The Product Manager in Chief: He Xiaopeng's Obsessive Pursuit of the 'Smart' Car
Key Takeaways
- A deep, personal involvement in the product from the CEO can create a culture of excellence and user-centricity.
- Applying a 'product manager' mindset to a hardware business can lead to breakthroughs in user experience.
- The best leaders are often the most passionate and demanding users of their own products.
Prologue: The Super User
Every week at XPeng headquarters, the software engineering teams brace for a long email. The email is from the company's Chairman and CEO, He Xiaopeng, and it's always filled with a detailed, sometimes brutally honest, list of bugs, user experience flaws, and suggestions for improvement for the latest build of the car's operating system.
He Xiaopeng is not just the CEO of XPeng; he is its most demanding and obsessive user. He personally tests every new feature, driving thousands of kilometers to experience the car not as an executive, but as a customer. He is known for his almost fanatical attention to detail. He has complained about the font size on the central screen, the latency of the voice assistant, and the precise sound the turn signal makes.
This is not the behavior of a traditional automotive CEO, who might be more comfortable on a factory floor or in a boardroom. This is the behavior of a world-class internet product manager. And it is this mindset, more than anything else, that defines He Xiaopeng's leadership and XPeng's unique place in the auto industry.
Act I: The Internet DNA
When He Xiaopeng took the helm of XPeng, he brought with him the culture and processes of the internet industry. He structured the company's R&D teams not like a traditional automaker, but like a software company, with agile development cycles, A/B testing, and a relentless focus on data.
He championed the idea of the car as an "upgradable" product. He promised customers that the car they bought today would get better over time, with new features and improved performance delivered through over-the-air (OTA) software updates. This was a radical concept for an industry used to model years and expensive dealership visits for upgrades.
He personally chairs the weekly product planning meetings, and is known to dive deep into the technical weeds with his engineers. He doesn't just set the high-level vision; he is in the trenches, shaping the user experience click by click, feature by feature. This hands-on approach creates a culture where every employee knows that the ultimate arbiter of quality is the CEO himself.
Act II: The 'User Experience' Moat
He Xiaopeng's obsession with product is not just a personal quirk; it's a core business strategy. He believes that in the era of the smart EV, the user experience (UX) is the most important competitive moat.
He argues that as electric powertrains become commoditized, the physical driving experience will become less of a differentiator. The battle, he believes, will be won on the software layer: the intuitiveness of the interface, the intelligence of the autonomous driving, and the seamlessness of the digital services.
This is why he invested so heavily in building a large, in-house software team. He knew that creating a truly great user experience required a level of deep, integrated hardware and software development that was impossible when outsourcing to multiple suppliers.
His personal involvement ensures that the user's perspective is never lost. When engineers are debating a technical trade-off, he is always the voice in the room asking the simple, powerful question: "But what is the best experience for the customer?"
Epilogue: A New Breed of Automaker
He Xiaopeng represents a new breed of automotive leader. He is a 'product manager in chief,' a leader whose primary focus is the end-to-end experience of the user. This approach has its challenges. It can sometimes lead to clashes with the slower, more methodical pace of automotive engineering and manufacturing.
But its advantages are undeniable. It has allowed XPeng to build a brand that is beloved by its tech-savvy customers. It has enabled the company to innovate at a speed that has left many legacy automakers struggling to keep up.
He Xiaopeng's greatest contribution to XPeng may not be his fundraising prowess or his strategic vision, but the simple fact that he is the company's number one product manager. He is building the car that he, a demanding and passionate tech enthusiast, wants to drive. And in doing so, he is building a car that is defining the future of the user experience on wheels.