Nio's William Li returns to Peking University 30 years after graduation, reflecting on six career lows
I'm LongbridgeAI, I can summarize articles.Nio founder William Li returned to Peking University for the 2026 commencement, sharing three career lows. He emphasized learning from failures at Nanji Technology and Yiche.com, and identified Nio's operational inefficiencies as the root cause of its recent struggles. Li noted that correcting these issues has led to improved product sales and consecutive quarterly profits. This speech coincides with Nio's recovering momentum, highlighted by a record first-half delivery volume of 191,123 vehicles.
- Nio founder William Li spoke as an alumni representative at Peking University's 2026 undergraduate commencement ceremony.
- He said Nio's experience in recent years taught him that to get out of a predicament, one must correctly identify its root causes.
William Li, founder, chairman and CEO of Nio Inc (NYSE: NIO), returned to his alma mater Peking University on Thursday, speaking as an alumni representative at the commencement ceremony for the class of 2026.
Li graduated from Peking University's sociology department in 1996, making this year the 30th anniversary of his graduation.
In his speech, he said he has been through 6 major low points in his life and career since graduation, and shared 3 of them with the graduating students.
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The first low came right after graduation. In April 1996, a few months before graduating, Li and two classmates founded a company called Nanji Technology, one of China's earliest internet virtual hosting service providers.
He recalled that the two co-founders later chose to pursue further studies overseas, leaving him to carry the company alone. He slept on the conference table after showering late at night, and had to roll up his bedding before colleagues arrived for work in the morning. The company ultimately did not succeed.
"That experience earned me valuable 'entrepreneurship credits,'" Li said. "What it taught me is that when facing adversity, you cannot be paralyzed by worries over gains and losses. You must stay true to your heart and stay true to your choices."
The second low came in 2010, when Li was running the automotive media company Yiche.com.
On New Year's Day that year, he wrote a letter to the board titled "The Six Mistakes Yiche Made," arguing that the company's cross-media conglomerate strategy centered on the auto industry over the previous years had been wrong.
The company ultimately decided to spin off its traditional media businesses and focus on its core internet business, which meant abandoning a cross-media portfolio that had taken years and hundreds of millions of yuan to build.
Li said that low point taught him to have the courage to face his own mistakes — "to be honest with yourself, and not to deceive yourself."
The third low came in the past few years. Li said 2021 was a high point for Nio, with its market capitalization once exceeding $100 billion.
But things took a sharp turn in 2022, and the company entered a trough that lasted more than three years. "Doubts poured in from all directions," hitting team morale and shaking users' confidence, he said.
He said the company eventually recognized that Nio's difficulties were never caused by its investments in R&D, charging and battery swap infrastructure, or its user service system — these are precisely the long-term competitive advantages the company must stick to.
"The real problem was that our product lineup failed to consistently lead the industry, and our operational efficiency struggled to cope with fierce market competition."
Li said the experience of the past few years made him realize that to get out of a predicament, one must correctly identify its root causes.
After pinpointing the problems, Nio made adjustments to its product experience and operational management.
Li said that since the second half of last year, the company's flagship products have been selling well, and it has posted profits for two consecutive quarters, entering a new stage of development.
Born in Anhui province in 1974, Li minored in law and computer science while at Peking University.
He co-founded Yiche in 2000, served as its chairman and CEO from 2005, and stepped down as CEO in 2018. In November 2014, he founded Nio.
The speech comes as Nio's sales momentum continues to recover. The company said Wednesday it delivered 40,597 vehicles in June, its highest monthly total so far this year, up 62.88% year-on-year.
However, Nio delivered 107,658 vehicles in the second quarter, below its guidance range of 110,000 to 115,000 units, though still up 49.4% from a year earlier.
In the first half of 2026, the company delivered a cumulative 191,123 vehicles, a record high.
Analysts explain why Nio's June deliveries missed guidance
Deutsche Bank said Nio's June deliveries came in slightly below guidance, mainly because some customers were waiting for the upcoming five-seat ES8.
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