- Leadership shake-up follows criticism of management practices at Alibaba’s workplace collaboration unit
- Appointment puts one of Alibaba’s youngest executives in charge of DingTalk’s AI transition
Alibaba has replaced the chief executive of DingTalk, elevating a 33-year-old entrepreneur and cybersecurity specialist to lead the workplace collaboration platform after a public controversy over management culture.
The company announced on June 11 that Chen Yusen (陈宇森), born in 1992, will succeed Chen Hang (陈航) as CEO of DingTalk, making him the youngest business-unit chief executive within Alibaba.
A tirade against toxic work culture
The leadership change follows a wave of attention sparked by a 75,000-word essay published by a former DingTalk product manager known by the online alias “Yousu.”
The post, titled “Inside DingTalk,” chronicled the rise and retrenchment of the company’s AI project known as ONE, which at one point reportedly reached 3 million daily active users before Alibaba scaled it back and split the initiative into separate units.
Drawing on first-hand experience, the author described a culture in which teams focused on satisfying senior management rather than user needs, with decisions driven by executive preferences instead of product logic.
The essay also criticized excessive overtime, internal competition and performance reviews that prioritized presentations over customer value or product outcomes.
The post alleged that managers monitored when rival companies turned off office lights and required employees to remain at work as long as competitors stayed in the office.
‘Working hard without results’
Shortly afterward, former DingTalk vice president and AI product head Ma Ruila published a response titled “Outside DingTalk,” confirming his departure from the company.
Referring to the original account, he wrote: “That pressure, that feeling of working hard without results, that cycle of constant reporting, rapid iteration and little progress—I know it.”
The controversy prompted a rare public response from Alibaba’s Partnership Committee. In an internal post published on June 10, the committee criticized the management practices described in the essays and said they did not reflect Alibaba’s corporate culture.
“Respecting people as people, treating colleagues with empathy and loyalty” remains central to Alibaba’s values, the committee wrote.
It added that such management methods should not occur “under any circumstances, no matter how urgent the task.”
Passion and creativity
The committee also argued that innovation in the AI era depends not on “high pressure and mechanical execution,” but on employee passion and creativity.
Companies create customer value only when they respect individual contributions, it said.
Alibaba announced the leadership change shortly after the committee’s statement.
Chen Yusen built his reputation as a cybersecurity specialist before joining Alibaba. Admitted to Zhejiang University’s elite Chu Kochen Honors College without an entrance examination, he competed in top cybersecurity contests during his student years.
In 2014, at age 22, he co-founded cybersecurity company Chaitin Tech (长亭科技). Alibaba Cloud acquired the company in 2019. Chen later launched an internal startup within Alibaba Cloud and led development of the AI agent product MuleRun in 2025.
Organizational reshuffle
The appointment comes as Alibaba experiments with new organizational structures to accelerate AI innovation.
In recent months, the company has established groups including Alibaba Token Hub and Token Foundry, using small teams to incubate AI products. New offerings such as HappyHorse, HappyOyster, MuleRun and Qoder have emerged from those efforts.
For DingTalk, which is undergoing its own AI-driven transformation, the management transition signals more than a personnel change.
The reshuffle is likely to place both the platform’s AI strategy and its organizational model under closer scrutiny in the months ahead.
