Carl Pei

Industry: Tech

Pei—born in China and raised in Sweden—has spent his entire professional life in the smartphone industry. The 29-year-old, who dropped out of the Stockholm School of Economics, joined Nokia in 2010 before jumping to Chinese phonemaker Meizu in 2011 and then Oppo in 2012. Pei cofounded OnePlus with Oppo vice president Pete Lau in 2013. The company is now more popular in India than Apple, with 33% of the premium smartphone market—slightly less share than Samsung’s. When the first OnePlus phone launched in 2014, sales were entirely online and customers were by invite only, but the company has since opened offline stores and ditched the invite-only marketing ploy, enabling sales to balloon. Though based in China, OnePlus now sells phones in 38 regions around the world, including the U.S. The company’s latest model, the OnePlus 7, raised $144 million in sales within one minute of its China release.