Iโve no idea why, but I tend to have the misconception that company founders will invariably choose to utilise their own products.
โBoss,โ I once approached my boss and asked. โSeeing how youโre the founder of Good Feed, you confirm only read Goody Feed articles right?โ
And in reply, he simply smiled.
โYou siao ah? Obviously, I only read The Straits Times and TODAYonline,โ he said, before walking off. โWhy did we even employ this guy?โ
Confused, I stared at my open palms. Is the world a lie, I wondered.
โNo, bro.โ My friendly colleague Boonz passed by and clapped my shoulder warmly. โItโs just life. By the way, hereโs your topic for today.โ
He breathed into my ear: โHuawei CEO Apparently Bought iPhones for His Family.โ
And with that, he clapped me on my shoulder again and left.
Again I stared at my open palms, and again I wondered.
Yeah, the worldโs a lie alright.
Huawei CEO Apparently Bought iPhones for His Family
Honestly speaking, I would think it highly unusual that the founder of one of the worldโs largest phone manufacturers, Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei, would ever admit that heโs a big fan of one of the Chinese smartphone makerโs biggest rivals.
But according to the South China Morning Post, thatโs exactly what went down. In an interview with state media, he reportedly revealed that he bought Apple iPhones for his family upon leaving China.
โiPhone has a good ecosystem and when my family are abroad, I still buy them iPhones, so one canโt narrowly think a love for Huawei should mean loving Huawei phones,โ he said.
Well, fair enough, but it seems that over in China, they donโt quite think that way.
According to Independent, there were calls for the tech boss to boycott the US firm, in a bid to thwart the US Governmentโs recently declared Huawei ban.
After placing Huawei on its Entity List earlier this week, Huawei has just three months, before itโs blocked off from any further Android updates from Google.
The development comes after the Trump administrationโs bold claim, in which Huaweiโs revealed to have alleged ties to the Chinese government. If the ties are true, it will mean the possibility of China using Huawei devices as surveillance tools.
No proof, however, has been publicly shared thus far.
But Huaweiโs reportedly not afraid
Despite the dire consequences Huawei will surely incur from this latest development, Mr Zhengfei has expressed that the US has underestimated his companyโs strength, and said that Huaweiโs prepared to operate without reliance on US firms.
โThe US 90-day temporary licence [to do business with Google] does not have much impact on us, we are ready,โ he reportedly said earlier this week.
Also, even though thereโll be a substantial profit to gain in his own country if he boycotts Apple, heโs apparently against punishing Apple for its US government policy.
A true hardcore Apple fan, alright. As a fellow Apple fan, kudos, Mr Zhengfei!
However, Huawei employees arenโt quite allowed such a luxury. Earlier this year, a tweet from the official Huawei account was allegedly marked with the trademark โvia Twitter for iPhoneโ.
Two employees who were responsible for the cock-up were reportedly demoted after that.
And soโฆ whatโs the moral of the story here?
Well, for one, it seems that passion, despite what everyone else says, does not override your business interests.
And for twoโฆ
Donโt be surprised if we find out one day that Jeff Bezos uses Taobao too.