The author | wonderful
"In the next 5 years, will you leave the Internet industry?"
When Chopped Pepper TMT threw this question to friends from Tencent, Ali, Meituan, Byte and other companies, almost the vast majority of people gave a positive answer - yes! As for the way out, there are many, state-owned enterprises, new energy, new consumption, etc. are all popular options.
On April 29, the meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee pointed out that it is necessary to promote the healthy development of the platform economy, complete the special rectification of the platform economy, implement normalized supervision, and introduce specific measures to support the healthy development of the platform economy.
Although the warm wind at the policy level is blowing, for Internet people, leaving has become one of the options.
In the past, the Internet manufacturers were at the top of the job search contempt chain, but after experiencing a round of layoffs, many people were in panic and confusion. I was worried about being laid off and wanted to go out and see the outside world.
But without the Internet, can it be so easy to make money?
01 Internet "disenchantment": the market value has plunged, and layoffs have become the norm
Hua Tsai has been working in a large factory in Xi'erqi for 8 years, about 1 year ago, looking at the news of layoffs frequently broke out in the entire industry, Hua Tsai also felt a strong sense of crisis.
Although there was no extensive layoff plan this year, there used to be a general salary increase every year, but this year there was no, only a very small number of people increased their salaries, and a group of employees with poor performance were eliminated.
Hua Tsai often thinks, if one day it is his turn to be cut, what can he do in the future?
Hua Tsai has many old colleagues around him who have left the Internet and gone to new consumer industries with faster growth such as coffee and milk tea. Nowadays, compared with the Internet, Hua Tsai is also more optimistic about these real industries, "in the future, if you change jobs, you must be able to get rid of the virtual and the real."
However, middle-aged employees like Huazai, if they leave the Internet, may face the dual challenges of ability structure and salary.
On the one hand, in the Internet for many years, their thinking mode and way of doing things have been solidified by the Internet, on the other hand, without the Internet, few entity companies can offer millions of annual salaries for a middle-level, and a substantial salary cut is also difficult to accept for them who carry mortgages and car loans and bear the burden of supporting their families. "Many of my friends around me will choose to pay off their mortgages and leave." Hua Tsai said.
Since the end of 2020, the stock prices of various Internet companies have fallen sharply. Since September 2021, the news of layoffs has been frequent, Ali, Tencent, Baidu, Byte, Kuaishou, iQiyi and other large manufacturers have not been spared, and the Internet manufacturers have collectively entered the winter.
Along with the layoffs, there are various employee benefits, subsidies have been cancelled or lowered standards, and even the company's year-end awards have been significantly downgraded, and various news has fermented on the Internet platform: "Tencent's year-end award is almost waist-cut", "Meituan has been dissatisfied with half of it in previous years, and half of it has been dissatisfied this year"...
Kuaishou said through internal emails that since February this year, afternoon tea and free three meals have been cancelled, and the scope of housing subsidy benefits has been reduced to only for employees with less than 3 years of social service. NetEase afternoon tea standard, also from full of desserts and hi tea, etc., to ordinary puffs.
This spring, the tide of layoffs has further intensified, and almost all major factories have not been able to escape.
In March, the topic of "Tencent layoffs" was also on Weibo's hot search. Rumor has it that Tencent expects to lay off 10%-30% of its workforce. Tencent President Martin Lau responded that the Current Internet industry is encountering structural challenges and changes, and Tencent, as one of the participants, will also take the initiative to adjust, "We have also carried out cost optimization actions for loss-making businesses in order to maintain more healthy growth." ”
At the beginning of April, it was reported that Meituan had suffered the largest wave of layoffs in two years, covering almost all business lines, from the home business group where the core takeaway business was located, the "cash cow" to the store business group and the wine and tourism business group, as well as new business sectors such as Meituan Preferred, Meituan Grocery Shopping, and Fast Donkey, and the layoffs ranged from 10% to 20%.
Xiaohongshu also reported the news of the overall layoff of 20%, but Xiaohongshu responded that it was a normal personnel elimination, accounting for about 9% of the total number of employees.
In addition, Ali, JD.com, B station, Zhihu, etc. have recently broken the news of layoffs, has the Internet really ushered in a cold winter?
The current situation is caused by the development of the Internet on the one hand, and on the other hand, it is also the bane of the disorderly expansion of Internet companies in the past few years.
02 Reflections on the Development of the Chinese Internet: Always Fighting a "Protracted War" into an "Encounter War"
In February this year, late Post broke out, and Didi began to lay off employees across the board, with a proportion of 20%.
After the merger of Didi and Kuaidi that year, Didi acquired Uber China the following year, and didi's ambitions after a monopoly were also getting bigger and bigger, in addition to the taxi business, the tentacles were getting longer and longer.
At the time when sharing bicycles was the most popular, Didi also entered the market for the first time, investing in Ofo for many times, and the total investment amount reached more than 2 billion yuan, but with the thunderstorm of Ofo, this large amount of money also drifted. However, Didi did not give up this business, but instead started a green orange bicycle from the camp.
Since its launch in January 2018, until now, Didi has not announced the revenue of Green Orange Bicycle. However, from the data of Hello Bicycle and Meituan Bicycle, it is very unlikely that Qingorange Bicycle wants to achieve profitability.
According to Hello data, in the first quarter of 2021, The revenue of Halo invested by Ali for $280 million increased by 104% over the same period last year, but the net loss still reached 383 million yuan. In 2018, Meituan changed its name to Meituan Bicycle after acquiring Mobike, and the second quarter of 2021 financial report shows that this business is still in a state of loss.
Didi's main business, the taxi business, has not developed smoothly. In the past few years, Didi's financial reports show that it has always been in a state of loss. From 2018 to 2020, the loss amount was $2.246 billion, $1.408 billion, $1.523 billion and $7.651 billion, respectively.
After Didi was investigated last year for serious violations of laws and regulations on the collection and use of personal information, Meituan Taxi, Cao Cao Travel, Ali's AutoNavi Taxi, and T3 Travel, which was invested by Ali and Tencent, took the opportunity to seize market share, which also made Didi's living environment more difficult.
However, other platforms that enter the taxi have not tasted the sweetness from it.
Taking Meituan as an example, as early as 2018, Meituan had operated the online ride-hailing business in Nanjing and Shanghai in a purely self-operated model, and in the face of a high market entry threshold, it had to adopt a high subsidy strategy to attract drivers and users. Meituan's 2018 annual financial report shows that the company's annual net loss reached 8.52 billion yuan, and one of the reasons for the loss was the increase in costs related to online ride-hailing drivers.
In fact, in 2019, Didi experienced major layoffs, with a proportion of 15%. At that time, Didi carried out a "shutdown and transfer" for non-main businesses, laying off employees with overlapping positions and substandard performance brought about by business restructuring.
But Didi soon got into the community group buying.
At that time, community e-commerce was hot, and Internet giants had entered the game, dingdong to buy vegetables, Meituan preferred, daily excellent fresh, ten huituan, Hema neighborhood and so on.
But like the ride-hailing business, it's a money-fighting market.
First of all, in terms of cost, it is difficult to reduce. Fresh food has high requirements for transportation, preservation and storage, and storage alone needs to meet three different needs of room temperature, refrigeration and freezing. In rural and remote areas, these requirements are even more difficult to meet.
What is more expensive is to pull new, so many fresh platforms on the market, want to pull new and retain customers, the price can not rise, the quality can not be reduced, this is destined to be a defeated battle.
Relevant data show that Meituan Preferred was established less than 1 and a half years ago, burning more than 15 billion yuan. And meituan takeaway took 7 years to burn 13 billion yuan.
After Didi launched Orange Heart Preferred in June 2020, it announced that it had won the first place in the single volume in Sichuan-Chongqing region less than three months ago. Behind this is a huge subsidy. In March 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation imposed an administrative penalty of a fine of RMB1.5 million on Orange Heart Preferred for low-price subsidies and disrupting market price order.
After burning a lot of money, various community group buying platforms began to fade away. Since the beginning of this year, Orange Heart Preferred, Jingxi Spelling, and Shihui Group have successively reported the news of the whole line shutting down or withdrawing the city and laying off employees.
After the giants expanded disorderly in order to seize the market, what did they finally get except to leave a mess and a lot of debt?
Now the Internet industry is reflecting on the development model of the past, treating protracted war as an encounter, is it really done right?
03The next 10 years, the industry with the most opportunities is still the Internet?
After witnessing Tencent's layoffs this year, Qingtong is secretly rejoicing.
This year, tencent many BG have a lot of layoffs, fortunately, she planned for herself early on the cross-BG "living water" (internal transfer), there is a big career transfer, and thus avoided layoffs.
However, Qingtong does not plan to continue to stay in the Internet company, in Tencent for nearly 10 years, Qingtong also wants to meet the outside world, if there is a suitable opportunity, she plans to go out of the Internet to see, if you can go to state-owned enterprises, it would be better.
Looking back at the rapid development of the Internet industry in the past, in fact, it is accompanied by many characteristics of the barbaric period, but when all supervision is normalized and the demographic dividend peaks, the follow-up rapid development may not be sustainable.
A more important factor is that the attitude of the capital market to Chinese Internet companies has long since changed.
"The dollar fund has invested heavily in china's Internet, which has encouraged companies to burn money to make the company bigger, and then go public in the United States with rapid growth, and the capital path is very smooth." An industry insider said that in the past few years, China's Internet industry has made great use of US dollar capital, which is equivalent to Americans paying for projects Chinese, and ultimately achieving mutual benefit and win-win results through listing, but this balance is gradually being broken. The supervision of Chinese stocks has been increasing, and the investment of US dollar funds in the domestic primary market is also shrinking rapidly.
In other words, for start-ups, if there is no continuous supply of ammunition by capital, the "money-burning" development path of Internet companies will not work; for listed Internet companies, it is difficult for them to further raise funds in the market after the stock price has fallen sharply. The current capital environment is a new challenge for all Internet companies.
Against this backdrop, some young people are planning to leave the Internet.
After a case of sudden death of employees in large factories, this young man has already carried the banner of "anti-996", and many large factories have also set off a wave of anti-996, but after the successive layoffs of various Internet companies, the call against overtime has weakened, and Mingzhe has become the best solution.
Liu Liu, 25, has worked in a large factory in Wangjing for 3 years, and because he does not like to work overtime, he was talked to by his superiors. The boss wants him to have a good working hours data, after all, there are currently working hours rankings, if the data is too ugly, there may be disadvantages for the department and for individuals.
This year, Liu Liu watched the 2 colleagues in the department being optimized, and the work that originally belonged to the optimized employees was assigned to the remaining other colleagues, and the department was still running normally, but because the communication links were reduced, the efficiency was improved.
But the cruel elimination mechanism of the Internet has exhausted Liu Liu physically and mentally, not only to endure high pressure and overtime, but also to worry about his own layoffs every day.
Liu Liu plans to work in the company for another two years and leave to go to state-owned enterprises, liu liu feels that from the perspective of the next 10 years, state-owned enterprises are more stable and may have greater development potential.
"Internet thinking has penetrated into all walks of life, in other words, Internet thinking has long been not a magic weapon."