The market value of Pinduoduo in 2021 has shrunk by 70%, no longer brilliant. Founder Huang Zheng once surpassed Ma Yun in assets, and now his value has shrunk by two-thirds. But the downhill road does not seem to be over, and in recent days the trouble has struck again, and the company has been overturned inside and outside.
Inside and outside the company, the car flipped one after another, and the trouble was fraught
Pinduoduo can be described as internal and external troubles in recent days. In order to achieve self-help, the company began to lay off a large number of employees, but it was deeply involved in the storm of public opinion. According to netizens, at the end of the year, the company was reduced to a large layoff, and probationary employees and regular employees were among them. The negotiation method is also very dramatic, some employees said that if they do not sign the layoff documents, HR will not allow them to return to the workstation, HR will also follow the monitoring when going to the toilet, and employees who want to call or think about it again can only stay in the conference room. "Freedom" can only be restored after signing the layoff documents.
The outside of the company is also in turmoil. Recently, the court held a trial on the case of "Pinduoduo bargaining, but always 0.9%", which has lasted since March last year and has frequently appeared on the hot search. The plaintiff, a lawyer in Shanghai, sued for using false data to violate the principle of good faith and exploit human weaknesses to defraud consumers in the "bargaining for free" campaign.
The company responded that, due to the limited display of the page, at least 6 digits after the decimal point of the value were omitted, that is, the 0.9% that the user saw, which was actually 0.9996427%. This response also angered some consumers, lamenting that 30 years of mathematical white learning.
Pinduoduo's market value loss in the capital market for consecutive years seems to be worrying, and the external consumer wind evaluation is also poor, from the wind and fire in 2018 to the peak in just 3 years.
After Huang Zheng's value plummeted by 273.2 billion, or was he hit by Waterloo again?
As the founder, although Huang Zheng announced his resignation as chairman and management position in March 2021, he also made a clear commitment that the shares under his personal name would not be sold for the next three years. With the company's market value falling continuously, his current value has plummeted by 273.2 billion, and now the negative news is plagued by trouble, and Huang Zheng's value may be waterloo again.
But for Huang Zheng, perhaps when he made a promise not to sell shares, he had already anticipated the current developments. As a former direct leader, he knows best the current state of the company's development, but he still chooses to do so or has his own considerations.
Huang Zheng has withdrawn from the company and is now fully engaged in the field of life sciences, which seems to coincide with Wang Xiaochuan, founder of Sogou, and Zhang Yiming, founder of Byte-Run, who also resigned from internet executive positions and focused on the field of life sciences. On the other hand, the current life science field seems to have great potential, Li Ka-shing, as a vane in the investment community, also deeply cultivates this industry, personally invests in the same kind of life extension supplement of "Cylery", and also takes it as an endorsement, saying that it feels 20 years younger, and CITIC Securities has estimated as early as 2020 that the core ingredient of "Cylery" such anti-aging supplements, the future domestic market size or up to 100 billion.
Ma Yun is also not far behind, and its Yunfeng Fund has also invested in the domestic Fudan professional anti-aging team "Time School", focusing on aging detection and telomere detection to scientifically predict aging. Huang Zheng may have been looking at the wind outlet in the life science field, so he retreated so neatly and decisively.
Embattled, where will the future go?
Less Than Huang Zheng's company, the current development is difficult, now the Internet industry is in the cold winter period, the competition of major e-commerce platforms is fierce, Ma Yun announced in 2020 that Tmall will be transformed, and Beijing-Dong is also constantly optimizing logistics services, while entering the field of big health, the introduction of "Cylery" and other types of extended life supplements to increase the competitiveness of the platform. Pinduoduo's internal and external troubles can be described as embattled.
But on the other hand, Huang Zheng's departure may also be an opportunity. When Huang Zheng left his post, he said in a letter to shareholders that "it is time for more juniors to create their own era", and explained that the company is facing a period of drastic changes in the external environment, which has also forced the internal business and management operation to be updated iteratively, and the company has gradually developed from a simple third-party platform type to the source of warehousing, logistics and agricultural goods.
These new business changes have changed the previous route, perhaps it is currently in such a transition period, whether it is the company's business structure or management or need to change blood, if the trough of successful transformation will also pass, the future can still be expected.
The Internet industry is a fiercely competitive industry, before the LeTV, Potato video was filmed on the beach, and now there are Pinduoduo, Love- Qiyi and other large factories sharply laid off employees. From the perspective of society, I still hope that these Internet manufacturers can survive the difficulties, after all, there are thousands of employees who rely on the company to support their families.