Text: Xiao Jie
On March 18, the topic of layoffs by large Internet companies frequently appeared on the hot search, and the two topics of "Ali layoffs" and "Tencent layoffs" were discussed a lot. There are even sources that the layoff rate of these Internet companies may be as high as 30%. It is understood that since the end of last year, some of Alibaba's business groups have continued to reduce personnel. Especially in the life service sector, Ele.me, Word of Mouth, Fliggy, Hema and Taocai have a certain degree of personnel optimization.
What has been circulated on social media such as Pulse is that Alibaba's overall layoffs in this round are as high as 30%. However, this figure is too exaggerated and unrealistic. According to financial reports, as of June 30, 2021, Alibaba's total number of employees has exceeded 250,000, and if it cuts 30% of people, it will lay off nearly 80,000 people. It's clear that the 30 percent layoffs aren't real, and Ali can't possibly take such a big risk to lay off so many people in the short term.
However, Ali's market value did evaporate by 3.8 trillion yuan, the stock price also returned to the original point, and Ma Yun was gradually drifting away from the throne of the richest man. Alibaba and Jack Ma's reputations have been declining due to a series of events, and many have even said that if this situation continues, Alibaba will sooner or later go bankrupt. So, will Alibaba really go bankrupt?
On the evening of February 24, Alibaba released what it called "the worst ever" financial report. Its revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 was 242.58 billion yuan, an increase of 10% year-on-year; net profit was 20.429 billion yuan, down 75% year-on-year. It is worth noting that this is not the first time Alibaba's profits have plummeted. In the third quarter of last year, Alibaba's non-deductible net profit increased by -33.8350% year-on-year, causing concerns among many investors.
For Ali's future, Ma Yun once said with confidence that Ali must not fail, otherwise 30 million people will lose their jobs. However, since the beginning of the year, Ali's stock price has indeed plummeted. Its stock price even fell to $77.76 per share, corresponding to a market value of $209.2 billion, which is equivalent to 3.8 trillion yuan evaporated compared with Ali's initial market value of $800 billion.
In fact, the evaporation of market value is not a rare thing, such as the market value of Gree Electric Appliances evaporated by nearly 180 billion yuan. Although the stock price of Gree Electric Appliances has fallen by nearly half in the past year, Dong Mingzhu, who is over 68 years old, is still trusted by the board of directors. On February 28, Dong Mingzhu successfully re-elected as the chairman of Gree Electric Appliances in the form of unanimous approval, and is ready to work for another 3 years!
It's just that Ma Yun has long retired and doesn't have to work hard like Dong Mingzhu. Moreover, Ma Yun has become the richest man in China many times, but with the continuous decline of Ali's market value, it is bound to be difficult to climb the throne of the richest man again. Although many people say that they can live a normal life without Ali, Ali has unconsciously integrated into our lives, and many of the decisions Made by Ma Yun have had a great impact, such as planting trees in the desert.
I don't know if you remember the "Ant Forest" launched by Alipay in 2016. At that time, the launch of the ant forest triggered a large number of netizens to participate, and Ma Yun also promised to plant 100 million trees a year. Ma Yun will create the "Ant Forest" section, not only to increase the popularity of his Alipay, but more importantly, it can indeed fully participate in public welfare activities.
According to a research report, as early as two years ago, Ant Forest had 500 million users, with a cumulative carbon reduction of about 8 million tons. In addition, these users have planted more than 120 million saplings on the planet, with a total area that is half the size of the entire Singapore. It can be seen that the achievements of the ant forest are remarkable. Ma Yun also personally came to the planting site of ant forest to thank all users who participated in planting trees.
Ma Yun said that planting trees is a great thing that will benefit our children and grandchildren, and in the future, ant forests will plant 100 million trees per year and increase 1 million mu of forests every year. That commitment has proven to have been fulfilled.
As of last year, Ant Forest had more than 610 million users participating in low-carbon living. In just 5 years, users have generated more than 20 million tons of green energy. In addition, across the country, it has worked with eight philanthropic partners to plant 320 million saplings in 11 provinces in China, covering a total area of nearly 4 million mu. Moreover, Ma Yun's attention to public welfare does not stop there.
In the 2021 China Donation 100 List released this year, Ma Yun ranked 6th with a donation of 1.625 billion. The point is that Ma Yun is also ranked No. 1 in the 2021 Forbes China Charity List, with a total cash donation of more than 3.2 billion. In fact, Ma Yun has always been at the top of the road of public welfare. He has sponsored many poor children, and Ali has also opened up a public welfare channel to help the disadvantaged.
In our impression, Ali represents online shopping and e-commerce, but today's Ali has long been oriented to technological research and development. Ma Yun also said that there may be no Ali in a hundred years, but The Dharma Academy must stay. Innovation can promote the future market scale, and DAMO Academy is Ali's "trump card" of science and technology, mainly engaged in research and development and exploration in the field of science and technology.
At the beginning of the establishment of the Dharma Academy, Ma Yun announced that he would invest 100 billion yuan in scientific research. In the past 5 years, DHARMA Academy has gathered the world's top scientists and established 15 laboratories, including the newly established 5G Research Laboratory. It has made brilliant achievements in five fields, including machine intelligence, data computing and robotics, and has won more than 40 world firsts.
According to the second anniversary transcript released by damo Academy, in the field of data computing, it launched China's largest computing platform , the Feitian Cloud Operating System, and launched China's first cloud-native data view Pollardb. The Dharma Academy is most useful than research in the field of medicine.
On April 7 last year, Dharma Academy's precision medicine search engine won two firsts in international evaluations. The search engine provides more scientific and simpler solutions to complex problems such as medical literature retrieval and treatment protocol matching, increasing the level of medical retrieval by nearly 10%. However, Ma Yun did lose the throne of the richest man.
On March 17, Hurun Research Institute released the "2022 Hurun Global Rich List". According to statistics, there are 153 entrepreneurs in the world with an increase of $1 billion, which is equivalent to 3 per week, for a total of 3381. Tesla's 50-year-old Elon Musk topped the world's richest man for two consecutive years with 1.29 trillion yuan, and the 68-year-old Zhong is still the richest person in China, with a wealth of 455 billion yuan, ranking 15th in the world.
Ma Yun ranked 4th last year, with a wealth loss of more than 100 billion yuan, ranking 5th in China and 34th in the world with 235 billion yuan, bidding farewell to the throne of China's richest man. Do you think Jack Ma will return to the top?