NetEase's Turmoil and Ding Lei's Calculations

On Friday night, the news that Yang Binbin, deputy editor-in-chief of NetEase portal, resigned finally began to spread in the self-media circle. Following Zeng Guangming, Yang Binbin is the second deputy editor-in-chief of NetEase to resign in half a year. He joined the live broadcast platform Kuaishou as a partner at the beginning of the year and took away many people from NetEase's live broadcast center. Recently, his popularity has soared due to his various quarrels with the operation girl on Zhihu.

It is no longer news that NetEase Media is planning to package and integrate its concepts for listing in the U.S. However, in the past year since its listing, NetEase's well-known style of "Ding Lei is always there, but the editors-in-chief are always changing" has become more and more serious, and the turmoil in the content department has become more and more serious, which seems to be inconsistent with the tone of NetEase's listing.

However, this increasingly intense personnel turmoil precisely reflects the difficulties and resistance of NetEase Media's road to listing, and also once again reflects Ding Lei's business philosophy and personal style.

Disguised layoffs and resignations

It is said that on the weekend that Yang Binbin resigned, NetEase Media began a CMS permissions check for all on-the-job editors. In other words, it was preparing to conduct a large-scale check on the editors' publishing and deletion of manuscripts.

This inevitably reminds me of Zhuang Xiaoyan (Zhuang Xihai), the general manager of NetEase's live broadcast business group, who left a few months ago because of a screenshot scandal involving a few thousand yuan. Zhuang Xiaoyan held great power after joining NetEase and had a decisive influence on NetEase's portal content and strategy. His screenshot scandal was exposed in January, but he did not publicly resign until April. The tangled story itself reflects the ups and downs that NetEase Media encountered on its road to listing. This will be discussed in detail later.

When a company's business is not doing well or it is adjusting its strategy, the HR department will conduct strict assessments on its business lines and attendance, and disguised layoffs are themselves a common practice in the workplace.

However, the personnel turmoil at NetEase in the past few months has been a bit exaggerated. According to NetEase brothers who have just left or are still working, attendance punching, business suspension, and account checking have almost become NetEase's tried-and-true methods of "losing things amicably". Under the continuous pressure from the HR department, the middle-level director-level managers in charge of content at NetEase Media are almost gone.

Among them, there are many old employees with more than ten years of experience as well as middle and senior management.

The most exaggerated thing is that when NetEase’s HR fired a young girl who had just graduated from the live broadcast department for punching in on behalf of her colleagues, they also sent the decision letter to the girl’s hometown for her parents to see with their own eyes, and finally forced the girl to go to court.

According to NetEase A, although the replacement of NetEase's editor-in-chief is commonplace, the comprehensive turmoil of the content department from top to bottom is still rare in NetEase's history.

According to B, who just resigned from NetEase, there are two reasons for this abnormal disguised layoff and personnel turmoil. One is the strategic adjustment of NetEase Media's listing direction, and the other is the chain reaction caused by the turmoil and resignation of senior management in the past six months. It is rumored that there is probably a gambling agreement between NetEase Media CEO Li Li and Ding Lei regarding the listing, which is why there has been such a fierce swing in the past six months.

Live broadcast story and content platform story

The adjustment of the strategic direction of NetEase Media's listing should be the main reason why NetEase has been in constant turmoil over the past six months.

After sorting out the information, it is not difficult to find that with Li Li being appointed as CEO of NetEase Media Group in April 2015, NetEase told two stories in two years to package NetEase Media's listing.

The first story is about content platform and advertising.

Among the four major portals, Sina and Sohu are basically in a state of "self-destruction". Sina's operation center is constantly leaning towards Weibo and its next-generation product - live broadcast platform, while Sohu has simply become a self-media platform. Although Tencent has become the dominant player, Tencent News Portal, which has no shortage of money and traffic, disdains the marketing and packaging of traditional media with lower cost performance.

By hosting the NetEase Technology Future Summit since 2014, NetEase has stood out from the crowd and strengthened its own content platform attributes amid the rise of Toutiao and the decline of portals.

In NetEase's fourth quarter 2016 financial report, the following sentence caught our eye: "Driven by the mobile product matrix centered on the NetEase News client and large-scale public relations events such as the '2016 NetEase Economist Annual Conference' and the '2016 NetEase Attitude Person Ceremony,' advertising revenue in the fourth quarter showed steady growth." - It can be seen that when NetEase Media packaged its story, it focused on the growth in advertising brought by the conference, which is actually the idea of ​​traditional media.

With the birth of NetEase in April 2016, NetEase added a new gimmick in packaging content platform stories.

However, Yang Binbin is an important figure in telling the story of NetEase's content platform. His departure indicates that this story does not seem to be told successfully.

It is no secret that Ding Lei likes to directly direct content products and platforms. Judging from NetEase Media's independent listing plan, it is understandable that Ding Lei personally cares about news products in addition to raising pigs and selling goods.

It is rumored that the main reason why Editor-in-Chief Chen Feng resigned in 2015 was that he had a disagreement with Ding Lei on the positioning concept of the NetEase News client.

Yang Binbin joined NetEase as deputy editor-in-chief. Before Zhuang Xiaoyan left, his main task was to work on NetEase.

However, one year after its launch, the reputation of NetEase continued to decline, which made Ding Lei very angry. One night, an employee of NetEase Media complained about NetEase in the WeChat Moments, and was seen by Ding Lei, a friend in the WeChat Moments. Ding Lei immediately transferred the message to Yang Binbin's group and gave a harsh reprimand, which made Yang Binbin very embarrassed.

In addition to NetEase, Yang Binbin is also in charge of the independent project team at NetEase Media. The so-called independent project team refers to entrepreneurial projects with internal incubation. It is said that this is an enlightened move made by Ding Lei after he was stimulated by the title of "Entrepreneurship Huangpu Military Academy", especially by the listing of Tang Yan's Momo.

For example, in the previous news, planning, reporter, mobile digital, smart hardware and other departments, the smart hardware and reporter groups have set up independent studios, all of which are managed by Yang Binbin.

According to NetEase's C, when Yang Binbin was in office, he promoted the idea of ​​"reducing staff and increasing efficiency" in editing, that is, using AI to replace manual work, which became one of the points of criticism of Yang Binbin by some former employees. However, NetEase's C also said that in fact, Yang Binbin was likely implementing Li Li's will.

According to C from NetEase, Yang Binbin actually has very little authority. His authority to approve funds is only 5,000 yuan. He cannot even get Li Li's trust to negotiate an IP with Miwei Media.

In NetEase Media, Li Li is the only person with real power, and she is the person primarily responsible for NetEase Media's listing.

Whether it was because a good cook cannot cook without rice or because his talent was not enough, Yang Binbin’s departure indicated that NetEase Media’s first story would not go smoothly.

Yang Binbin and Zhuang Xiaoyan are key figures in NetEase Media's IPO story

The second story is live broadcast.

The core character of this story is Zhuang Xiaoyan.

There are many rumors about Mr. Zhuang Xiaoyan. His joining NetEase from Chongqing is a legend in itself. But according to NetEase's A, Zhuang is really capable, with active thinking, vision and ideals. Baidu Encyclopedia says that Zhuang "planned and implemented the overall strategy and overall layout of NetEase Live", which should be true.

Because of the importance of the live broadcast story, Zhuang Xiaoyan, who is good at planning and layout, became Li Li's favorite. This kind of "fame" is reflected in the fact that NetEase actually provided Zhuang Xiaoyan with a special car, which is also extremely rare in NetEase.

Zhuang Xiaoyan integrated multiple departments to form a live broadcast business group. His idea was to connect the content of the eight departments (plus entertainment and fashion, education channels and NetEase Open Class App). At the 2017 NetEase Attitude Partner Marketing Conference, Zhuang, who had not yet resigned, was still promoting this idea.

However, if you want to do big things, you have to move the cheese of many departments, which will inevitably make many enemies. However, Mr. Zhuang is a person with personality and many personal hobbies. He mishandled the details and ended up losing the big picture.

According to brothers from NetEase, Zhuang was indeed quite high-profile internally, and some of his things matched the rumors in the underworld, so Li Li's favorite general suffered a setback.

In fact, I think the people at NetEase are still oversimplifying things. The departure of Zhuang Xiaoyan, the core figure in the live-streaming story, should be a derivative of the strategic adjustment of NetEase Media. Zhuang just did something inappropriate at an inappropriate time.

The clear evidence to support my point is that after Zhuang Xiaoyan was fired in April, Yang Binbin, who took over the business, did nothing and let the original live broadcasting business continue to decline. Various signs show that he was carrying out the will of the upper echelons. At the same time, Han Li, the former editor-in-chief of NetEase Game Channel, was re-invited by Li Li, who re-integrated resources including the previous BOBO and started a new live broadcasting platform - Bohe Live.

Note that Bohe Live is a show live broadcast, not the information live broadcast that Zhuang Xiaoyan had been working on before. From this, we can infer that after NetEase Media failed to go public in 2016, the top management actually considered repackaging the live broadcast story.

Ding Lei's calculations

In fact, as an Internet tycoon with a very strong personality, Ding Lei's business philosophy and style have always been widely praised.

In fact, among the Internet entrepreneurs at the turn of the century, veteran Ding Lei was able to make NetEase's related businesses the top three in portals, games, overseas shopping, music, etc., and its market value is right behind Alibaba, Baidu and JD.com among Internet Chinese stocks, which is really admirable. Moreover, NetEase's territory and achievements seem to have a clear trend of continued expansion.

NetEase's success is directly related to Ding Lei's two seemingly opposite but harmoniously coexisting business styles: pragmatism and sentimentalism.

Speaking of pragmatism, people who are familiar with Boss Ding will smile knowingly. Boss Ding is extremely professional in the ways of making and saving money.

Take making money for example. Without relying on large-scale acquisitions and without the backflow of super apps like WeChat, Boss Ding has managed to make NetEase Games a company that is far beyond the reach of all companies except Tencent.

Even if we don't consider star money-making products such as games, email, and "Flower Field", taking the most marginal and low-key business - one-yuan treasure hunt - as an example, Ding Lei's ability to make money is admirable.

There are countless other similar low-profile businesses like NetEase Precious Metals.

When it comes to sentimentalism, NetEase Open Class, pig farming, NetEase Music, and NetEase Yanxuan have brought Ding Lei another dimension of reputation. In essence, Onmyoji, which is completely opposite to King of Glory, is also a sentimental work of Ding Lei.

However, Ding Lei's premise for doing sentimental things is that he must be able to make money. The current series of sentimental products have proved this point.

In NetEase's financial report, it can be clearly seen that the "advertising service" revenue associated with NetEase Media's listing is accounting for a smaller and smaller proportion of NetEase's overall net income, having dropped from 4.9% in the first quarter of 2016 to 3.3% in the first quarter of 2017.

Facts have proven that Boss Ding, who is the best at making and saving money, would never treat NetEase Media's business as a sentimental one, as evidenced by the long-standing wave of editors leaving NetEase. Therefore, the departure of Yang Binbin and Zhuang Xiaoyan is just a continuation of the same logical chain.

In short, NetEase Media’s road to listing is becoming increasingly difficult.

Of course, we can also imagine that if NetEase Media and NetEase E-Commerce are successfully spun off and listed, then TAN, which is more reliable than JAT and ATM, should be the first camp in the next chapter of China's Internet.

If that day comes, maybe Boss Ding will really start to think about his true feelings.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.