In June 2026, Alibaba witnessed two pivotal events: the abrupt resignation of DingTalk CEO Wu Zhao (Chen Hang) and Jack Ma leading a team of core executives to engage in rural rice planting. These contrasting actions—one demonstrating decisive leadership and the other fostering a sense of community—were collectively interpreted by observers as Jack Ma's deep involvement in reshaping the group's organizational culture and charting a long-term course for AI development from a strategic, behind-the-scenes vantage point.

Image Source/Alibaba

The appointment of Chen Yusen to head DingTalk transcends a mere routine personnel shift within a single business unit. It symbolizes a broader rectification strategy for top-tier companies grappling with burnout issues stemming from rapid expansion, offering a blueprint for the entire industry to leverage AI to integrate into the real economy and unlock new avenues for growth.

1

Behind the Scenes of DingTalk's Leadership Shift and Rural Rice Planting:

Alibaba Embarks on Cultural Transformation

Alibaba's recent dual maneuvers have captured widespread attention: Wu Zhao's resignation as CEO and Jack Ma's foray into rural rice planting with his executive team. These events are intricately linked.

Wu Zhao's departure is tied to a 70,000-word exposé titled "Inside DingTalk" that surfaced on Alibaba's internal network in early June. Authored by Teng Yaxin (alias "Yousu"), the former core product manager of DingTalk's "ONE" project (the flagship AI work homepage for DingTalk 8.0), the article meticulously chronicles the journey of DingTalk's AI product "ONE" under Chen Hang's (alias Wu Zhao) leadership—from its inception and meteoric rise to 3 million DAUs, to a precipitous decline in retention rates, and ultimately, its contraction and disbandment. Teng directly points out the company's high-pressure management practices, including frequent attendance checks and off-hours supervision, which exacted a heavy toll on employees. Teng herself suffered two breakdowns due to prolonged overwork, and the company witnessed significant staff turnover.

Despite substantial investments, the product yielded no returns. Owing to its ambiguous positioning, "ONE," DingTalk's core AI transformation initiative, was discontinued within ten months. In March of this year, its entry point was supplanted by the AI-native work platform project, "Wukong."

The article garnered significant traction. Ma Ruila, the former VP of DingTalk and head of AI spreadsheets, also penned a reflective piece titled "Outside DingTalk" on his personal WeChat account, announcing his resignation from DingTalk and lamenting, "I recognize the high pressure, the futility of effort without results, the cycle of frequent reporting, rapid iteration, and the lack of improvement."

Screenshot of the article "Inside DingTalk"

On June 10, Alibaba's Partnership Committee published an article titled "Growth with Emotion, Justice, and Compassion: The True Essence of Alibaba Culture" on the company's internal network, criticizing DingTalk's management style as "incompatible with Alibaba's culture" and emphasizing that "mutual respect, treating people with dignity, and possessing emotion and justice" are the cornerstone values of Alibaba's culture.

Screenshot of the article "Growth with Emotion, Justice, and Compassion: The True Essence of Alibaba Culture"

The Partnership Committee further underscored in the article that these core values must remain steadfast "regardless of how times change or technology evolves."

The day following this response, Alibaba announced a management reshuffle at DingTalk, with Wu Zhao stepping down as CEO and Chen Yusen, a tech enthusiast born in 1992, assuming the role of Alibaba's youngest business unit CEO.

This marked a mere 437 days since Wu Zhao's high-profile return in March 2025, when he declared, "Redo DingTalk with AI."

Over ten days later, Alibaba's internal network featured a photograph of executives planting rice in a paddy field. In addition to core executives such as Wu Yongming, Shao Xiaofeng, Jiang Fan, Wu Zeming, Jiang Fang, Ant Group Chairman Jing Xiandong, and CEO Han Xinyi, the photo also included Zhou Jingren, Alibaba's Chief Scientist who had recently been rumored to have resigned but denied the claims, and Jack Ma himself.

Image Source/Alibaba

Coupled with the perspective shared by Alibaba Partner and AutoNavi Chairman Liu Zhenfei in an internal article—"As long as you nurture the land, select quality seedlings, and approach everything with sincerity, the rest is left to time. The land will not disappoint you"—Jack Ma's leadership in the rice planting initiative appears to convey Alibaba's management philosophy: Innovation in the AI era does not hinge on "high pressure and mechanical execution" but on fostering employees' passion and creativity. Only by fully respecting the value of each employee can true customer value be created.

On another note, Jack Ma has a history of investment in agriculture. In 2017, he stated, "While Mr. Yuan Longping achieved 1,000 jin per mu in yield, the internet should strive for $1,000 per mu in value," and launched initiatives such as the "Rural Program," "Million Convenience Store Program," and "Tmall Store Program" to lay the groundwork for promoting agricultural products online.

In 2023, Jack Ma indirectly held shares in Yimiaha Marine Technology (Zhejiang) Co., Ltd., whose business scope encompasses aquaculture, food sales, frozen seafood processing, and offshore wind power system R&D.

Image Source/Tianyancha

Consequently, some voices interpret Alibaba's core management team's foray into rice planting as a signal of sustained investment in digital agriculture, conveying Alibaba's strategy of grounding its digital business in the real economy and exploring new growth avenues through virtual-real collaboration. It is evident that Jack Ma's return is reshaping Alibaba's management and business development trajectories.

2

Deeply Involved in Strategic Adjustments:

DingTalk's AI Abandons "Hasty Expansion"

Since last year, Jack Ma has been frequently spotted by passersby at Alibaba's campus.

Media reports citing insiders also stated, "Jack Ma has begun returning to Alibaba's campus, with his direct involvement in company matters reaching its highest level in five years. He has inquired about senior management's business progress three times a day, with a particular focus on AI business."

Jack Ma has also repeatedly spoken in public about the disruptive potential of the AI era and its impact on humanity. As early as 2023, he signaled his involvement in strategic review.

In June 2023, Daniel Zhang announced in an internal letter that to align with future development norms and requirements, it was inappropriate for him to continue serving as chairman and CEO of both companies. He announced his resignation as chairman and CEO of Alibaba's board, dedicating himself to his role as chairman and CEO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group.

Cai Chongxin, the group's executive vice chairman, was appointed as chairman of Alibaba Holding Group's board, while Wu Yongming became CEO of Alibaba Holding Group, continuing to serve as chairman of Taobao and Tmall Group.

At the time, media reports stated that a month before Zhang's resignation announcement, Jack Ma convened a meeting with business leaders from Taobao and Tmall Group, stating that Alibaba's past successful methodologies might no longer be applicable and that Taobao and Tmall Group should return to their roots, return to users, and return to the internet. This was at a time when Taobao and Tmall faced significant challenges.

Early the following year after this personnel adjustment, Alibaba's founders Jack Ma and Cai Chongxin significantly increased their stakes in Alibaba, with their combined shareholding surpassing SoftBank's to become Alibaba's largest shareholders. The news sent Alibaba's market value soaring by HKD 100 billion in a single day.

From a series of moves such as DingTalk's leadership shift and executives' collective foray into rice planting, outsiders can discern that Jack Ma is deeply involved in the group's strategic and organizational cultural review work in his capacity as founder.

DingTalk was positioned as Alibaba's most pivotal AI application for the ToB sector in February 2025, necessitating a capable leader to guide its transformation. However, during Chen Hang's tenure, DingTalk's AI transformation encountered hurdles. The inaugural core AI product, "ONE," launched in 2025, was discontinued within a year.

In March of this year, DingTalk unveiled the world's first enterprise-grade Agent platform, "Wukong," as a standalone application integrated into DingTalk across millions of enterprise organizations. Alibaba even established a separate business unit (Wukong Business Unit) for it.

At that juncture, Alibaba placed its bets on Chen Yusen, VP of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group and head of MuleRun.

Caijing magazine, citing insiders, reported, "Promoting Chen Yusen is not solely attributable to DingTalk's internal management issues but also to address current technological challenges and drive the development of AI-related products." Internally, it was believed that Chen Yusen, with a technical background, might usher in new explorations and changes after assuming leadership.

Others at Alibaba stated that DingTalk faced profound product transformations, and Chen Hang's traditional "hasty expansion" model was ill-suited for Agent tools, which required a young product technology leader with fresh perspectives to steer the ship.

Chen Yusen has also proven himself a worthy successor to Chen Hang through his performance. After joining Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group in 2023, he focused on exploring AI Agents and next-generation productivity tools, leading the development of the AI Agent product MuleRun (Luozi Kuaipao) in just two years.

According to Shanghai Morning Post reports, MuleRun now serves enterprises and users in 43 countries globally, including China, Japan, Brazil, and Mexico. Users paying over $200 monthly account for 34%, with paid users active for 2.6 weekdays per week, completing an average of 13 end-to-end work tasks per week.

3

Internet's Stock Era:

Abandoning Burnout Culture for AI

DingTalk's leadership transition is a highly symbolic event in China's internet industry post the era of rampant traffic expansion. The high-intensity burnout management model, once deemed efficient during traffic expansion, has revealed its flaws in the stock competition phase.

In response, Alibaba's measures reflect two major transformation directions for top-tier internet companies: First, leveraging the founder's top-tier influence to intervene in cultural transformation, systematically addressing burnout and overdraft management issues left by rapid growth, and reshaping a sustainable organizational foundation. Second, anchoring long-term AI investment and digital empowerment of the real economy as core strategies to create new growth avenues.

This aligns with the collective adjustment trend in the current internet industry.

Internet company executives are no longer solely fixated on short-term user scale and revenue growth but are investing in internal organizational cultural reshaping. This includes personally venturing into the frontlines of retail and logistics to streamline grassroots management, flattening management hierarchies, and updating managerial guidelines to reshape talent evaluation systems.

DingTalk's leadership change is a comprehensive and strategically clear practice of cultural transformation within a major company. The entire adjustment process clearly delineates the standard path for internet company cultural reforms in the stock era: First, unify cultural value standards at the group's top level, then replace management paradigms through leadership iterations, simultaneously optimize organizational structures, and adjust assessment orientations to fundamentally alleviate organizational consumption issues left by rapid growth, serving as a model for addressing burnout in industry governance.

Beyond its organizational cultural significance, DingTalk's leadership transition fully showcases Alibaba's transformation logic centered on long-term AI investment and digital empowerment of the real economy.

In the past, most internet companies relied on online traffic monetization, advertising value-added services, and platform commissions as core profit paths, prioritizing online over offline, short-term monetization over technological investment.

With macroeconomic structural adjustments and shifts in digital economy policy guidance, the growth model relying solely on online traffic is no longer sustainable. The entire industry must pivot toward a long-term route of technological deep cultivation and serving the real economy.

Alibaba has clearly shifted its strategic focus, announcing plans to invest over RMB 380 billion cumulatively over the next three years in AI and cloud computing infrastructure, covering self-developed chips, foundational large models, and industry-specific intelligent agents across the entire stack, pursuing a long-term technological investment route without seeking short-term input-output balance.

In terms of specific routes, Alibaba aims to construct a complete AI industrial chain relying on Tongyi Qianwen large model, Pingtouge self-developed chips, and Alibaba Cloud's computing power foundation, then deliver AI capabilities to thousands of real enterprises through business scenarios like DingTalk, Taobao, Tmall, and Cainiao, forming a positive cycle of technological investment, scenario implementation, and industrial feedback.

Alibaba's comprehensive closed-loop practice from problem exposure, cultural transformation, to strategic implementation confirms an industry consensus: The era of rampant traffic expansion has conclusively ended, and the model of relying on overworking employees for short-term growth is unsustainable.

Internet companies can achieve sustainable development across economic cycles only by upholding organizational principles that respect individuals and prioritize long-termism, continuously deepening their engagement with (or "cultivating") the foundational technologies of AI, and grounding their strategies in the digital needs of the real economy. This embodies the core significance behind Chen Yusen's appointment to lead DingTalk and Jack Ma's initiative to guide executives into rural areas.