Pinduoduo, which is worth 200 billion US dollars, seems to be ushering in its eventful season.
First, the incident involving employees in the grocery shopping business, followed by exposure of employees being carried into an ambulance, followed by a tragedy in the home of employee Tan.
The successive negative news cast a shadow over this new e-commerce giant, which has only been established for five years.
On October 8, 2020, Pinduoduo held an internal celebration for its 5th anniversary.
At this celebration, Chairman Huang Zheng stated that "Pingduoduo is still in the early stage of multi-benefit" and that all members of Pinduoduo will start the "hard-core struggle mode" in the future.
"Struggle" has brought huge rewards to both Pinduoduo and Huang Zheng.
Founded 5 years ago, this home appliance company has risen at a miraculous speed.
There have been many interpretations on the rise of Pinduoduo, including market entry points, technical perspectives, and social e-commerce models.
However, before all this, we should all realize that the founder Huang Zheng is the core factor in the rapid development of Pinduoduo into reality.
July 26, 2018 is an extremely important day for both Huang Zheng and Pinduoduo.
At 9:30 in the evening, Pinduoduo officially landed on Nasdaq, rising by 40.53% at the opening, and Huang Zheng's personal net worth
also surpassed Liu Qiangdong at this moment, reaching 14 billion US dollars.
In this grand bell ringing ceremony, the protagonist Huang Zheng was absent.
In fact, Huang Zheng never went to the United States at all. The reason he gave was also very simple. He was unwell and had otitis media.
As ordinary people, it may be difficult for you and me to imagine how many thoughts would be in Huang Zheng's heart at the moment of ringing the bell.
1
Back in time.
Huang Zheng was born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province in 1980.
Compared with Internet giants Ding Lei and Ma Yun who were also born in Zhejiang, Huang Zheng's family is very ordinary.
Huang Zheng's parents are ordinary workers. According to his own memory, although his family was not poor when he was a child, he was relatively struggling. He often had to wear the clothes of children from relatives or colleagues from his mother.
Although his family is ordinary, Huang Zheng is naturally intelligent and a real schoolmaster. He was admitted to Hangzhou Foreign Language School when he was 12 years old.
This is one of the best middle schools in Hangzhou. The status of basic education in Hangzhou can be described as Taishan Beidou. It is a key middle school directly under the Ministry of Education and has a 20% qualification to send students...
Huang Zheng was one of those 20% of Hangwai.
After graduating from Hangwai, Huang Zheng basically never took the entrance examination.
In 1998, he was recommended to the mixed class of Zhejiang University, which is now Zhu Kezhen Ace College with the purpose of "cultivating to lay a solid foundation for the growth of outstanding talents".
Those who can be admitted to this class basically means that they have a superior IQ.
That year, Ma Huateng registered a company called Tencent; 20 years later, Tencent became the second largest shareholder of Pinduoduo.
Of course, this is something later.
Soon after entering the school, Huang Zheng once again demonstrated his amazing mind and learning talent. In the first year of university, he was selected into the joint training program of Zhejiang University and the Melton Foundation!
The number of places for this training program can be described as one in a million. Only 5 students are selected every year in the black areas of China, India, East Germany, Chile and the United States!
But for Huang Zheng, being selected for this plan has a more practical advantage, that is, he can have a computer and one year of free internet time.
These two things were undoubtedly the most precious gifts for Huang Zheng, who was thirsty for knowledge at the time.
But it is estimated that Huang Zheng did not expect that computers and the Internet not only opened the door to a new world for him, but also directly changed his destiny.
2
In 2002, Huang Zheng graduated with a bachelor's degree and is about to study for a master's degree in computer science at the University of Wisconsin in the United States. After class in the afternoon, he returned to his bedroom and found that a stranger was looking for him on MSN. He claimed to be the founder of NetEase, Ding Lei, and needed to ask a technical question.
Huang Zheng later recalled that his first reaction was to think that he had encountered a liar. After some exchanges and verification, he discovered that the other party turned out to be Ding Lei, the founder of NetEase.
Ding Lei asked Huang Zheng for advice because he saw an article by Huang Zheng on the Internet, and the content of this article can solve a technical problem of Ding Lei.
Perhaps thanks to Huang Zheng’s help, or perhaps particularly admired Huang Zheng, Ding Lei decided to become Huang Zheng’s guide and introduced him to Duan Yongping, an old senior who also came from Zhejiang University.
Duan Yongping, the current chairman of BBK Group.
In that era, he had established two well-known brands, "Xiaobawang" and "BBK", and became well-known throughout the country.
When Ding Lei introduced Huang Zheng to Duan Yongping, Duan Yongping had completely achieved financial freedom, and began to move his family to the United States and prepare his own investment career.
Huang Zheng is lucky. He has met many noble people on the road of life and entrepreneurship.
Among these nobles, the most important one may be Duan Yongping.
Huang Zheng once said in an interview: "The old man has a great influence on me. Chen Mingyong is the big apprentice, Shen Wei is the second apprentice, Jin Zhijiang is the third apprentice, and I am considered the fourth apprentice."
The old Duan is naturally Duan Yongping, and the other three are also extraordinary.
Chen Mingyong founded OPPO, Shen Wei founded Vivo, and Jin Zhijiang is the CEO of BBK.
One year after Duan Yongping went to the United States, in 2002, Huang Zheng went to the top ten University of Wisconsin in the United States to study for a master's degree in computer science.
After graduating from a master's degree, Huang Zheng has already stood at the pinnacle of a newcomer to the workplace, whether in terms of technology or academic qualifications.
At that time, he got 2 offers, one is Microsoft and the other is Google.
Fish and bear's paw, what choice should be made?
In fact, before graduating, Huang Zheng had been internship at Microsoft for a long time, and at that time Microsoft had already successfully listed on the Windows system, and it was flourishing in the United States.
At that time, Google was still an immature startup as a whole, and it hadn't even gone public.
At this time, Duan Yongping clicked on him again. Duan said: "Google seems to be a great company, it is worth visiting. It is also good for you to start a business in the future."
Huang Zheng joined Google in 2004 and resigned in 2007.
In three years, with the increase in Google's market value, Huang Zheng not only gained a million-dollar net worth, but also helped him get acquainted with Kai-Fu Lee, and was sent to China to explore the Chinese market.
During this period, a rather topical incident occurred. Duan Yongping spent $620,100 to photograph the opportunity to have lunch with Buffett.
According to the request, he can only take one person.
He chose Huang Zheng, and at that time, Huang Zheng was only 26 years old.
3
In 2007, Huang Zheng went to Google headquarters for the last time to apply for the right to change the font color and size of Chinese characters in search results.
Google gave Huang Zheng financial freedom, as well as a large number of contacts and technical resources, but these did not satisfy Huang Zheng.
In his heart, there is something more important than changing the font color and size.
Tired of working at Google, he resigned and started his own business.
Before Pinduoduo, Huang Zheng had actually started his business three times.
After coming out of Google, Huang Zheng began to consider becoming an e-commerce company. After standing at the counters of Gome and Suning in person, he found that the channels were changing, and chain dealers had more and more voice.
The increased voice of dealers is very detrimental to the brand.
As a result, he founded a B2C e-commerce platform Oku sells electronic products, and the brand directly connects with consumers.
Some readers may have realized at this time, isn't this model exactly what Jingdong is doing?
During this period, Huang Zheng had seen Liu Qiangdong twice and realized that he could not do him well.
Huang Zheng realized that although Okuo had hundreds of millions of dollars in annual turnover, if it were to compete with JD.com, it would have to fall into a long period of internal consumption.
"If I can't win the war, I shouldn't fight." Huang Zheng said, "To a certain extent, I and him are two generations. Do I need to fight him with my own wealth and life? No need."
In 2010, Huang Zheng promptly withdrew from the muddy water of B2C e-commerce and sold Oku to the Lanting Jishi founded by Guo Quji.
After selling Okuo, Huang Zheng led the team to start Leqi and entered the field of e-commerce agency operation with very low barriers to entry.
E-commerce agency operation is not easy to do. It requires two sides to ask for help, one is a brand, and the other is an e-commerce platform.
Huang Zheng’s explanation is: Entrepreneurship is like going to the city to work to survive. You can wash the dishes, but it doesn’t mean you will wash the dishes in the future.
After that, he took aim at the game again and founded Dream Game, which was his third venture.
However, when he was about to go for a big fight, Huang Zheng suffered from otitis media and kept ringing in his ears. He couldn't sleep and rested for 9 months.
During this period, he thought about a lot of things, should he go directly to the United States?
He also thought about the meaning of life when he was so young, and he had to do something.
4
When the time came in early 2015, Huang Zheng made an appointment with a well-known entrepreneur to talk about something downstairs, and at a fruit stand not far away, the stall owner was yelling to sell fruit by pulling a group of orders.
The stall owner didn't expect that this scene of his own even allowed Huang Zheng to see endless business opportunities, and it also stirred up a pool of spring water in China's e-commerce industry in the future.
In April 2015, "Good Goods" was officially launched. Good Goods is based on the entry point of a single game. Invite friends to join the group through social platforms such as WeChat Moments. The fight will take effect after the specified number of people is reached.
The popularity of the good products strengthened Huang Zheng's determination to transform into a full-category. He gave this new product a slightly humorous name: Pinduoduo.
The success of Pinduoduo is obvious to all. Only one year after its establishment, Pinduoduo has achieved a monthly turnover of 1 billion.
After that, revenue has grown exponentially, with GMV of 141.2 billion yuan in 2017.
In the second quarter of 2018, Pinduoduo's active users reached 340 million.
At 21:30 on July 26, 2018, it was the highlight moment of Huang Zheng and Pinduoduo.
Pinduoduo ringed the bell in New York and Shanghai at the same time and officially landed on the Nasdaq market. It was the first domestic Internet company to ring the bell in these two cities at the same time.
Not only that, Pinduoduo went public, setting the record for the fastest listing of Chinese Internet companies.
It only took 2 years and 3 months for Pinduoduo to complete the five years of Taobao, 8 years of Vipshop, and 10 years of JD.com.
Some people say that Huang Zheng and Pinduoduo are the lucky ones who rushed all the way.
5
Pinduoduo was developing rapidly, but Huang Zheng took the initiative to take a step back.
On July 1, 2020, Huang Zheng resigned as CEO and was taken over by the company's CTO Chen Lei.
Not only that, he also took the initiative to reduce the shareholding ratio, from 43.3% to 29.4%, and his net worth disappeared by more than 100 billion.
Many people want to be the richest man, and Huang Zheng seems to be trying to avoid becoming the richest man.
In any case, even if you don't admit it, it doesn't matter if you reduce its holdings. On the eve of New Year's Day this year, Pinduoduo's stock price has soared continuously.
According to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, Huang Zheng's wealth reached 58.6 billion U.S. dollars, surpassing Jack Ma (50.9 billion U.S. dollars) and Ma Huateng (53.3 billion U.S. dollars) to become China's second-richest person.
On the one hand, the market value of Pinduoduo has skyrocketed and Huang Zheng’s personal assets have increased. On the other hand, employees have higher KPIs, less work and rest time, and worse physical and psychological conditions.
It is said that in Pinduoduo’s new grocery shopping business, some employees continue to work for more than 30 hours, basically working with their eyes open, and sleeping with their eyes closed.
On October 10, 2018, at the anniversary of Pinduoduo, an employee asked Huang Zheng: "When will it be changed from single to double break?"
Boss Huang replied: "After our GMV surpasses Jingdong."
On October 10, 2019, another anniversary was celebrated. At this time, Pinduoduo was already ahead of JD in terms of GMV and market value.
Another employee asked: "When will we end the single rest?"
Boss Huang didn’t change his expression, and slowly said that there is still a gap between us and Ali, and it is still a too young company...
Nowadays, the part of Pinduoduo has been changed to a two-day monthly holiday model, while shopping for food has gradually become open throughout the year.
As for when will Pinduoduo catch up with Ali? Let us wait and see.