Dreame and Unitree: Are China’s young tech founders sabotaging themselves?

Happy entrepreneurs are alike; unhappy entrepreneurs are each unhappy in their own way.

Dreame’s founder Yu Hao and Unitree’s founder Wang Xingxing may be two of China’s unhappiest young entrepreneurs right now — for very different reasons.

At first glance, that sounds absurd. One founded the world’s largest robotic vacuum cleaner maker by shipments; the other now heads China’s first publicly listed humanoid robotics company. Both have accumulated wealth, status and prestige unusually early — and seemed poised for even greater heights.

Tech moguls: high peaks, deep troughs

Yet Yu has apparently gone from one peak to a trough. At the beginning of the year, he announced plans that Dreame would become “the first US$100-trillion company ecosystem in human history”. Subsequently, the startup incubated more than 200 business units, from rockets and cars to bubble tea and hotpot chains.

After a series of controversial livestreams, Yu was banned from posting on Weibo. Meanwhile, Skyworks, the corporate venture capital arm of Dreame, suffered a dramatic reversal after reports emerged in May that local state-owned investors were seeking to withdraw their commitments. The 200-plus business units were eventually folded into four.

Wang’s story has been almost a mirror image. Unitree’s market capitalisation surged to nearly 445 billion RMB ($66 billion) on its debut, making Wang China’s richest entrepreneur born in the 1990s. But the stock has since plunged, leaving the company valued at just about 193 billion RMB — roughly 57% below its peak — at the close of trading on 11 September.

As the market value evaporated, bad press surfaced: allegations of a “996” work schedule, complaints that Wang micro-manages everything, and even a claim that he personally approves expense reimbursements above 100 RMB. The young engineer once celebrated for his geeky product obsession now looks, to some critics, like a control freak unwilling to delegate. Unitree has said many such claims are untrue, without specifying which ones.

Beyond their recent troubles, Yu and Wang fall into two very different categories: Yu’s leadership style can sometimes veer towards performative narcissism, while Wang’s reserved, engineering-first approach can come across as technical aloofness.

I don’t know Yu personally, but through my work I have met Dreame executives who described him as an ambitious, visionary boss. As early as 2023, the company was preparing to incubate automotive, autonomous-driving and e-scooter businesses, so its later diversification was hardly surprising.

The wild and quirky

What did surprise me was how many of Yu’s seemingly wild, quirky ideas actually became reality. One executive told me that Yu might think of a new business idea at 2 or 3am and immediately call a subordinate. While the executive was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Yu could already be revelling in the business empire taking shape in his head.

His livestreaming behaviour came as little surprise. His self-presentation could feel contrived and histrionic. You might wonder how such flamboyance could possibly resonate with government-backed investors, not exactly known for their love of theatrics.

But Yu seemed to believe that being unapologetically himself was part of being an entrepreneur. And he had reason for confidence: within a decade, Dreame had become a global leader in robotic vacuums and hair dryers. In his mind, the borders of his empire were wherever his ambitions chose to draw them. 

Hard to read

Wang is almost Yu’s polar opposite. He is reserved, poker-faced and famously sparing with words. Even at Unitree’s listing celebration, he barely smiled. His attention was elsewhere: supply-chain optimisation and engineering – how do you turn a prototype into a production model? How do you modularise a robot so it is easier to assemble, lighter and cheaper? Those questions clearly interest him more than livestream banter.

His frugality raises a question: is he a parsimonious micromanager or financial disciplinarian? It depends on which side you’re on. If I were a Unitree investor, I’d admire Wang. Startups are routinely killed by uncontrolled spending. So personally reviewing even a 100 RMB expense could be interpreted as taking his fiduciary duty seriously. But such a founder can also make his own life unbearable.

I worry about Wang’s sustainability. On 30 November 2024, he documented a “48-hour marathon” travelling between Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Japan while sleeping fewer than nine hours in total. Whether such a work rhythm can last is questionable. Good managers recognise the limits of their own energy and capability and learn to delegate.

More importantly, bosses need to understand that employees do not necessarily share the same fulfillment they derive from work. As late sociologist Zygmunt Bauman wrote in Work, Consumerism and the New Poor, “Workaholics with no fixed hours of work, preoccupied with the challenges of their jobs 24 hours a day and seven days a week, may be found today not among the slaves, but among the elite of the lucky and successful.”

Whether it is Yu asking all employees to produce three short videos a day or Wang imposing a “996” work schedule, forcing others onto the altar of hustle culture can backfire badly, especially when rewards are inadequate.

Giving due dividends

Unitree’s IPO prospectus illustrates the problem. Of its 480 employees, only 14 had received equity incentives. Fellow humanoid robot maker Ubtech, by comparison, had 41 employee stock option plans covering 689 people. Unitree’s options can take five years, or in some cases eight or nine, to fully vest. They vest at 25% a year, are performance-linked, and employees who leave midway will have them repurchased at original cost plus marginal interest.

The equity is like a carrot dangling before a workhorse: visible, but difficult to eat. Why would talented people join a company that has made its founder enormously rich simply because they are being asked to share his dream?

The lesson for China’s new generation of tech bosses is clear. Whether they lean towards performative narcissism or technical aloofness, the leadership challenge is to recognise when personality, useful in moderation, can become a liability when taken to an extreme.

Yu needs to hold back — giving the stage back to his products and team. Wang needs to let go — preserving his engineering focus while accepting the responsibility of becoming the public face of a company now too important to operate entirely on his own terms.

True leadership lies somewhere between the courage to express yourself and the discipline to focus on the work: knowing when to step forward and when to step back, keeping ego from becoming larger than the company while recognising that, in the absence of a voice, others will define the company’s story for it.

Related: Why desperate local governments fund corporate fantasies | Behind Unitree’s plunge: China’s premature robot boom