Numerous discussions and reports on pivotal events have originated from Alibaba's internal network. One executive once aptly described it as a "zoo," suggesting abundant internal criticism that obviated the need for external scrutiny.

Dubbed "Aliwei," Alibaba's internal network once epitomized the group's organizational vitality.

Employees could rent rooms, carpool, make friends, and find companions for leisure activities, similar to other companies. However, they could also challenge other businesses. For instance, a Cainiao employee might complain about order fulfillment difficulties during Singles' Day, while a Taobao employee might tag a Gaode employee to report an issue with ride-hailing.

Unlike other companies, Alibaba's founders and senior executives might not have enjoyed privileges here. Employees could openly challenge and question certain executive actions, expressing dissatisfaction by deducting "Sesame Credits."

Many popular events at Alibaba would first brew on the internal network before becoming news. The internal network was once Alibaba's internal "hot search list"—until 2023, when Alibaba Group underwent an organizational split into "1+6+N."

As each sub-business group began operating independently, the internal network was also divided. Cainiao employees no longer knew what the core Taobao business was discussing; international e-commerce employees could only make friends within their limited circles. Core and peripheral businesses, inner and outer rings, had more distinct "hierarchical" statuses.

More importantly, the group's once open, transparent, and heated discussion atmosphere was fading.

Two years later, two days before "Alibaba Day" (May 10), this division was abruptly broken in an unexpected manner.

The next day, Wu Yongming, CEO of Alibaba Group, posted an article titled "Returning to Our Roots and Restarting as Entrepreneurs" on the internal network, accessible to everyone. He called on all Alibaba employees to set aside past achievements and embark on a new journey with an entrepreneurial mindset.

On May 10, the 26th anniversary of Alibaba Group, Cai Chongxin, Alibaba's permanent partner and chairman of the board, emphasized strategic synergy. He said that AI has become the core driver of all Alibaba's businesses, and the key in the future is for these businesses to validate the commercialization path of AI technology, while "precipitating user behavior data for the group and forming a virtuous closed loop for technological iteration."

In recent years, Alibaba has faced immense competitive pressure in its businesses and encountered multiple policy and public opinion crises, leading to a decline in morale. Alibaba has been continuously adjusting its organization and operations, with the management team conveying confidence and boosting morale in various ways.

The current integration of the internal network, coupled with rumors of the return of founder Jack Ma, marks a new critical point to some extent. It signifies that Alibaba has emerged from its past downturn amidst the new wave of AI technology and is ready to regain its combat effectiveness culturally, psychologically, and operationally.

01 The Internal Network: The Perfect Breeding Ground for "MAGA"

An employee in Alibaba's international business suddenly found that they could access "Aliwei" again.

Before that, AIDC (Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group) had its own internal network, established after September 2023, with no unique name, just called "internal network." It was dull, lacking content, and everyone's interest in posting was low.

On the morning of May 9, he saw someone in a group mention being able to access "Aliwei" and tried it. "It's real." He found it strange, with no notification or announcement, just a "sudden connection."

He didn't have time to explore further because he had a full day of meetings and needed to "hold onto his own rice bowl," but he felt a sense of vitality because an internal network with everyone on it "is at least more interesting than before."

Employees of Taobao Tianmao Group have always been in the main arena; they have never been isolated and have always been able to see information on "Aliwei," so they didn't pay much attention to it. One employee said that everyone is now busy preparing for 618 and all they see is discussion about the sales promotion. Sporadically, they saw employees from group-controlled businesses, international businesses, and Cainiao popping up to say, "Finally able to access the internal network."

What excited some veteran employees was the memory of the lively past internal network, where everyone debated—"You don't have to support my view, but I will defend to the death your right to speak"—and confronted executives. "Sometimes under posts by Mr. Ma, people's Sesame Credits would be deducted to negative numbers, but no one worried about repercussions later."

He felt that it was simply the "Golden Age," and now that the internal network is reconnected, it may mean that the "Golden Age" will come again.

Since 2023, Jack Ma has communicated with employees multiple times through open letters, leading some to joke that the spiritual leader wants to "Make Alibaba Great Again," and the internal network is the perfect place for this atmosphere to ferment.

However, for employees, open communication pales in comparison to more tangible benefits. In the eyes of many employees, the opening up of internal network access is a signal, but they care more about whether subsequent job transfers will also be opened up.

One Lazada employee values this, but he also judges that it is almost impossible for the Alibaba Group to return to a unified middle-office state in the future.

A circulating image shows that Alibaba will again move towards unification in organizational structure, access management, decision-making mechanisms, technology research and development, and employee systems in the future. The circulated legend also indicates that there will be "unified P-level hierarchy, cross-departmental job transfers becoming the norm," "strategic decision-making committee unified approval of major projects," etc., but colleagues discuss it and only feel that it's "ridiculous."

He feels that the internal network's opening up coinciding with the 510 Alibaba Day is more of a public relations strategy, a "move to build confidence," and that comprehensive business synergy across the entire group may not be that extensive, nor is it possible to return to the pre-"1+6+N" large middle-office model.

02 The Split and Subsequent Adjustment of the Internal Network

The division of Alibaba's internal network must be understood within the context of the entire group's split; similarly, the reintegration of Alibaba's internal network is inevitably related to the group's overall adjustment. But this is not a simple retraction.

In March 2023, Alibaba Group announced a split into "1+6+N," once described as the most unprecedented and significant adjustment in Alibaba's history. An Alibaba partner summarized this adjustment in one sentence: There is no longer an "Alibaba" as a monolithic entity.

The background for the adjustment at that time was very clear: As a super-large company, in the face of external changes and competition, Alibaba was too cumbersome and slow to act. This huge company, involved in retail, wholesale, logistics, cloud computing, and other businesses, could hardly maintain the same culture and operational approach.

The split was inevitable and reasonable. However, the adjustment to break down the entire organization into parts was also excessive in that year.

At that time, Alibaba reflected the most on the middle-office model, and the split was the most thorough. An employee who experienced the split at that time said that public relations and technology were required to become independent companies and be self-sufficient.

Soon, these actions began to be retracted. For example, within the technology middle office, the data middle office was once separated into a subsidiary called "Aicheng Technology," but it was found that it was difficult to market-price the value of the middle office. Most sub-business groups, except for Taobao Tianmao, were losing money and unwilling to pay for middle-office services that they originally didn't need.

The data company struggled to survive independently yet was indispensable, so it eventually had to return to the group. The same fate befell one of the teams under the CRO (Chief Risk Officer). Under the same logic, they originally established an independent subsidiary called "Chengdun" but returned to the Alibaba Group's structure at the same time.

In addition, according to our understanding, the marketing, finance, and legal teams that subsequently sank down to each business group have also returned to the group to a certain extent. Since this year, Alibaba's public relations team has also begun to enter various sub-business groups to unify their communication strategies.

Much of the upheaval from 2023 has been overturned. "Alibaba Cloud," which was to be independently listed, became the foundation of the Alibaba Group in the new technological era; another business, Hema, which was also to be independently listed, first considered being sold before saying it would tilt resources towards Hema; and Cainiao, which was almost on the verge of going public, was greatly weakened, with its Cainiao Stations and domestic supply chain businesses being merged into Taobao.

Over the past two years, Alibaba's adjustments have not had a clear direction, but a visible commonality is that it has been weakening the concept of "1+6+N" that it once vigorously promoted and repairing the problems caused by excessive splitting.

Alibaba is a company that has been rapidly adapting, retracting when it oversplits, and canceling original plans whenever the market changes. "Embracing change" is the most ingrained aspect of this company's DNA.

Nowadays, its internal network's transition from being divided to having open access is not to conform to a single narrative of "integration" or "unification," but because Alibaba has once again reached a point where it needs an internal network without boundaries.

03 The Significance of the Internal Network to Alibaba

Alibaba's internal network initially had only very superficial content, like all companies, until later when senior company leaders began advocating a simple and direct communication style and a frank and clear culture.

A technical employee who participated in the early construction of the internal network told us that to encourage everyone to speak freely, they would deliberately create @ reminders. "If you @ someone on it, they will receive the message, and everyone is reminded that it is publicly visible."

In addition to these reminders, "Mr. Ma also required that all posts on the internal network must be real-name, and we firmly opposed anonymity."

It was precisely because of this advocacy for simple and direct communication, coupled with real-name identities, that serious business-based discussions began.

He still remembers that in the early days, the most heated discussion on the internal network was about Wang Jian's insistence on independent research and development for Alibaba Cloud. At that time, one faction hoped to use open-source software, while another faction hoped to develop it from scratch. "These two factions argued fiercely on the internal network, including executives who were divided into two factions for discussion."

The employee recalls that the company's lack of restrictions sparked everyone's enthusiasm for discussion, "Everyone became more open, and there was more and more conversation on it."

This openness later led to some crises, such as employees making purely emotional statements; some posts exposing personal privacy; and later, a female Alibaba employee posting on the internal network accusing her supervisor of sexual assault. This incident spread from the internal network to the external network, causing a huge public opinion crisis for Alibaba.

As similar incidents increased, the company's control over the internal network strengthened, and the culture of openness and transparency it carried was gradually diluted.

However, the complete division of the internal network still brought many negative effects.

For example, in mid-2023, an employee of Tmall Global suddenly died, and the news spread on Maimai, with questions brewing in employees' minds, but the internal network and DingTalk groups were silent. One employee said that in the past, the company would at least publicly disclose the results of handling the employee's family internally. But at that time, everyone lost their platform for discussion and felt that the company had shifted from encouraging frank communication to being closed and seeking stability.

The cost of not being seen is even greater.

Before this, employees from different upstream and downstream businesses could freely communicate, making up for loopholes beyond normal decision-making processes. For instance, an employee once posted on the internal network detailing Taobao's complex marketing, ultimately prompting Jiang Fan, then-president of Taobao, to directly set up a team to address the issue. Gaode Maps, Taote, and Hema have all benefited from such cross-business communication. But the divided internal network no longer has this function.

More importantly, a unified internal network is crucial for maintaining the group's overall corporate culture. Whether it was the debate on the red line standard of integrity in the DingTalk exam-taking incident, the controversy over the application of values after the Jiang Fan incident, or the incident where an Ant employee reported the competence and performance of a supervisor, the internal network was the key platform for initiating, brewing, and publicly addressing these disputes.

A unified internal network allows employees to openly challenge and question the actions of executives and report irregularities. Many discussions and reports on significant events originate from the internal network. One executive once described the internal network as a "zoo," implying that there was ample internal criticism, eliminating the need for external scrutiny.

In a vast and diverse organization like Alibaba, the internal network serves as a cohesive platform, enabling employees across various business units to interact and engage in discussions, thereby fostering a shared identity as "Alibabans." However, the segmentation of this network has diminished this overarching cultural unity.

For an extended period, the cultural and values crisis within the internal network did not rank high on Alibaba's list of priorities. This was due to the multitude of other pressing issues that demanded immediate attention: setting new strategic objectives, divesting unprofitable ventures, reorganizing internal relationships, and more.

Once these challenges were addressed, Alibaba sought a turning point to regain confidence. It was only this year, leveraging the momentum generated by DeepSeek and the increasingly evident opportunities presented by AI, that the company found the impetus to redefine its culture and values, and the vitality to embark on a fresh start.

One employee expressed that, following the reintegration of the internal network, being identified as an "Alibaban" rather than merely belonging to a specific business unit within Alibaba became a source of pride.

This reintegration of the internal network may indeed hold profound significance. Employees' confidence and engagement levels serve as indicators of Alibaba's overall dynamism and vitality as a company.