Lei Jun Wants to Be China's Answer to Steve Jobs. But Trump's Trade War Is Getting In His Way

From the time he was a small boy, Lei Jun strived to get close to technology. But in the rural China of the early 1980s, his teacher father's monthly salary of $7 put a $2,000 Apple II far out of reach. So Lei devised elaborate ways to fiddle with anything high-tech. He would wait for hours outside his school's tiny computer lab, hoping to sneak in when a classmate missed his allotted turn. He took odd programing jobs–once working 72 hours straight without sleep–just to use a client's PC. "I even drew a keyboard on a sheet of paper and spent classes secretly practicing typing, so I could use my time at the computer more efficiently," Lei says.