A viral 75,000-word internal manifesto from a departing product manager has ignited a firestorm within Alibaba’s headquarters, revealing the deep structural and cultural fissures inside DingTalk, China’s dominant enterprise collaboration platform. The document, titled 'Inside DingTalk,' offers a post-mortem of the 'ONE' project—an ambitious AI-native strategy championed by founder Chen Hang—detailing how it surged to 3 million daily active users before collapsing under the weight of internal friction and a toxic management culture. This rare public glimpse into the internal mechanics of a Chinese tech giant highlights a growing crisis in the 'hundred-model war' as companies prioritize deployment speed over product utility.
The core of the grievance lies in the relentless pursuit of speed, which the author argues led to a cycle of 'self-satisfaction' among management while ignoring the practical needs of the user. In the rush to package AI agents and dominate market headlines, basic functions and system stability were neglected, resulting in what employees described as a 'compressed' working environment where strategic reflection was impossible. The backlash was significant enough to prompt a stern rebuke from the Alibaba Partnership Committee, which criticized DingTalk’s leadership for losing sight of 'human-centric' values and failing to uphold the company’s cultural heritage.
DingTalk’s current predicament is exacerbated by a staggering operational imbalance that has pushed its workforce to the breaking point. Despite serving roughly 800 million users and 20 million organizations, the platform operates with a lean team of approximately 1,000 employees—a fraction of the headcount seen at rivals like ByteDance’s Feishu or Tencent’s WeCom. This 'lean and mean' approach has left frontline staff perpetually overextended, struggling to balance the demands of customized business-to-business services with a massive consumer-facing user base while attempting to lead the industry’s pivot to generative AI.
Beyond internal strife, DingTalk faces an existential threat from the evolving technological landscape where AI Agents are beginning to replace traditional software ecosystems. Industry analysts warn that the traditional functions of enterprise software are being rapidly unbundled by nimble AI-driven tools, leaving legacy platforms at risk of becoming bloated and obsolete. While the collapse of the 'ONE' project serves as a cautionary tale, it also provides an opportunity for DingTalk to recalibrate, moving away from 'meat-grinder' execution toward a more nuanced understanding of how AI can truly enhance productivity without crushing the people who build it.