On July 30th, Sina's program "Beyond the Heat Wave" released a clip of Lu Yu's interview with Li Xiang, the founder and CEO of Ideal Auto. During the interview, Li Xiang recalled his time at Autohome. He stated that 2008 was the year when his life changed the most. At that time, Autohome's financial chain was broken and faced a serious financial crisis, leading to internal conflicts within the management team. Subsequently, several small shareholders united to drive Li Xiang and Fan Zheng (another founder of Autohome) out of the company, with the initiator being Li Xiang's most trusted partner.
Li Xiang later recalled his previous relationship with the partner: "In 2000, he went to Shijiazhuang to find me and brought me to Beijing. When we first arrived in Beijing, we rented a 40 square meter house at Forestry University, and our relationship was so good that we worked together during the day and slept in the same bed at night. Because the house was a one bedroom apartment, with such a relationship, he wanted to kick me out of the company at that time. But Li Xiang said with relief, 'But soon we reconciled,' which puzzled Lu Yu. 'Have you still not felt the betrayal? What a profound betrayal!'.
Li Xiang believes that it is reasonable to do so from his (the most trusted partner) perspective. But Lu Yu asked, 'Why should we stand from his perspective?'? Li Xiang then expressed his opinion: 'Because if you don't stand in his shoes, it hurts you. If you stand in his shoes, you will reconcile with yourself.'. It is reported that Li Xiang founded Autohome in June 2005, and in 2008, Autohome introduced its major shareholder, Telstra, during its financial crisis. In 2013, Li Xiang led Autohome to successfully go public on the New York Stock Exchange in the United States. He stepped down as the President of Autohome in June 2015.
