Rethinking Entrepreneurship: Lessons from a Journey

In 1991, I boarded a plane to Taipei with a one-way ticket and no contacts. At just 19 years old, I had launched my first business, selling laptops in Italy during a time when the market was dominated by bulky desktops. My choice to prioritize mobility over mainstream options wasn’t a calculated strategy based on market data; it was pure intuition. This leap was a significant risk, but it was also the only way to stand out in a crowded marketplace.

The Early Days: A Leap of Faith

Walking through the halls of Computex that year, I knew I needed to find the right suppliers to bring differentiated products back home. I envisioned a future where portability would matter as much as performance in a PC. That vision paid off. Within a few years, we became the leading local laptop brand by market share. Back then, entrepreneurship was defined by instinct and personal connection. However, as I gained experience, I realized that this entrepreneurial spirit could thrive in unexpected places—like large, matrixed organizations.

Entrepreneurship: A Mindset, Not a Scale

Traditionally, we associate entrepreneurship with startups, but it’s fundamentally a mindset characterized by ownership, risk-taking, creativity, and a relentless focus on solving real problems. This mindset isn’t exclusive to early-stage companies; it’s something that can be nurtured and maintained as a company scales. The real challenge lies in keeping that entrepreneurial spirit alive.

Entrepreneurship in a Large Organization

So, what does entrepreneurship look like in a company like Lenovo, which employs over 70,000 people and operates in 180 markets? How do we foster bold thinking, speed, and local intuition without sacrificing alignment, trust, or direction?

Reflecting on my experiences at Lenovo, I often find that we’ve had to think and act like entrepreneurs—even at an enterprise scale. For instance, in 2015, our Brazilian business faced intense pressure. Operational expenses were unsustainable, and manufacturing costs were too high. Instead of applying a top-down global solution, we paused to study the market. We made decisive, albeit painful, changes—cutting expenses, adjusting our manufacturing footprint, and empowering a new cultural mindset that encouraged every team member to think and act as if the company was their own. This shift fostered what we call a “company of owners.” The results were remarkable: profits increased, and we transformed from losses to one of Lenovo’s most profitable geographies globally, with market share soaring from 9% to over 20%.

Bold Moves Lead to Success

A similar transformation occurred in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) in 2016. At that time, we were ranked #2, trailing behind the leader. Our structure consisted of four oversized mega-regions that slowed us down and made local execution uneven. We made a bold move by revolutionizing this setup, shifting to 16 market-level P&L units. This change empowered local teams to act quickly while our central EMEA team became sharper and more connected through a full-spectrum business management system. Five years later, Lenovo took the lead in EMEA, ranking #1 in market share in both consumer and commercial segments, achieving industry-leading profitability.

Building a Foundation of Trust

What made these successes possible was a foundation of trust. We didn’t follow a corporate playbook; instead, we made bold, entrepreneurial moves—quick, accountable, and driven by teams who had the freedom to act fast and own their decisions. This approach embodies what I call Entrepreneurship 5.0.

Introducing Entrepreneurship 5.0

As we enter Lenovo’s fifth decade, we’re doubling down on the principles that helped us grow from a local Chinese company into a global tech leader. Entrepreneurship 5.0 is about scaling boldness—not just upward, but across and downward too. It involves:

Empowering teams in every region to make fast, localized decisions, refining global strategies to adapt to the unique culture of each market.
Trusting local P&L leaders to operate like founders within their markets.
Creating structural conditions for agility and experimentation.
Accepting failure as part of the journey, but learning quickly from those failures.
Building a global framework that supports but doesn’t restrict.

This is not a return to our entrepreneurial roots; it’s an evolution of them.

Making It Real

To bring this vision to life, we’ve invested in:

Local ownership: Our leaders, most of whom are local to the markets they serve, make key decisions based on deep, on-the-ground insights and take full ownership of the outcomes.
Agile go-to-market teams: These teams stay close to customers and pivot quickly when the market shifts.
Resilient supply chains: With over 30 factories in nine countries, we can adapt and respond to disruptions effectively.
Distributed innovation: R&D isn’t confined to a lab; it’s integrated into everything we do, worldwide.

These aren’t just tactics; they form the infrastructure that makes scaled entrepreneurship possible.

The Importance of This Mindset

This way of thinking didn’t just get us to where we are today; it’s essential for what comes next. In the hybrid AI decade, leadership will hinge on speed, insight, and courage. AI isn’t plug-and-play; it requires local insights, quick testing, and the freedom to turn ideas into action without layers of approval.

The companies that can shift gears—between global and local, startup and enterprise, individual and institution—will be the ones that define what’s next.

Conclusion: A Blueprint for the Future

As computer scientist Alan Kay aptly put it, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” My trip to Taiwan in 1991 was a blueprint for this philosophy. It taught me to act without waiting for permission, to spot opportunities in discomfort, and to bet on what others overlook. Most importantly, it taught me that success often hinges on trusting your people—even when the playbook doesn’t exist yet.

That entrepreneurial mindset is not a relic of the past; it’s alive and thriving in how we run Lenovo today.