Alibaba's new CEO, the youngest "18 Arhat"

Author: Yin Jie

This year's Teacher's Day is a day for Alibaba to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new.

On September 10th, his previous head, Zhang Yong, Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Holdings Group, stepped down, and the new head took over——

Cai Chongxin was appointed as the Chairman of the Board of Directors, and Wu Yongming was appointed as the CEO.

For the former, everyone is familiar with it, and for the latter, everyone asks:

"Who is Wu Yongming?"

The youngest "Eighteen Arhat"

According to public information, Wu Yongming is 47 years old and graduated from the Computer Science Department of Zhejiang University of Technology in 1996. He immediately joined the "China Yellow Pages" company founded by Jack Ma.

One year later, Wu Yongming followed Jack Ma to Beijing and was responsible for the technical development of the website of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation at that time. In 1999, he followed Jack Ma back to Hangzhou and founded Alibaba.

Before becoming CEO, Wu Yongming's most shining label was one of Alibaba's "Eighteen Arhat", and it was the youngest.

In that widely circulated story, in 1999, Jack Ma, who had failed his entrepreneurship in Beijing, returned to Hangzhou and gathered 18 entrepreneurial partners at his home to plan a comeback.

He first took out his own money and said, "The startup funds must be idle money, and borrowing from family and friends is not allowed because the possibility of failure is very high." Then he said, "Now everyone keeps some food money and takes out all the remaining money.".

·The "Eighteen Arhat" of Alibaba in its infancy.

In addition to Jack Ma, there are both Cai Chongxin and Wu Yongming among the 18 partners. They are both the founder of Alibaba and the earliest batch of employees. Wu Yongming is also the first generation programmer of the company.

At Alibaba, Wu Yongming's nickname is "Dongxie", but according to employees, he has a gentle personality, speaks softly, is introverted, and has a good sense of humor.

This may be verified by another nickname of Wu Yongming - "Wu Mama".

It is said that when following Jack Ma northward, each employee dormitory was assigned a person in charge, jokingly referred to as "mom" by everyone, and Wu Yongming was called "Wu mom", which has been used ever since.

Being the youngest "Arhat" depends on Ma Yun's support and Wu Yongming's choice. In other words, the two people cherish each other.

At the beginning of the establishment of "China Yellow Pages", Jack Ma was still an unknown resigned teacher. In order to recruit talents, he hung a programmer recruitment notice in the Qianjiang Evening News.

At that time, Wu Yongming, who had just graduated from university, was worrying about his first job.

During the interview, Wu Yongming brought a floppy disk containing several Java mini programs he had written himself. Ma Yun thinks this guy is good, knows technology and has an eye for the future of the Internet.

Wu Yongming also reciprocated Jack Ma, despite his failure to start a business in Beijing, he remained steadfast and persevered along the way, using his professional background to take on the technical backbone and build the technical architecture of the Alibaba platform.

·Wu Yongming used to be the technical director of Taobao platform.

In 2003, Taobao was launched, and Wu Yongming was one of the seven "generals" personally selected by Jack Ma, serving as the website's technical director; In 2004, Alipay was founded, and he became the technical director of Alipay; In September 2008, Taobao merged with Alibaba, and Wu Yongming was appointed as the vice president of the new company.

It can be said that during the rapid rise of Taobao, Wu Yongming not only participated throughout the process, but also was one of the main promoters.

"Not much to say, very loyal"

Although Wu Yongming's KPI is good, compared to him, Cai Chongxin's qualifications and reputation are obviously much higher - Alibaba only has two permanent partners, Jack Ma and Cai Chongxin.

But why is Wu Yongming, who was not very famous before, serving as the CEO?

Industry insiders have revealed that in addition to his age advantage, Wu Yongming's ability in business operations is also a reason. In short, he not only understands technology, but also knows how to turn it into a product and monetize it into revenue.

Before the popularization of mobile Internet, Wu Yongming realized the general trend of mobility early and actively promoted Ali products to mobile terminals.

In 2008, mobile Taobao began internal testing, and released Android, Symbian, and kjava versions within three years, which entered the consumer's vision before the outbreak of mobile Internet.

In the following years, Wu Yongming gradually turned to acquisition business and participated in the acquisition of projects such as Gaode Map, UC Browser, and Youmeng.

UC browser has brought a very large traffic entry point to Alibaba, Gaode Map has expanded its consumer base, and Youmeng has brought the ability of mobile data related businesses.

Wu Yongming once said, "In the rapidly changing era, there is no such thing as being conservative. Development needs to be in line with the times and new entrepreneurship must be carried out at any time."

Perhaps it is precisely because of this concept that in 2015, during the wave of entrepreneurship and innovation, Wu Yongming withdrew from Alibaba and joined the venture capital circle, establishing Yuanjing Capital.

·Wu Yongming at Yuanjing Capital.

Thanks to the rich accumulation of resources by the founder, Yuan Jing quickly established a foothold in the VC circle.

A person who has collaborated with Yuanjing Capital revealed that Wu Yongming is "not talkative, very loyal", has a bold investment style, and is willing to try new things. His investment fields involve cutting-edge technology, medical care, industry, etc. Currently, he has invested in over 150 projects.

At the same time, Wu Yongming still has intricate connections with Alibaba. From 2015 to 2020, he served as the Chairman of Alibaba Health for five years.

·Wu Yongming, who served as the chairman of Alibaba Health.

It is well known that the fierce competition in the Internet industry is so cruel that the glory of yesterday, the decline of today and the death of tomorrow often come down in one continuous line. This has always filled the founder community of Alibaba with a sense of crisis.

According to media reports, in May this year, Jack Ma convened a small-scale communication meeting with business leaders from Taobao and Tmall Group.

Jack Ma believes that the methodologies that Alibaba relied on for success in the past may no longer be applicable and should be quickly changed. He pointed out three directions for Taotian Group: returning to Taobao, returning to users and returning to the Internet.

In the subsequent organizational restructuring of Alibaba, Wu Yongming joined Taobao and Tmall Group as the chairman.

"Let the post-85s and post-90s generations be the main managers"

On September 12th, Wu Yongming, as CEO, issued a letter to all employees for the first time, clarifying the two major strategic priorities of the group in the future - user first and AI driven.

In the letter, Wu Yongming clearly stated that the biggest variable in the next decade is undoubtedly the profound transformation brought about by AI in the entire industry. Therefore, Alibaba must have the determination to start a new business again. "If we cannot keep up with the changes in the AI era, there will definitely be new species replacing us.".

At the same time, he also proposed a requirement for a younger management team, stating that within four years, the 85 and 90 generations should be the main managers.

It shows the new leader's desire for change.

·A letter from all staff released by Wu Yongming.

Some analysts believe that the return of Cai Chongxin and Wu Yongming to the core management team signifies the return of Alibaba's founder group. In the face of the expansion of its own business scale and changes in the market competition environment, Alibaba needs the founder group to return to the front line and stabilize the development situation.

At the internal communication meeting in May, Ma Yun once took Kodak and Nokia as examples, saying that "half a year to one year is enough for an enterprise to go from benchmarking to death. In the Internet industry, this speed may be faster".

Jack Ma, full of a sense of crisis, clearly believes that Alibaba is currently facing a very severe competitive situation, and the only way out is to find new business and "regain the spirit of innovation.".

In that case, Wu Yongming, who is young and strong, skilled in investment, and good at coordinating various relationships, naturally became the best candidate for the new head of Alibaba.