Wu Yongming, Ma Yun's "Shadow"
Written by | Wu Xianzhi
Edit | Wang Pan
"A captain can't find the second officer, the second officer can't find the third officer, the third officer can't find the first officer, everyone is in a mess, and the ship is easy to sink. ”
Years ago, when Jack Ma said this, Dai Shan wore black-framed glasses, lowered her head, held a pen, and took notes carefully, while Wu Yongming sat sideways in front of the computer, staring at the computer screen. Ma Yun believes that the captain controls the general direction, while the first officer, second officer, and third officer dismantle and implement the tasks one by one according to the level. No one could have imagined that the "shipwreck" speech would have an impact many years later.
"Daniel Zhang retreated, it is Ma Yun's will, 'return to Taobao, return to users, return to the Internet', every point points to Daniel Zhang. A veteran of China believes that in order to return to Taobao and users, Dai Shan is at the helm of Taotian because "she has grasped customer service and sales". In order to return to the Internet, Wu Yongming is the only technical person among the eighteen Arhats.
Under the three "returns", on September 10, Wu Yongming took over Daniel Zhang's baton, and it has been exactly 100 days so far. In the past 100 days, Alibaba's 1+6+N adjustment has been carried out step by step, and most businesses have not had a strong perception of the changes in the top-level architecture. An Ali person mentioned that Wu Yongming mainly controlled the direction and delegated power during his tenure, unlike the suffocating details like Xiaoyaozi.
Alibaba Cloud was the business group with the biggest changes during his tenure. "At the beginning of the year, I suddenly changed the boss, and after two months, the new boss said that he wanted to be all in, and two months later, he changed again, and Luohan was going to return to Ali again, and Cai Yinghua recently resigned. An Alibaba Cloud person said that in the face of changes since the beginning of the year, most people may be in a state of confusion.
When Alibaba Cloud is in a state of finding direction from top to bottom, the importance of "captain" is particularly prominent.
Stepping down from Alibaba Cloud is suspicious
"Over the years, there have been three Alibaba clouds, Xingdian, Lao Xiao, and Wu Ma, from Xingdian to Lao Xiao, I think it can be described as 'eliminating the accumulated evils', and Lao Xiao to Wu Ma has taken back the legs that stretched out. An Alibaba Cloud person said a few days ago.
In May, at Alibaba Cloud's annual KO conference, then-CEO Daniel Zhang, CTO Zhou Jingren, and many P10 and above management attended the meeting on-site, while other employees participated in the meeting via video. It's worth mentioning that it's not common for an all-hands to sink to P10.
According to Wen Yuan (pseudonym), who was present at the time, Daniel Zhang's performance at the meeting was very outstanding, and he frankly responded to everyone's questions about Alibaba Cloud's business, culture and future plans. Many people even expressed their dissatisfaction with Zhang Jianfeng and the human resources department. ”
This open and honest conference lifted the spirits of many Alibaba Cloud people, until September 10, Daniel Zhang announced that he would step down as chairman and CEO of Alibaba Cloud, and his successor was Wu Yongming, one of the "Eighteen Arhats". Wen Yuan and many Alibaba Cloud employees were surprised, because in the internal letter on June 20, after stepping down as the head of Ali, Daniel Zhang would have been all in Alibaba Cloud.
In the past six months, Alibaba Cloud's internal and external environment has undergone tremendous changes.
In December last year, Alibaba Cloud CEO Zhang Jianfeng stepped down, and Daniel Zhang took over as chairman and CEO, and he was joined by CTO Zhou Jingren. In the paragraph involving Zhang Jianfeng, Daniel Zhang wrote this sentence: For cloud computing, stability and security are the most basic responsibilities of customers, and we must always uphold a sense of awe and live up to the trust and support of customers.
During Daniel Zhang's tenure, many adjustments were made to the unsolved problems in the Zhang Jianfeng era, which an Alibaba Cloud person summed up as "one virtual and one real". "Virtual" refers to the fact that when Alibaba Cloud's global market share fell to fourth and its domestic market share continued to shrink, it rebuilt its confidence and affirmed its leading position in the industry.
In the face of HUAWEI CLOUD's catch-up with carrier clouds, Alibaba Cloud's advantages are gradually shrinking. An industry insider mentioned that due to the contracting relationship, operators are usually not included in the statistics, so the market share provided by third-party institutions is often not accurate.
"Real" mainly includes adjusting product lines and pricing, and establishing a CIO line internally, and promoting a young P9 as "chief information officer" - Jiang Linquan. This arrangement is quite similar to the Song Dynasty's "official dispatch", that is, the appointment of low-level officials to hold important political positions, thereby disrupting the existing power structure and increasing the power of the number one.
In fact, due to the multiplicity of internal factions, it has brought about a series of problems. During Daniel Zhang's tenure, the core was to reorganize Alibaba Cloud's business relationships and product pricing strategies. For example, IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS layers are discrepancies in business.
It was not until Zhou Jingren took office that in a special report, in front of Xiao Xie (Jiang Jiangwei), the person in charge of IaaS, agreed that the IaaS team could only do things within the boundaries in the future, and should not cross the line without authorization, grab the original customers of the PaaS and SaaS layers, and at the same time, the price should be transparent based on the overall financial logic of Alibaba Cloud.
If Zhou Jingren reconciled the contradiction between IaaS and other businesses, then the establishment of a new CIO line is an important means to reconstruct the relationship between internal power and business. The CIO line integrates the original internal trade secret management, ordering, product pricing systems, and even the operation of Alibaba Cloud's official website.
According to insiders, Daniel Zhang's employment style is biased towards promoting young people who have "won battles", and will even cross P11 and P12 to promote P9 and P10 young people. This may be an important reason why many middle and lower-level managers and employees of Alibaba Cloud have positive evaluations of it.
This statement does not seem to be groundless, Jiang Fan was reused when he was in charge of Taobao, Zhuang Zhuoran was promoted when he was in charge of Alibaba, and after he arrived at Alibaba Cloud, he boldly used Jiang Linquan.
In addition to promoting young people, Daniel Zhang's cautious and meticulous style is also a major feature of his tenure.
In July, Cai Yinghua issued a presidential order to divide the sales line according to the seven regions and strengthen the team's sales capabilities. On the other hand, Daniel Zhang mentioned in an internal email that he would personally review the company's financial details to ensure that the report was accurate. This small incident reflects Daniel Zhang's attention to detail that is highly similar to that of the heads of various business groups.
Interestingly, another person in charge of the business unit, Dai Shan of Taotian Group, will also personally inquire about the budget declaration, and even go to the workstation at 10 o'clock in the morning to check attendance. In addition, Yu Yongfu, the leader of Ali's local life, is also a person who pays great attention to details, not only advocating "winning in the details, losing in the pattern", but also working as a product tester of AutoNavi. He claimed to have bought a lot of cars, and every time he returned from driving, he would throw a lot of questions to the technical department.
According to Ma Yun's "shipwreck theory", Daniel Zhang, Dai Shan and Yu Yongfu are more like the first mate, second officer and third officer who play executive roles, and are ideal candidates for the business sector, but not the ideal helmsman.
Ma Yun's "good soldier", Ali's "Hu Baoyi"
How much courage does it take for a computer science graduate to follow someone to start a business twice in a row, and finally participate in the third business without hesitation?
In 1996, Wu Yongming, who had just graduated from his bachelor's degree, was like this. A person familiar with the matter said, "Lao Luo's projects are almost all invested in the end, perhaps for these entrepreneurs who have lost consecutive battles, Wu Ma has a special complex." ”
For Wu Yongming, the outside world knows very little, we synthesize the information from multiple channels, and can roughly describe it in five sentences: grasp the big and let go of the small, pay attention to the frontier in technology, be pragmatic and decent in doing things, be emotionally stable and introverted, and be Ma Yun's "close comrade-in-arms".
In terms of management, Wu Yongming is different from Dai Shan, Daniel Zhang, Yu Yongfu, who are very detail-picky business leaders, and his eyes are rubbed with sand. A person familiar with the matter mentioned that Wu's management style is biased towards decentralization, not like the detailed management of Lao Xiao (Daniel Zhang).
He has helped some old Ali people with historical "stains" to start businesses, and for the latter, Wu Ma is like a "Hu Baoyi" in the investment community, and has high prestige both inside and outside Ali. As of the beginning of September this year, Yuanjing Capital has invested in at least 156 investment targets, of which 40 projects are core founding teams of Aliren.
In 2015, Yuanjing Capital participated in the B round of financing of Xianqu Life (flash purchase), which experienced the impact of the "blacklist" incident. At that time, among the senior executives of the old China supply who were affected, Wang Yongsen was more special, he only worked as a "political commissar" in the Guangdong region for one year, and he was also investigated.
When this turmoil came, Wang Yongsen was already a word-of-mouth executive, and at that time, Wei Zhe, Deng Kangming, Dai Shan, etc. had just completed his M3 promotion to M4 interview, and the promotion was notified the day before, and the promotion was canceled the next day. In the face of the blacklist incident handling process, he himself replied afterwards with a meaningful "grievance, it's not easy to say, but it can be understood."
Wu Yongming has a keen insight into cutting-edge technology. An investor said, "Wu Ma belongs to the risk-appetite investment style, which is very tolerant of new things, and invests when there is nothing at all."
From Jack Ma (2003-2013) to Lu Zhaoxi (2013-2015) to Daniel Zhang (2015-2023), the first three Alibaba CEOs were not from technical backgrounds and lacked insight to grasp the new technological outlet. An old Ali told Photon Planet that Ma Yun had missed a lot of new technologies, and the only time he was correct was because he was "drunk" by Dr. Wang Jian.
We can see that many cutting-edge technology investment projects have entered the stage relatively early.
For example, it participated in the seed round of Trusta Labs, a Web3 security infrastructure provider, participated in the Series A funding round of aerospace technology company Oriental Space, and can also be seen in the A round of funding of Origin Space, a space resource development start-up.
An investor said that Wu Yongming said very little in the actual negotiation session, and generally did not express his position easily, and his investment in entrepreneurial projects was often relatively strong. Yuanjing Capital will have an in-depth understanding of entrepreneurial projects, and even research, "I have already touched the inside and outside of the project, dragged it for a long time, and finally said that I don't love it." ”
Another person who has been in contact with Wu Yongming mentioned that when inspecting a certain project, as an investor, Wu's mother said little and did not say anything throughout the whole process. In addition, Wu Ma is very happy to participate in the entrepreneurial project of Ali high P and Hangzhou, "There are not many VCs in Hangzhou, and Yuan Jing must be the head."
It should be pointed out that the investment projects of Yuanjing Capital may be synergistic with Alibaba. Photon Planet sorted out the enterprise service projects of 14 Ali entrepreneurs, and we found that many of the entrepreneurs or executives of the invested projects are former core technical backbones of Alibaba.
In addition to internal and external recognition, Wu Yongming's decision-making for Ma Yun is almost all accepted.
Peng Lei once said, "No matter what Jack Ma's decision is, I will make it the right decision", and Dai Shan has also publicly expressed that wherever Jack Ma points out, she will hit. Despite this loyalty, in Alibaba's more than 20 years of history, the two most loyal "Luohans" have had disagreements with Jack Ma, such as Dai Shan's reluctance to be Alibaba's COO.
According to an old Ali person, he has never seen Wu Yongming oppose Ma Yun in his memory. This means that Wu Yongming's "absolute loyalty" will greatly reduce the behind-the-scenes operation costs of Jack Ma, such as the implementation of Jack Ma's "three returns".
As for emotional stability, a person familiar with the matter told Photon Planet that from the "blacklist" incident, to the siege of Taobao, to the storm of Ant's listing, Wu Yongming is the only "Arhat" who has not lost control of his emotions. At the critical juncture of Ali's great spin-off, stable emotions are the only prescription for change.
Captain, not first mate
Ali, who is at a turning point in history, needs a leader who can calm the scene, and the "Arhats" return in this context. Of course, this process is also the embodiment of Jack Ma's will.
"They are representatives of the first generation of grassroots entrepreneurs in the domestic Internet. A former senior person told Photon Planet, "In essence, the first generation of Ali people have an unknown side, the Iron Lady Peng Lei once pointed at Wei Zhebiao in the 'blacklist' incident, and the exquisite Dai Shan took everyone to watch movies and cultivate sentiment in order to relax the students." ”
All in all, Alibaba's various businesses are intertwined today, and without a person from near and far, the "shipwreck" that Jack Ma worried about many years ago would not have happened.
Taking Alibaba Cloud as an example, there are many internal factions, and after the integration of Zhang Jianfeng's era, three forces have been formed. The IaaS elderly, represented by Jiang Jiangwei, once dominated within Alibaba Cloud. Daniel Zhang reconciled the contradictions between it and the PaaS and SaaS business sectors, but did not release the potential of the three fronts.
During Wang Jian's era, Alibaba Cloud absorbed a large number of technical backbones, who were not necessarily very high-level, but had strong technical beliefs and a down-to-earth work attitude. Most of them are below P10, and most of them have an attitude of "I won't go against you, and I don't fully approve of you" when they have internal disputes, so they have formed a certain degree of internal friction.
The third faction is before and after Xing Yun took charge, and he recruited some star technology masters, such as Jia Xing, general manager of Beijing Digital Government in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, and Li Feifei, vice president of Alibaba Group and head of Alibaba Cloud Intelligent Database Division.
It is true that the Daniel Zhang era has solved many internal business problems, but the promotion of young people, the inability to subdue the elderly, and a certain deviation from Ma Yun's "original intention" cannot ensure that Alibaba "unites" in the special period.
Wu Yongming was once considered the most suitable person for Ali at the moment, and in the past 100 days, Alibaba Cloud canceled its IPO, which means that the cloud computing business will exist as a basic business of the group in the future. For example, at the Apsara Conference, Alibaba Cloud reiterated "water, electricity and coal". The change in positioning may have helped Cai Yinghua resign.
"If Ma Yun is compared to Liu Bei of Shu during the Three Kingdoms period, then Wu Yongming is like Zhuge Liang of Ali. A Chinese confessor tried to use historical narrative to describe the current Ali, but vaguely revealed a layer of anxiety: Wu Yongming may be the last hope for Ali's revival, just like Kong Ming who came out of Qishan.
As for Daniel Zhang, who got $1 billion, perhaps from the moment the "Son of Heaven" was demoted to a "prince", even if he claimed that he wanted to "devote himself to Alibaba Cloud", the result was already doomed.