[Book Review] House of Huawei: The Secret History of China's Most Powerful Company - Eva Dou

February 01, 2026

The book is an overview of Huawei's rise to become the biggest telecommunications company in the world. Its very closely tied to the life of Ren Zhengfei, the founder of the company.

It goes through the challenges Ren faced in keeping the company alive in the face of domestic political upheavals, international legal challenges etc. The company was built one step at a time, starting from domestic market, utilising the under-served regions of the world for international exposure and then going head to head with international competition like nokia and ericsson.

It also talks about the culture of huawei as a company in the context of Ren successfully navigating an impending succession crisis.

It was however full of western voices describing huawei from the outside with reports from western publications which can be quite biased. A little more emphasis or sources from within China on how the company was seen and how it changed would have added a lot to the book.


Profile picture

Written by Shubham Rai from India, the third planet from the Sun, around 8,000 parsecs from the center of the Milky Way Feel free to follow on twitter