如果说有哪个领域值得关注，或者说有哪家公司的技术有可能真正成为AI的支柱，那很可能就是华为了。

Tracy Alloway: I find Huawei really fascinating as a company. So, it's sort of this national champion, right? And even the name I think means something like China has achievements or China is able to achieve or something like that. And yet it has these like really weird European style headquarters. Yeah. They look like French castles and things like that.

Tracy Alloway: 我觉得华为这家公司非常引人入胜。它在某种程度上是中国的“国家冠军”，对吧？我记得它的名字含义也与“中华有为”或“中国能够成就”之类相关。然而，它的总部却建成了非常奇特的欧式风格，看起来就像法国的城堡之类的建筑。

Joe Weisenthal: And you hear all these stories about how aggressive some of the Huawei sales tactics are. There was the arrest of the founder written Junk Fay's daughter a few years ago. So, there's just all this stuff going on and like kind of weird tensions and I want to learn more about what this company actually is and what it does.

Joe Weisenthal: 而且你总能听到关于华为销售策略如何激进的各种故事。几年前，创始人任正非的女儿还被逮捕了。所以，这家公司周围总是发生着各种事件，存在着一些奇特的紧张关系，我很想更深入地了解这家公司到底是什么，以及它具体做什么。

揭开华为的神秘面纱

Tracy Alloway: Totally. A lot of mystery, a lot of perhaps paranoia, a lot of concern about what it does and who it is and its connection to the Chinese government, the CCP, etc. Anyway, we have to learn more if this is going to be the one company that could at some point in the future threaten Nvidia. And we really do have the perfect guest to talk about it. We are going to be speaking with Eva Doe. She is the author of the fairly new book. It came out earlier this year, House of Huawei, The Secret History of China's Most Powerful Company. It's really an extraordinary book. I actually think someone asked me the other day, what are a few books you would read about China these days? And this is now, I think, sort of an instant classic. So, Eva, thank you so much for coming on OddLots. It's kind of perfect timing.

Tracy Alloway: 完全正确。围绕着它有很多谜团，或许还有很多猜忌，以及对其业务、身份及其与中国政府和中国共产党（CCP）关系的担忧。无论如何，如果它未来真的可能威胁到英伟达，我们就必须深入了解。我们请到了一位非常合适的嘉宾来讨论这个话题——Eva Dou。她是新书《华为家族：中国最强大公司的秘密历史》的作者，这本书今年早些时候出版。这真是一本非凡的著作。实际上，前几天有人问我最近会推荐读哪些关于中国的书，我认为这本书已经可以算是一本“即时经典”了。所以，Eva，非常感谢你来到 OddLots，这个时机真是太完美了。

Eva Dou: Thank you so much for having me here. Actually, it's really perfect timing because just today the founder of the company, Ren Jung Fay, gave a interview with People's Daily and it's clear in your reporting he does not do like a ton of media etc. He's certainly not like a Jensen Wong always talking to the press.

Eva Dou: 非常感谢你们邀请我。确实，时机非常完美，因为就在今天，公司创始人任正非接受了《人民日报》的采访。而根据你的报道，很明显他并不常接受大量媒体采访，他肯定不像英伟达的黄仁勋那样总是对媒体侃侃而谈。

Joe Weisenthal: What do you take away from that that suddenly there's a uh just I think literally just today or maybe yesterday that there's a Ren Jang Fay interview with the People's Daily. Yeah.

Joe Weisenthal: 任正非突然在今天或昨天接受《人民日报》的采访，你从中解读出了什么信息？

Eva Dou: So this is very very rare for them to publish a full interview transcript with a private enterprise entrepreneur on the front page of the people's daily which is the parties mouthpiece and usually is chronicling what the nation's leadering and other senior officials are doing. And I think it really speaks to Huawei's sort of central role now in China's tech industry and not only that in diplomatic relations. This is the message to the United States and the world for them to put his words on the front page of People's Daily at a time when Huawei is very much in the crosshairs of the Trump administration.

Eva Dou: 这种情况非常罕见。《人民日报》作为党的喉舌，通常报道的是国家领导人及其他高级官员的动态，很少会在头版刊登对一位民营企业家的完整采访稿。我认为这真正说明了华为如今在中国科技产业乃至外交关系中的核心地位。在华为正处于风口浪尖的时刻，他们将任正非的话放在《人民日报》头版，这本身就是向美国和全世界传递的一个信息。

公司特性：欧式城堡与“狼性文化”

Tracy Alloway: I want to ask the pressing question on my mind and then maybe get into other important stuff, but what is the deal with the European castle headquarters for this company that has sort of grown in tandem with the Chinese economy and is considered a national champion, national symbol in many ways? Why do they have French castles and like Greek statues as their headquarters?

Tracy Alloway: 我想先问一个我最关心的问题，然后再谈其他重要的事情。这家与中国经济同步增长、在很多方面被视为国家冠军和象征的公司，为什么会把总部建成欧式城堡的样子？他们为什么用法国城堡和希腊雕像来做总部？

Eva Dou: Yeah, this is one of the strange and amusing things about this company. They have this sort of larger than-l life campus that just mystifies people when they come to visit. They have like a replica of Versailles. They have a replica of the castle of H Highleberg from Germany. And they have their R&D operations in these like European style castles. And it's very strange to people. And this has never been fully explained by the company. But in a way it it does show their the level of their ambition like they are building sort of an empire far more than just what many people think of sort of a single tech company.

Eva Dou: 是的，这是这家公司奇特又有趣的一点。他们有一个超乎寻常的园区，让来访者感到困惑。他们有凡尔赛宫的复制品，有德国海德堡城堡的复制品。他们的研发 (R&D: Research and Development) 部门就在这些欧式城堡里办公。这对人们来说非常奇怪，公司也从未对此做出过全面的解释。但在某种程度上，这确实显示了他们的雄心壮志——他们正在建立一个帝国，而不仅仅是许多人眼中的单一科技公司。

独特的公司结构：非上市、非国有的科技巨头

Joe Weisenthal: The weird thing about Huawei is you know when we talk about these big Chinese industrial giants typically a lot of them are publicly traded. We're talking about PYD or Xiaomi or so forth or Cattle the battery company. And then it's also not a state-owned enterprise. You tell in the book the story of it was founded in Shenzen in the either the late 70s or early 80s. They explicitly decided not to go down the SOE route unlike competitor ZTE. What is it though? Explain like what is the structure of this company.

Joe Weisenthal: 华为的奇特之处在于，当我们谈论中国大型工业巨头时，很多都是上市公司，比如比亚迪、小米，或者电池公司宁德时代。但华为又不是国有企业 (SOE: State-Owned Enterprise)。你在书中讲述了它于上世纪七八十年代在深圳成立的故事。他们明确决定不走国企路线，这与竞争对手中兴 (ZTE：中国另一家主要的电信设备制造商) 不同。那么它到底是什么？请解释一下这家公司的结构。

Eva Dou: This sort of gets to the heart of why I was so interested in this company, Huawei Technologies, in that if you really if you understand how this company works, then you really do understand how China works at large. And so it is this fusion between capitalism and the partycontrolled Chinese economy. That's where Huawei sits. So it is registered as a private company and it is privately held. They have resisted listing on the stock stock market for decades, which means that they are able to take a longerterm view. They don't have to deliver quarterly results. They aren't under the gun from investors to be profitable every single year, even though they are. So, they sort of are able to plow more of their money into long-term R&D investments. And the other part of it is they do have national guidance under the party from Beijing as one of the nation's tech champions. And so it's kind of this fusion.

Eva Dou: 这正是我对华为技术有限公司如此感兴趣的核心原因。如果你真正理解了这家公司的运作方式，你也就基本理解了整个中国的运作模式。它是资本主义与党领导下的中国经济的融合体，华为就处在这个交汇点上。它注册为一家私营公司，并且是私人持股。几十年来，他们一直拒绝上市，这意味着他们能够采取更长远的视角。他们不必发布季度财报，也不必承受投资者要求每年盈利的压力，尽管他们确实做到了盈利。因此，他们能够将更多的资金投入到长期的研发中。另一方面，作为国家的技术领军企业之一，他们确实受到来自北京的党的国家级指导。所以，它就是这样一种融合体。

内部竞争与文化：自我批判与牺牲精神

Tracy Alloway: How does competition with ZTE actually work? Huawei is this big important privately held company in China, but ZTE is part stateowned. I guess both of them like have some sort of relationship obviously with the CCP, but how do they actually compete against each other and I guess how does the party actually view the purpose of that competition?

Tracy Alloway: 它与中兴的竞争实际上是如何进行的？华为是中国一家重要的私营公司，而中兴则部分国有。我猜它们都与中共有某种关系，但它们之间究竟如何竞争？党又是如何看待这种竞争的目的的？

Eva Dou: Yeah, so Huawei and ZTE, they're cross town rivals. They're both based in Shenzhen. They're sort of like siblings how they've grown up. They're in some ways very similar in the types of products they offer and their global footprint. And this reflects how China has built its economy which is it encourages this kind of competition among among domestic companies and they have to fight it out amongst themselves and this pushes them to be more efficient to be better and Huawei largely has been the one who's won out.

Eva Dou: 是的，华为和中兴是同城竞争对手，总部都在深圳。它们的成长过程有点像兄弟。在产品类型和全球布局上，它们在某些方面非常相似。这反映了中国建立其经济的方式——鼓励国内公司之间进行这种竞争，让它们内部厮杀，从而促使它们变得更高效、更优秀。而华为基本上是这场竞争中的胜出者。

Joe Weisenthal: But there's competition everywhere, right? And there's competition in the United States. What is it specifically about the bones of this company that makes it unique in how cutthroat and competitive it is?

Joe Weisenthal: 但竞争无处不在，不是吗？美国也有竞争。这家公司骨子里的什么特质，使其在残酷竞争方面显得如此独特？

Eva Dou: I think Huawei is infused in this Chinese communist ethos of sacrifice towards a larger cause towards the company's cause and the nation's cause in a way that is quite unique. And so one example will be so in January 1996 there was this seminal moment in Huawei's history which was its first mass resignation ceremony and so Jean Jung Fe essentially fired his entire sales department and made them reapply for their own jobs because he was unhappy with his performance. But the way he went about this was just very different than what you would see in a western company. So each of the salespeople had to write up a resignation letter and then they held a rally where all the employees took turns criticizing themselves and you had salespeople blaming themselves and pledging that they were going to sacrifice themselves for the company's success. And this gets to this communist ethos of self-criticism and sort of sacrificing your individual interests toward the national goal which is really a key part of Huawei's culture.

Eva Dou: 我认为华为被注入了一种独特的中国共产主义精神，即为了公司和国家等更宏大的事业而牺牲。举个例子，1996年1月，华为历史上有一个开创性的时刻——它的第一次集体辞职仪式。任正非基本上解雇了整个销售部门，然后让他们重新申请自己的职位，因为他对他们的业绩不满意。但他处理这件事的方式与西方公司截然不同。每个销售人员都必须写一份辞职信，然后公司召开了一个大会，所有员工轮流进行自我批评。销售人员们自我谴责，并宣誓要为公司的成功牺牲自己。这触及了自我批评和为国家目标牺牲个人利益的共产主义理念，这确实是华为文化的一个关键部分。

Tracy Alloway: Tracy, would you do a would you do a self-criticism and sacrifi for OddLots and talk go up on stage in front of the entire team and talk about ways that you've fallen short?

Tracy Alloway: （主持人间的玩笑）Joe，你会为了 OddLots 进行自我批评和牺牲吗？你会走上台，在整个团队面前谈论自己做得不足的地方吗？

Joe Weisenthal: Joe, I do I do self-criticism every day. I would I would take part in an oddlot self-criticism session in front of all of you.

Joe Weisenthal: Tracy，我每天都在做自我批评。我愿意在你们所有人面前参加一场 OddLots 的自我批评会议。

华为与中共的联系

Tracy Alloway: What exactly is the connection between Ren Jung Fay, the founder of Huawei, and the CCP? I know he used to be a PLA engineer I think but other than that like what exactly is the connection?

Tracy Alloway: 华为创始人任正非与中共之间究竟有什么联系？我知道他曾是中国人民解放军（PLA: People's Liberation Army）的一名工程师，但除此之外，具体的联系是什么？

Eva Dou: Yes. So the party plays an overarching role in China including over the private tech sector and so it is always always there. So Huawei since its early days has had a communist party committee within the company which is a normal thing and required in China even for foreign companies like Walmart or Disney that are operating in China. And so this throughout its history has played a role in aligning the company's operations with national goals and in some ways doubles as an HR department in that they have a role and authority to fire people to recommend people for promotion or vice versa.

Eva Dou: 是的。党在中国扮演着总揽全局的角色，包括对私营科技领域。所以它的存在是无时无刻的。华为从早期开始，公司内部就设有党委，这在中国是正常且必需的，即使是像沃尔玛或迪士尼这样在华经营的外国公司也不例外。在华为的历史中，党委一直在使其公司运营与国家目标保持一致方面发挥作用，并且在某种程度上兼具人力资源部门的职能，因为他们有权力解雇员工、推荐晋升人选，反之亦然。

Joe Weisenthal: Yeah, this is really interesting. They also sort of police the behavior of at least the party members who work for the company. I think like you talk in your book about like you know they make sure that they're engaging in good moral behavior like not gambling and stuff like that.

Joe Weisenthal: 是的，这真的很有趣。他们似乎还监督公司里党员员工的行为。我记得你在书中提到，他们会确保这些党员有良好的道德行为，比如不赌博之类的。

Eva Dou: Yeah, certainly. And so the party members are, it's not the majority of Huawei's employees, but a sizable proportion of the staff are party members. And the party committee specifically is in charge of overseeing the moral guidance of these employees who are supposed to be leaders within the company. And every few years there there is this crackdown on immoral behavior within a company that aligns with nationwide crackdown.

Eva Dou: 当然。党员并非华为员工的大多数，但员工中仍有相当一部分是党员。党委专门负责监督这些员工的道德风尚，他们被期望成为公司内部的表率。每隔几年，公司内部就会配合全国性的整风运动，对不道德行为进行一次整顿。

业务版图：从电信管道到AI芯片与智能汽车

Tracy Alloway: Can I ask a very very basic question which probably should have been my first question instead of asking about the castles but what does Huawei actually do and what did they start out making versus what they make and do now?

Tracy Alloway: 我能问一个非常基础的问题吗？这个问题可能本应是我第一个问的，而不是问关于城堡的事。华为到底是做什么的？他们最初是做什么的，现在又在做什么？

Eva Dou: So the way to think about Huawei is right now we live in this information economy and data is sort of the most valuable commodity in any nation now and so Huawei is the company that builds the pipes that carry data both in China and around the world. It's emerged as the most proficient company that does this that builds the networks for both internet and phone data around the world. And in addition to that, it's also China's leading producer of chips which right now are the heart of this AI revolution. And so the US has Nvidia and China's alternative is Huawei. And so they make telecom networks, they make the chips. And they also have expanded to like a wide range of other other products in including consumer technologies like smartphones, smart watches, and smart cars. The most recent one.

Eva Dou: 理解华为的方式是这样的：我们现在生活在信息经济中，数据是任何国家最有价值的商品。而华为就是建造传输数据“管道”的公司，这些管道遍布中国和世界各地。它已成为全球建设互联网和电话数据网络最精通的公司。除此之外，它还是中国领先的芯片生产商，而芯片正是当前这场AI革命的核心。所以，美国有英伟达，而中国的替代选择就是华为。他们制造电信网络，也制造芯片。同时，他们还扩展到了一系列其他产品，包括智能手机、智能手表和智能汽车等消费科技产品，智能汽车是他们最近涉足的领域。

Joe Weisenthal: Oh, I didn't realize it's really amazing with these big uh Chinese tech giants. They really build everything. And I actually do think sort of aside here, it's interesting that like 10 years ago there was talk about an Apple car and they spent a lot of time looking into getting into cars and it just sort of never materialized. And yet here you have these here's a company that was clearly late to the smartphone game relative to the Apple iPhone which was the beginning and now it's doing cars and watches and everything else and all the 5G gear and all the things that Apple doesn't do. It strikes me as very revealing.

Joe Weisenthal: 我之前都没意识到，这些中国科技巨头真是了不起，他们几乎什么都造。说句题外话，我觉得很有趣的是，大约10年前，大家都在谈论苹果汽车，苹果也花了很多时间研究造车，但最终不了了之。而现在，这家在智能手机领域相对于开创者苹果iPhone来说明显是后来者的公司，却在做汽车、手表以及其他所有东西，还有苹果不做的所有5G（第五代移动通信技术）设备。这让我觉得很有启发性。

Eva Dou: There's a comment from the founder that was I think dates back to the 90s where he said a country without its own program controlled switches is like one without an army. That strikes me as something that he identified which now almost every country or everyone around the world is thinking. It's almost like he was 30 years ahead of his time because if you think about the anxiety in the in the US about various technologies that we don't build here, if you think about the anxiety in Europe, etc., It really seems like that line is now becoming conventional wisdom among companies and governments all over the world.

Eva Dou: 创始人任正非在90年代曾说过一句话，大意是“一个没有自己的程控交换机的国家，就像一个没有军队的国家”。我觉得他当时指出的这一点，现在几乎成了全世界每个国家和每个人的共识。他几乎领先了时代30年。因为如果你想想美国对于那些我们本土不生产的技术的焦虑，想想欧洲的焦虑，就会发现，他那句话现在真的成了全球公司和政府的普遍认知。

决策机制与全球扩张

Tracy Alloway: So on this note, one thing I'm really curious about is how does Huawei actually make big decisions? So you know for instance if it wants to launch a self-driving car, what does that discussion actually look like? And I guess like we just did an episode with Ricardo Hausmann where we were talking about economic complexity and the idea of countries sort of jumping from product to a more complicated product and then a more complicated product after that. But I guess how much interreation is there between all the things that Huawei makes?

Tracy Alloway: 在这个话题上，我很好奇的一点是，华为究竟是如何做出重大决策的？比如，如果他们想推出一款自动驾驶汽车，相关的讨论会是什么样的？我们刚和 Ricardo Hausmann 做了一期关于经济复杂性的节目，谈到国家如何从一种产品跃升到更复杂的产品。我想知道，华为制造的所有这些产品之间，有多大的内在关联性？

Eva Dou: So, Huawei's founder, Renyong Feay, is still the leader of the company and people have been anticipating his retirement for many years and still unclear when he will retire. And so, for now, he is making those decisions and under him there are rotating chairs who take it's kind of a strange system. They take turns doing halfier stints as Huawei's the acting CEO. And so it is a collective decision that's being made about the company's broader strategy. And this is meant to provide consistency in the company's direction going forward, especially as they're looking to a future where Mr. Ren has retired.

Eva Dou: 华为的创始人任正非仍然是公司的领导者。多年来人们一直在猜测他何时退休，但至今仍不清楚具体时间。所以目前，重大决策还是由他做出。在他之下，有一个轮值主席团，这是一个有些奇特的制度。他们轮流担任华为的代理CEO，任期半年。因此，关于公司更广泛的战略，是由一个集体来做出的。这种设计旨在确保公司未来发展方向的连续性，尤其是在为任先生退休后的未来做准备。

Joe Weisenthal: One of the things that I had forgotten about that you talk about in your book is how many big networking companies there used to be even 10 years ago but certainly like 20 years ago or 25 years ago around the dotcom bubble and there's just all these names that I had really I can't remember the last time Ericson still exists but it's clearly just nothing like what it used to be. There's Threecom and Palm and Nortell, Northern Telecom and Lucent and Maronei, like all of these companies that I just hadn't forgotten about for years, these sort of makers of telephone gear. And there's others too. And one I didn't realize, and correct me if I'm wrong, it basically seems like the reason we don't talk about any of those companies anymore is basically due to Huawei and Huawei specifically. It really was a story of all these different telecom companies ultimately losing out to Huawei.

Joe Weisenthal: 我都忘了你在书中提到的一个细节，那就是在10年前，甚至在20到25年前的互联网泡沫时期，曾经有多少大型网络公司。有很多名字我都记不清了，比如爱立信虽然还在，但已远非昔日可比。还有3Com、Palm、北电网络（Nortel）、朗讯（Lucent）和马可尼（Marconi）等等，这些制造电话设备的公司我几乎都快忘了。我之前没意识到的一点是——如果我错了请纠正我——我们现在不再谈论这些公司，基本上就是因为华为，特别是华为。这真是一个所有这些不同电信公司最终都败给了华为的故事。

Eva Dou: Certainly. So, there was a period during the 2000s when Huawei just sort of mopped the floor with its competition around the world and ran a lot of these major companies out of business. And so, Canada had Nortell, the UK had Maronei. These were gear makers who were making similar equipment to Huawei. and they all just went out of business within a span of a few years. And that's partly why officials in the west started ringing the alarm a few years ago, which was they looked around at the global market and it was all Huawei. It's just dominating this market. And in a way for Western comp countries, it was sort of an own goal. They could have fought harder to keep their companies in this market which is critical to technological development and critical to national security but these companies all went wonder and there's only a handful of companies in the world left that make this kind of equipment.

Eva Dou: 当然。在21世纪初的一段时间里，华为可以说是在全球范围内横扫竞争对手，导致许多大公司倒闭。比如，加拿大有北电，英国有马可尼。这些公司制造的设备与华为类似，但它们都在短短几年内倒闭了。这在一定程度上解释了为什么几年前西方官员开始拉响警报，因为他们环顾全球市场，发现到处都是华为。它完全主导了这个市场。在某种程度上，对西方国家来说，这算是一个“乌龙球”。他们本可以更努力地保住自己国家的公司在这个对技术发展和国家安全至关重要的市场中的地位，但这些公司都消失了，现在全球只剩下少数几家公司能制造这种设备。

超越利润的公司使命

Tracy Alloway: So speaking of national security you make the point towards the end of the book that Huawei's goals they go beyond just shareholder returns. It's also concerned with China's place in the world and helping boost China's competitiveness and all of that. And obviously there's that CCP link as well that we already discussed. But I guess my question is what are the sort of strengths and weaknesses of having a corporate mission that goes beyond just pure profit? How does that actually affect the performance of the company?

Tracy Alloway: 谈到国家安全，你在书的结尾部分指出，华为的目标超越了股东回报。它还关心中国在世界上的地位，并致力于提升中国的竞争力。当然，还有我们已经讨论过的与中共的联系。我的问题是，拥有一个超越纯粹利润的公司使命，其优势和劣势分别是什么？这如何实际影响公司的业绩？

Eva Dou: Well, for the most part, this has been very successful for Huawei in that part of why it's become number one in its field around the world and difficult to challenge is because it's not playing by these same rules where it needs to seek profitability and needs to maximize profitability kind of explicitly. that's not its main mission and it's not publicly traded and so they can't take temporary losses and plow all their money into R&D in a way that like a publicly listed US company might find difficult to convince investors to put up with. Yeah. So, so it has allowed Huawei to become incredibly strong and incredibly competitive in a way that's difficult for Western rivals to compete with. I guess one major risk of this kind of alignment with Beijing is, you know, you become at the whim of of China's government policies, which often comes in swings and often goes overboard and and Huawei is one of the few companies that has survived in such a strong state from the 1980s to the present day. And many companies have gone under in China under sort of these political winds.

Eva Dou: 在很大程度上，这对华为来说非常成功。它之所以能成为全球该领域的头号玩家且难以被挑战，部分原因就在于它不遵循那些必须追求并最大化盈利的规则。盈利不是它的主要任务，而且它没有上市，所以他们可以承受暂时的亏损，将所有资金投入研发。而一家上市的美国公司可能很难说服投资者忍受这一点。所以，这使得华为变得异常强大和有竞争力，让西方对手难以匹敌。我想，与北京保持这种一致性的一个主要风险是，你会受制于中国政府政策的变幻莫测，这些政策常常摇摆不定，有时甚至会矫枉过正。华为是少数几家从上世纪80年代至今一直能保持如此强大状态的公司之一，而中国许多公司都在这种政治风向中倒下了。

未来展望：人工智能与接班人计划

Joe Weisenthal: Setting aside geopolitics etc. I understand why Western governments are anxious after watching what happened to all of those telecom giants that virtually disappeared since the late 90s or early 2000s. Why? They certainly don't want to see that repeated again. It's interesting though going back to this new Global Times interview that came out today. There's a lot in there about AI and one of the things that uh Ren says is AI may be the last technological revolution in human society though maybe also nuclear fusion. That's interesting. But he's is one thing that's clear is that a big part of this interview is to like you know he talks about how far behind they are still. By the way, we're recording this on June 11th so people can go look for the Global Times article. He talks about how far behind they are still. like they're clearly trying to make the point in this interview that yes, AI is the future. It could even be the last important tech that ever exists, but at the same time, you know, don't be too threatened by us. We're still at least a generation behind Nvidia and so forth.

Joe Weisenthal: 撇开地缘政治不谈，我能理解西方政府为何在目睹了90年代末、21世纪初那些电信巨头几乎全部消失后感到焦虑。他们当然不希望看到历史重演。不过，回到今天《环球时报》新发布的采访，这很有趣。里面有很多关于AI的内容，任正非说，AI可能是人类社会最后一次技术革命，或许核聚变也是。这很有意思。但很明显，这次采访的一个重要部分是，他谈到他们仍然落后很多。（顺便说一下，我们是在6月11日录制的，所以大家可以去查阅《环球时报》的文章。）他谈到他们仍然落后很多，显然是想在采访中表达这样一种观点：是的，AI是未来，甚至可能是最后一项重要的技术，但与此同时，请不要对我们感到太大的威胁，我们至少还落后英伟达等公司一代。

Eva Dou: Yeah, certainly. So, Ren has always downplayed Huawei's strength publicly and part of that has been he's until recent years done very few interviews at all. Part of Huawei's culture is they are quiet. They are humble and they sort of downplay their achievements and that's allowed them part partly helped them in making these technological leapfrogs before people really recognize that's what they have done.

Eva Dou: 是的，当然。任正非总是在公开场合淡化华为的实力，部分原因在于，直到最近几年，他都极少接受采访。华为文化的一部分就是低调、谦逊，他们会淡化自己的成就。这在一定程度上帮助了他们在人们真正意识到之前，就实现了技术的跨越式发展。

Tracy Alloway: You mentioned succession earlier and obviously Ren Jung Fay has been such an iconic figure in China and within Huawei. What happens next? Who are the front runners and what exactly is the process for doing this? Because I'm kind of imagining someone needs to do a um a Chinese conglomerate version of Succession. I would watch that 100%. What is the process?

Tracy Alloway: 你之前提到了接班人问题，任正非在中国和华为内部都是一个标志性人物。接下来会发生什么？谁是热门人选？具体的流程是怎样的？我都能想象有人需要拍一部中国企业版的《继承之战》了，我肯定会百分之百地去看。这个流程是怎样的？

Eva Dou: I would watch it too. Well, in many ways, he's irreplaceable. So, Renjung Fu has has this unique position in China's tech industry of sort of this hermit sage. He like speaks in riddles and he makes these predictions that sound fantastical in the moment, but turn out to be true years later. And he's this larger than life figure who's like no one else in China's tech industry and no one else really around the world. So, it's difficult to see how he can be replaced really, but he's been working on setting up a succession plan since the 1990s. And the way that it looks now is the team a team of rotating executives who together can kind of steer the company. And so, we'll we'll have to see when he retires how well this works. And so that this team of top top executives, it includes several company veterans who have been with Huawei since the 1990s or earlier. And then it also includes Jing Fay's daughter, Moman Joe, who had been the CFO detained in Canada during the first Trump administration and who has since returned and has been elevated to this national hero status for being under house arrest in Canada.

Eva Dou: 我也会看。在很多方面，他是不可替代的。任正非在中国科技界拥有一个独特的地位，像一位隐士圣贤。他说话像打哑谜，他做的预测在当时听起来很奇幻，但多年后却被证明是正确的。他是一个传奇人物，在中国科技界乃至全世界都无人能及。所以，很难想象他如何被取代，但他从上世纪90年代就开始制定接班人计划了。目前看来，这个计划是由一个轮值高管团队共同掌舵公司。所以，我们得等他退休后才能看到这个机制运作得如何。这个高管团队包括几位自90年代或更早就加入华为的公司元老，也包括任正非的女儿孟晚舟。她曾是公司的首席财务官（CFO），在特朗普第一任期内被加拿大拘留，回国后因在加拿大被软禁的经历而被提升到了民族英雄的地位。

Joe Weisenthal: Actually, I have just one more question, which is it sounded like in your book that at least for the in the beginning years, the daughter wasn't se none of the family members were actually seen as likely replacements or leaders of the company. But it always seems like in revolutionary environments, communist revolutions, serving some time in prison or in Siberia or something like is really good for your cred. that ultimately doing some sort of stint of suffering is actually helpful in establishing like okay you actually belong to be at the top. Did those years where she was uh facing possible prison time in the US help her in terms of okay she might actually be a credible leader at some point in the future. Certainly, it was this unexpected thing that happened, her arrest in Canada, that gave her sort of the street cred back home to be elevated, which Huawei is a company where they care about results. And so for years they had believed that only engineers who really understand the technology can lead this company and be able to make the right decisions and have that authority to lead the engineers. And this was not Moenjo's background. So she had studied finance and was working in the finance department and had worked her way up to CFO but many people thought that was maybe the ceiling for her. And then that that changed after her detention, after her house arrest, she came back and soon after was promoted to one of the rotating chairpeople at Huawei, rotating chairwoman, which is one of the top positions right under Jung Fay himself.

Joe Weisenthal: 实际上我还有一个问题。在你的书中，听起来至少在早期，他的女儿或其他家庭成员并没有被看作是可能的接班人或公司领导者。但在革命环境中，似乎服刑或经历磨难对提升威望很有帮助，最终某种形式的苦难经历有助于确立“你确实属于高层”的地位。她在加拿大面临可能在美国入狱的那几年，是否有助于她成为未来一个可信的领导者？

Eva Dou: 当然。她在加拿大的被捕是一个意想不到的事件，这给了她回国后被提拔所需的“街头信誉”。华为是一家注重结果的公司，多年来他们一直认为只有真正懂技术的工程师才能领导公司，做出正确的决策，并有权威领导其他工程师。而这并非孟晚舟的背景。她学的是金融，在财务部工作，一路晋升到CFO，但许多人认为这可能就是她的职业天花板了。但在她被拘留和软禁之后，情况发生了变化。她回国后不久就被提升为华为的轮值董事长之一，这是仅次于任正非本人的最高职位之一。

结论：在危机中扩张

Tracy Alloway: So speaking of unexpected developments, in researching your book, I'm really curious if there's one thing that stuck out for you in terms of being surprising. What was the most surprising thing you heard or saw or learned about in writing this book?

Eva Dou: Um, I think the role of crisis around the world in Huawei's expansion was something that kind of was interesting and unexpected to me in researching this book, which you know, part of why they were able to make their early sales advance advances in other countries was they pushed their salespeople to the limit in extreme situations such as wars, natural disasters, pandemics. In Hong Kong, for instance, the Hong Kong market, they landed one of their first big sales during the SARS pandemic. And that was when most of their rivals were staying at home and sheltering in place during the pandemic. And they did the opposite. They basically, in their own words, ignored that a pandemic was going on and sort of met with their client as much as possible and won them over during that period. and soon after SARS were able to win kind of a key order in the company's history one of its first stepping stones.

Eva Dou: 我认为，在研究这本书时，一个有趣且出乎我意料的发现是，世界各地的危机在华为扩张中所扮演的角色。他们之所以能在其他国家取得早期的销售进展，部分原因在于他们在战争、自然灾害、流行病等极端情况下，将销售人员逼到了极限。例如在香港市场，他们在非典（SARS）大流行期间拿下了一笔早期的大订单。当时，他们的大多数竞争对手都在家避疫。而他们反其道而行之，用他们自己的话说，基本无视了疫情的存在，尽可能多地与客户会面，并在此期间赢得了客户。非典后不久，他们就赢得了公司历史上一个关键的订单，这是他们最早的垫脚石之一。

Joe Weisenthal: You also talk in the book about like in Bahrain I think it was during the Arab Spring and various other or in Afghanistan too like various times when everyone else was fleeing some sort of political turmoil the salespeople just carried on business as usual and refused to flee.

Joe Weisenthal: 你在书中也提到，比如在巴林的“阿拉伯之春”期间，以及在阿富汗等其他地方，每当其他人因政治动荡而逃离时，华为的销售人员却照常营业，拒绝撤离。

Eva Dou: Yeah. Yeah. I think Ren told his staff at one point that the business they're in, it's not like selling donuts. They can't just leave whenever they want. And so much of their business is in parts of the world that have seen wars, seen instability, and part of their promise to their customers, why they win these orders, is they're making the promise they they're going to be there. And so you see sort of like wartime pay for Huawei employees who are working in war zones. You see people who are having to take these personal risks and that's part of Huawei's business model of how it's been able to become the world's number one maker of telecommunications equipment.

Eva Dou: 是的。我想任正非曾对他的员工说过，他们从事的业务不像卖甜甜圈，不能想走就走。他们的很多业务都在经历过战争和动荡的地区，他们赢得订单的部分原因，就是向客户承诺他们会一直坚守岗位。所以你会看到，在战区工作的华为员工能拿到战时薪酬。你会看到员工们不得不承担这些个人风险，而这正是华为商业模式的一部分，也是它能够成为世界第一大电信设备制造商的原因。