4 1 year-old Huang Zheng resigned as chairman of Pinduoduo: 10 years later, I will touch the stones on the road.

On March 17, Beijing time, Huang Zheng, chairman of Pinduoduo, issued a letter to shareholders on 20021,announcing that the post of chairman would be handed over to Chen Lei, the co-founder and current CEO, after the approval of the board of directors.

Huang Zheng said that his super voting right of 1: 10 will also be invalid after he ceases to hold the post of chairman and management of Pinduoduo.

After resigning as chairman, Huang Zheng's shares under his personal name will continue to be locked for three years.

Combining with his personal interests, he will devote himself to the research in the fields of food science and life science, focusing on the long-term development of Pinduoduo in the future, and "touch the stones on the road after 10".

Huang Zheng explained this important decision in a letter to shareholders, saying that due to the epidemic and other reasons, the iteration of internal business and management was accelerated.

Pinduoduo changed from a third-party platform that is purely asset-oriented, and new business sprouted and grew rapidly in Pinduoduo, which gave birth to and trained a new generation of managers.

"It's time to gradually let more waves rise and shape your own Pinduoduo."

In Huang Zheng's eyes, Pinduoduo has rapidly grown from a "child who just went to primary school" three years ago to a "teenager who is entering adolescence".

"I hope I will resign as chairman today to help this young man become an independent adult."

In addition, Huang Zheng also mentioned that although Pinduoduo itself is still very young, there are still very thick and long snow slopes, and there is still room for rapid growth for a long time;

But if we want to ensure its high-speed and high-quality development after 10, it is timely to do some exploration now.

"As a founder, I may be a more suitable person to jump out and touch the stones on the road in 10 years."

Affected by this news, the fight fell all the way before, with the biggest drop exceeding 6%.

As early as last July, when Huang Zheng resigned as CEO of Pinduoduo, Wall Street investors and analysts were puzzled by the decision.

Citigroup analysts have said that they were surprised by Huang Zheng's resignation, but the reasons are understandable and the transition should be smooth.

0 1

Still have the absolute right to speak

After resigning as CEO, chairman and giving up super voting rights, Huang Zheng almost completely withdrew from Pinduoduo.

However, Huang Zheng's shareholding in Pinduoduo is still 29.4%. As the founder and major shareholder of the company, Huang Zheng still has hidden influence and decision-making power on Pinduoduo.

Huang Zheng is probably the most maverick among young entrepreneurs in China today.

Most founders will abdicate when they become famous. Wang Xing and Zhang Yiming, contemporaries of Huang Zheng, are equally low-key;

But he is still the soul figure who fights in the front line of the company and plays a decisive leading role in the development of the company.

However, less than three years after listing in Pinduoduo, Huang Zheng made the choice to quit Pinduoduo.

The core reason why Pinduoduo's leadership transfer can be so smooth and Huang Zheng can safely hand over Pinduoduo to his successor is his stable senior management team.

They are mainly partners in Huang Zheng's pioneering period and belong to Pinduoduo's founding team.

For example, Chen Lei, the successor, has known Huang Zheng for at least 18 years and was once a graduate student of Huang Zheng at the University of Wisconsin.

In 2007, after graduation, Dr. Chen Lei returned to Ouku.com to work as an R&D architectural engineer. Ouku.com was Huang Zheng's first entrepreneurial project.

20 16, Chen Lei entered Pinduoduo as the company's chief technology officer (CTO).

Pinduoduo today is like an organism that is constantly iterating and self-improving in its growth. Without the first-line guidance of Huang Zheng, Pinduoduo can complete its orderly operation independently.

02

Pay attention to life science in the future

Interestingly, Huang Zheng's hasty retreat was very similar to Duan Yongping's.

200 1 Duan Yongping, who once created a bully and a beautiful life, also chose to retire at the age of 40.

He kept his promise to his wife and went to America to live with his family. He usually invests in charity and plays golf, hoping to lead a more ordinary life.

Duan Yongping played a vital role in Huang Zheng's life.

Huang Zheng, who studied in the United States, became friends with Duan Yongping, who immigrated to the United States.

In 2006, Duan Yongping filmed Buffett's lunch and invited 26-year-old Huang Zheng to go with him. Huang Zheng felt Warren's great personality charm, and that meal changed his life style.

Coincidentally, when Duan Yongping left, he also told OPPO founder Chen Mingyong and other brothers:

"Let go, divide the money well, and there will be no burden if you can't close the door."

Now, Huang Zheng also gave Pinduoduo to Chen Lei to fight for.

As for his future after his resignation, Huang Zheng said that he would focus on food science and life science.

"Explore a new space for high-speed, high-quality and in-depth development after ten years."

For example, by controlling the planting process of agricultural products, it is explored to reliably and effectively control the content of potentially harmful heavy metals such as potatoes, sweet potatoes and tomatoes;

At the same time, possible and beneficial trace elements can be controlled and standardized, and so on.

Cao Lei, director of the e-commerce research center of the Network Economy Society, analyzed in an interview with China Entrepreneur:

"Pinduoduo's growth in the past few years is basically driven by scale and business model, which is relatively simple but suitable for China's national conditions.

But in the future, whether it is e-commerce, the whole mobile Internet, or even the real economy, the competition will be more intense.

This also means that Pinduoduo's driving model needs to be driven by more sophisticated and lower-level core elements, and Huang Zheng is also looking for answers for the new scientific and technological forces growing in Pinduoduo. "

Choosing such an abstract and grand field as "Life Science" is in line with Huang Zheng's personal design.

As early as 2020, in his letter to shareholders, Huang Zheng hardly discussed and analyzed Pinduoduo, but told his own thoughts on the epidemic.

The letter mentioned Einstein's E=MC? , the law of thermodynamics, and his own abstract thinking about the world, human beings, time, probability and uncertainty.

"I can't be a scientist, but I may have the opportunity to be an assistant to a future (great) scientist. That is also a very happy thing. "

The interest and discussion of these grand propositions make us seem to see the real Huang Zheng, who reveals a little sensibility under that kind of rationality.

In an interview many years ago, the host asked Huang Zheng, what would you do if Pinduoduo was not established?

"It may be a scientist." Huang Wei replied.

03

The active user of the year is Super Ali.

While Huang Zheng resigned as the chairman of Pinduoduo, Pinduoduo released the financial report for the fourth quarter and the whole year of 2020.

The financial report shows that in the fourth quarter of 2020, Pinduoduo's revenue increased by 146% to 265.477 million yuan, and the annual revenue increased by 97% to 59,495,438+0.9 million yuan.

By the end of 2020, the multi-year turnover (GMV) was 65.438+06.676 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 66%.

Under non-GAAP, Pinduoduo's net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders in the fourth quarter was 65.438+84.5 billion yuan, and the net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders in the whole year was 2.965 billion yuan, both of which were significantly lower than the same period of last year.

It is worth mentioning that Pinduoduo's annual report points out:

By the end of 2020, the number of active buyers has reached 788.4 million, up 35% from 585.2 million at the end of last year, making it the largest e-commerce platform in China.

In the fourth quarter of 2020, the average monthly active users of APP in Pinduoduo reached 719.9 million, an increase of 76.5 million in a single quarter.

In terms of key user indicators, it took only six years, and Pinduoduo, which emerged from the gap between giants, has surpassed Alibaba and JD.COM and developed to the present scale.

In fact, as early as the Spring Festival, the number of daily active users (DAU) in Pinduoduo briefly surpassed that of mobile phone Taobao, although it only lasted for two days.

According to QuestMobile's data, in June and October this year, the mobile phone Taobao DAU was stable at 3190,000, while in Pinduoduo it was around 274 million.

However, on February 12, despite the cancellation of the red envelope cooperation in the Spring Festival Evening, Pinduoduo succeeded in surpassing DAU, Pinduoduo with 259 million yuan and Hand Amoy with 237 million yuan.

In the future, Pinduoduo will compete with Ali, JD.COM and other e-commerce companies for stock users, and the competition will be more intense. But at that time, there was no bid from Huang Zheng.

The following is the original letter of 202 1 Huang Zheng to shareholders:

This year's shareholder letter is a little early, in order to synchronize a message with you in time.

At the just-concluded board meeting, the directors approved my request to resign as chairman of Pinduoduo, and Chen Lei took over as chairman and continued as CEO from now on.

I 1: 10' s super voting rights will also expire after I no longer hold the post of chairman and management of Pinduoduo.

I entrust the voting right of the shares under my name to the board of directors of Pinduoduo to make a decision by voting, and I personally promise that the shares under my name will continue to be locked for sale in the next three years.

I resigned as CEO in July last year 1, and originally planned to complete the handover with the chairman of Chen Lei in a whole year.

Two reasons led us to decide to further advance the planned handover.

First, the industry competition is becoming increasingly fierce and even alienated.

This made me realize that this traditional competition with scale and efficiency as the main orientation has its inevitable problems.

To change, we must take action on lower and fundamental issues and seek answers on core technologies and their basic theories.

Although Pinduoduo itself is still very young, with thick and long snow slopes, and there is still room for rapid growth for a long time, it is timely to make some explorations now if it is to ensure its high-speed and high-quality development after 10.

As a founder, I may be a more suitable person to jump out and touch the stones on the road in 10 years. It would be great if you could combine your hobbies.

Second, the drastic changes in the external environment caused by the epidemic and other reasons have also accelerated the iteration of internal business and management in Pinduoduo.

Pinduoduo started from a third-party platform with pure light assets, and started a new round of investment in warehousing, logistics and agricultural resources. New business began to sprout and grow rapidly in Pinduoduo.

This not only changed Pinduoduo, but also gave birth to and trained a new generation of leaders and managers. It's time to gradually make more waves rise to shape your own Pinduoduo.

So, what will Pinduoduo look like in the future?

I may not be able to decide, but I can happily share my own imagination with you.

First of all, Pinduoduo will be a social enterprise that always puts consumers' interests and social values first.

The new e-commerce concept of "inclusive, people-oriented and more open" that we practice will be more clearly recognized by the industry and the public in the future.

It faces the widest crowd, improves bit by bit, and strives to create value for consumers and society, whether it is obvious or not.

Because of this, it will become more and more popular with the public. All kinds of barriers it faces will be broken down slowly, even if it takes a little time sometimes, and there may even be twists and turns.

But "tolerance, people-oriented and more open" should be a direction, and it will bloom with different vitality in this new era.

Secondly, Pinduoduo will be an imaginative and innovative enterprise.

Costco+ Disney's vision will be more concrete and vivid.

Although it is only a relatively affordable and fun initial stage;

However, we have been able to feel the subtle differences in nature caused by the superposition of more benefits and more fun, and feel the 1+ 1 > produced by the chemical reaction behind it. The great power of 2.

The practice of the past few years has made us more convinced that this vision is rich, interesting, worth looking forward to and can be pursued.

Third, Pinduoduo will strive to become a mature and international public institution.

There is a passage in the shareholders' letter when 20 18 went public:

"We hope that Pinduoduo is a public institution that exists to create value for most users.

It should not be a tool to show personal ability, nor should it have too much personal color.

At the same time, as an independent institution, it should show its unique social value, organizational structure and culture as an institution;

And follow their own unique destiny and constantly evolve. "

At that time, Pinduo was still like a child who had just entered elementary school. Now, although it's only been three years, Pinduo is like a teenager entering adolescence.

Seeing his rapid change and growth, I am both happy and anxious.

But whether it is nervous, excited or afraid, it will always have its own way of growth. I hope I will resign as chairman today to help this young man become an independent adult.

What should I do after I return it?

I want to do some research in the fields of food science and life science.

Pinduoduo started as an agricultural product. In the past few years, Pinduoduo's contribution to the agricultural field was mainly in the circulation field.

By improving the efficiency of the circulation field, both farmers and consumers will benefit from it.

However, the improvement of circulation efficiency can not qualitatively increase the added value of agricultural products, nor can it substantially improve the health level.

Step by step, what can we do?

For example, by controlling the planting process of agricultural products;

Whether it is possible for us to reliably and effectively control the contents of potentially harmful heavy metals such as potatoes, sweet potatoes and tomatoes;

At the same time, can the possible beneficial trace elements be improved in a controllable and standardized way?

If there is a tomato in the future, and each tomato contains trace elements that are most suitable for our body, such as VC, will our quality of life be significantly improved?

For another example, if we can thoroughly understand the changes and functions of different plant proteins and animal proteins after they are ingested into the human body, then we can produce meat substitutes through the synthesis of plant proteins;

Is it possible for this new vegetarian chicken 2.0 to become a healthier and greener stable supply?

If we go further, we will deeply study the structure of protein and its characteristics in the human body;

Is it possible for us to follow the path of molecular machines, the winner of the 20 16 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and further develop the protein robot, which can dredge the human cerebral vessels and avoid stroke?

When I was young, my teacher asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. Like many people, I said I wanted to be a scientist.

Now that I have passed the age of no doubt, I may not be able to become a real scientist;

But if I try to combine my favorite chemistry in middle school, my computer in college and the management of my study at work, I naively think that maybe I can do something interesting again.

I can't be a scientist, but I may have the opportunity to be an assistant to a future (great) scientist, which is also a very happy thing.