In 2023, the Chinese tech tycoon, who is known to be humble, will be more visible and vocal, and will not even hesitate to get angry with his employees. Why is that? Yes to revive the company after the great difficulties that occurred in 2022.
The last two years, China's tech tycoons tend to pull back. Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance, stays out of the public eye. Wang Xing, Meituan's boss, does not publish a single social media post while Tencent founder Ma Huateng rarely makes public appearances.
As for the founder of Alibaba Group Holding Jack Ma, he continues to hide and avoid being the center of attention. He is reportedly currently in Japan. That has coincided with Beijing's efforts to clamp down on its business empire, as well as downsizing and layoffs.
"2022 was a difficult year for China's technology sector," said Angela Zhang, professor of law at the University of Hong Kong. "This sector has been badly affected, like many other sectors in China, by the macroeconomic environment, especially China's zero Covid policy."
But that may change now that the government has lifted the Covid zero rule. Beijing is asking tech giants to play a bigger role in economic growth, creating jobs and engaging in global competition, a sign that two years of intense scrutiny are over.
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Well, that's what triggers the bosses of technology giants to appear to spur employees, even to the point of being angry and threatening if their performance is poor.
For example, in an internal meeting last month, Ma Huateng warned that any business could be stopped if targets were not met, while JD.com founder Richard Liu called some executives liars and threatened to fire those who performed poorly.
In an internal speech, Liu berated his senior executives for hiding the truth about the company's operations from him, and used PowerPoint slides to cover up their incompetence.
Meanwhile, Ma Huateng also criticized some of Tencent's managers for corruption and a lack of urgency when it comes to improving efficiency at the company, according to a report by Chinese media outlet Jiemian.