一封七万字的辞职信，换掉了钉钉的 CEO

Today we'll talk about something that's been especially hot on the Chinese internet these past few days.

It's related to a product called 'DingTalk'.

You might know DingTalk.

In China, many companies use DingTalk for work.

People use it to send messages, hold meetings, and clock in.

DingTalk is made by a very big company.

That company also has many people working there.

Today's main character is one of them.

His name is Teng Yaxin.

He worked on AI at DingTalk.

That is, the kind of smart, new features.

The AI product he worked on was once impressive.

At its peak, three million people used it every day.

But later, this product was slowly cut back.

Just a few days ago, Teng Yaxin left.

He resigned from this company.

Resigning means: deciding you don't want to do it anymore, and leaving on your own.

When he left, he did something very unusual.

He wrote a very, very long resignation letter.

How long?

Seventy-five thousand characters.

Seventy-five thousand characters is almost a small book.

Why did he write so much?

Because he wanted to say everything in his heart.

In the letter, he wrote the whole story of that AI product.

From everyone being excited at the start,

to slowly, in the end, not being able to keep going.

He said the problem wasn't the product itself.

The problem was management.

He said the company had a very bad atmosphere.

People did their work not to make things good.

But to make the leaders above happy.

Whatever the leaders liked, that's what people did.

Even when they clearly knew it was useless, they still did it.

Also, there was a lot of overtime at the company.

Much of it was meaningless overtime.

And people grew more and more tired, more and more drained.

After this letter came out, the whole company was shaken.

Many colleagues, after reading it, said:

'What he wrote is exactly what our days are like.'

A few days later, another person stepped forward.

This person used to be a vice president of DingTalk.

Also in charge of AI.

He had already left in May.

He also wrote an article.

He said what Teng Yaxin wrote was all true.

He also said that, during that time,

he himself couldn't tell:

'Was I actually making a product,

or just desperately chasing a pace I could never catch up to?'

These two articles spread wider and wider.

Finally, they alarmed the big company above DingTalk.

DingTalk's parent company is Alibaba.

It's one of the most famous companies in China.

A senior committee at Alibaba

specifically posted an internal article in response.

The article's title meant, roughly:

'Warmth, loyalty, and growth — that's what Alibaba's culture should be.'

This was really saying:

DingTalk's style of management — watching the boss's face, pushing people to exhaustion —

is not the way we want things to be.

Another day passed, and the biggest move came.

DingTalk's CEO, Chen Hang, stepped down.

Stepping down means: no longer holding that position.

Speaking of which, Chen Hang's connection to DingTalk runs deep.

DingTalk, at its very start, was built by him and his team.

Later, he left once.

In 2025 he came back and became CEO again.

But this time, after coming back, he only lasted a little over a year,

and then left again.

So who takes over his position?

It's a very young person, named Chen Yusen.

He was born in 1992, and is only thirty-four this year.

He became Alibaba's youngest business-unit CEO.

He's very capable.

He started his own company early, doing tech.

Recently he also made a very popular AI product.

So the company chose him to lead DingTalk forward.

Finally, let's think together.

What's most striking about this whole thing?

It's that an ordinary product manager,

without relying on connections or power,

just earnestly wrote a letter and told the truth.

And the result: a big company replaced its own CEO.

This shows the truth has power.

It's just that, much of the time,

none of us dare to be the first one to tell it.

Finally, I want to ask you.

At your company, or in your life,

is there a truth

you've always wanted to tell, but never have?

What are you waiting for?