Hugo Barra's first week at Xiaomi was 'intense'

The new Vice President of Xiaomi Global has joined the company to help it expand its product portfolio and business across the world. In other words Barra is there to take Xiaomi’s products global and promote the brand outside of China.

In a recent posting to Google+ Barra wrote that the first week at Xiaomi in Beijing has been pretty intense. He was amazed at the speed of development and the breakneck speed of the Chinese tech ecosystem. “I’ve never seen such fierce competition and such impassioned desire to build things fast,” wrote Barra. “There’s a pervasive entrepreneurial spirit in companies both small and big.”

Also interesting is Barra’s insights into social media which he says is much bigger than in the west. Hugo joined the popular micro-blogging platform Sina Weibo less than a month ago and has made just 12 public posts, however he already has over  80,000 followers. His following on G+ is just 36,000!