Microblogs: TCL’s Li Reflects On Pivotal Teacher

I’ve been following the microblogs of some of China’s top tech executives for a while now, and am quickly becoming a fan of Li Dongsheng, the man behind leading TV maker TCL (Shenzhen: 000100). Unlike many other executives, who use their microblogs to hype their latest products, Li has shown a more refreshing tendency to also use his Sina Weibo account for some personal introspection.
That insight was on display in some of his latest postings, where Li talked about a pivotal moment in his life where he decided to pursue a career in the sciences rather than humanities – a move that ultimately led him to TCL. If he had chosen the other path, we could well be reading novels by this colorful but low-key personality instead of watching his company’s TVs that are one of China most popular and best respected brands.

Longtime China tech followers will know that TCL has always stood out as one of the more daring firms among the industry’s oldest players. It’s one of the few state-run companies that has an identifiable personality at the company’s center, in sharp contrast to other major players like Changhong (Shangahi: 600839) and China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) where faceless bureaucrats regularly shuttle in and out of top leadership positions.

While Xiaomi co-founder Lei Jun was showing off photos taken with his company’s latest smartphone on his microblog and Suning (Shenzhen: 002024) executive Li Bin was promoting his company’s new open shopping platform, Li took time out last week to attend the funeral of one of his high school teachers, a woman named Gao Junzhao .

Unlike many of China’s other younger tech executives, Li grew up during the turbulent times of the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. He took classes with Gao in 1972 at the height of the movement, when many schools were closed and education in general was disdained in favor of more revolutionary activities. Li recalled on his microblog how Gao continued to encourage students to study hard, even when many of his classmates used the revolutionary fervor at that time as an excuse not shirk their studies.

Gao and her passion for study left a big impression on Li, who says he came back to her in 1977 after the Cultural Revolution to ask for advice on whether to study sciences or humanities as China’s universities reopened after years of closure. “She said I should study sciences, that my personality was too candid and that I might become too radical if I studied humanities,” Li says in his post, calling the decision one of the most important of his life.

Some 36 years later, TCL under Li has become one of China’s leading tech firms, taking risks that have sometimes worked but also several that ended with disappointment or even disaster. TCL suffered big setbacks after making problematic TV and cellphone acquisitions in Europe about a decade ago, even though it Li eventually brought the company back to health. That sort of endurance and willingness to take risks has made TCL one of the few Chinese tech firms to survive the last 3 decades, even as many other big names rose and fell.

While TCL certainly doesn’t get the same media attention as newer companies like Alibaba and Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), it still does get regular coverage some 2 decades after it first emerged as a leading Chinese TV maker. It’s also one of the few companies to successfully move into newer product areas, including smartphones and its latest move into Internet TV through a new tie-up announced earlier this month with Baidu. (previous post)

It’s far from clear whether TCL will survive for the next 20 years, as competition grows more intense from private tech firms run by younger, savvier western-educated executives. But at least for now, the millions of consumers who own TCL televisions and the thousands of workers at TCL’s many offices and factories should take a moment to remember a teacher whose advice to a young student helped to create one of China’s first tech stars.