Recently, the controversy surrounding internal management issues at Alibaba’s “Ding Talk” has escalated with the publication of a lengthy resignation letter by the product manager. The latest development reveals that Alibaba has replaced the CEO of Ding Talk.
On June 11th, Alibaba announced a reshuffle in the Ding Talk management team, with Chen Hang, also known as “Wu Zhao,” stepping down as CEO and being succeeded by Chen Yushen, a tech enthusiast born in 1992. Chen Yushen has become the youngest business unit CEO at Alibaba.
“Wu Zhao” is a nickname used by Alibaba employees as a code name or work alias within the company. Employees are required to choose a nickname upon joining the company, which is used in work communications and internal systems like Ding Talk to address each other. This practice stems from Jack Ma’s martial arts fantasy.
The upheaval began with a 75,000-word resignation letter titled “Immersed in Ding” published by Ding Talk’s AI tool “ONE” project core product manager, Teng Yaxin, also known as “You Su.”
On June 4th, Teng Yaxin detailed the journey of Ding Talk’s flagship AI project ONE, from inception to reaching a daily active user count of 3 million, to its eventual dismantling in the comprehensive post. The narrative also shed light on the real workplace experiences of the entire team.
In the article, Teng Yaxin used images like “changing era,” “Wang Shu’s actions,” and “golden flying thieves” to depict phenomena within the team such as blind compliance, vicious internal competition, decision-making influenced by personal whims of leaders, and meaningless overtime.
On June 8th, Ma Ruila, former Vice President and AI product lead at Ding Talk who left in May, responded with his own post titled “Immersed Outside of Ding.” He expressed understanding of the high-pressure work environment mentioned in the resignation letter, the struggles with reporting constantly, and the vicious cycle of repeated iterations with no visible progress. He opposed the model of “burning out the entire team to stimulate growth.”
Ma Ruila admitted that around the May Day holiday this year, he started contemplating his resignation, feeling unsure whether he was creating products or just burning out trying to keep up with the relentless pace.
The combined impact of the two articles triggered a firestorm on social media.
On June 10th, Alibaba’s Partner Committee issued a response by posting an article on the internal network titled “Affection, Ethics, Growth – The True Alibaba Culture,” criticizing the management style of Ding Talk, stating it was not reflective of Alibaba’s cultural values.
It’s worth noting that a similar incident occurred a year ago.
In June 2025, during the handover between Chen Hang and the former CEO of Ding Talk, Ye Jun, the former research and development lead at Ding Talk, nicknamed “Yuan An,” wrote a lengthy article discussing Alibaba’s development process, existing problems, and providing suggestions related to internal management issues he observed in the company.
“Yuan An” mentioned in the post that over the past 15 years, there had been significant changes in public opinion and employee attitudes both within Alibaba and in society. He pointed out the ingrained management issues and summarized problems in three areas: people, finances, and operations.
Ding Talk, an enterprise office and collaboration platform under Alibaba, was launched in 2014. Initially positioned as a business communication tool, it evolved into a digital office platform integrating instant messaging, video conferencing, approvals, HR management, document collaboration, and low-code development features.