Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

”Orders for over a hundred kilometers completed in one minute—ride-hailing platforms scammed out of tens of millions!”

”DiDi Dache exploited! Ride-hailing drivers use virtual trip software to defraud over 20 million in subsidies!”

”DiDi Dache exposed for security vulnerabilities! Can users’ private information like phone numbers and home addresses be protected?”

Of the three most-viewed reports, the first two merely poked fun at the loopholes in DiDi Dache’s risk control, but the third one cut straight to the heart of the matter, raising reasonable doubts about whether user privacy was protected on the DiDi platform.

DiDi Dache’s download numbers plummeted, and its public reputation took a massive hit.

But in the eyes of gray industry players, DiDi Dache looked like a juicy piece of cake.

They hadn’t noticed before, but now they knew: someone had sheared millions off DiDi Dache in May and June. The money was so easy, no one could resist being tempted.

Cheng Wei had thought that reporting them to the police and having them arrested would deter the flock of ”wool shearers.”

But to his surprise, more and more people had set their sights on DiDi Dache’s massive subsidy cake.

Meanwhile, Brother Hui and his crew, who had fled all the way to Shencheng City, found that their skills weren’t enough to breach DiDi Dache’s security. They began secretly recruiting local programmers to continue searching for technical loopholes.

After making easy money, who would be willing to go back to an honest day’s work?

Fast Taxi wasn’t spared either. Countless hackers tried to bypass authorization, use SQL injections, and other methods every day, and a large number of drivers used virtual positioning software.

But these people’s trips would often barely begin before they received an account suspension notice the very next second.

Fast Taxi’s anti-cheating system was far more powerful than anyone outside the company suspected.

And so, DiDi Dache became the prime target.

Behind the scenes, over 10% of DiDi Dache’s daily subsidy funds were still falling into the hands of gray industry players.

On June 16th, Fast Taxi entered Changshan City in Beihai Province.

This move by Cheng Weixing was tantamount to an external declaration that Fast Taxi had officially begun its battle for the northern ride-hailing market.

The very next day, Cheng Wei dispatched a group of DiDi’s core team members to Changshan.

The scope of the two companies’ struggle instantly spread from Yanjing to Beihai.

”We’ve been wishing on every star, and now the free taxi apps are finally here!”

”Is this the benefit of being neighbors with the Master Jings?”

”I’ve downloaded both Fast and DiDi Dache. Waiting for my free commutes now. I’m not even gonna bother with the bus anymore, hahaha!”

Netizens from Changshan City flooded the comment sections with messages.

Some even posted on local forums, sharing detailed, illustrated guides on the entire process: how to download Fast/DiDi Dache, link Orange Pay/Wealth Treasure, enter a starting point and destination, hail a car, and complete the payment.

The taxi drivers in Changshan City didn’t even need any promotion. On the first day Fast Taxi launched, the driver app was downloaded by 1,700 people; DiDi Dache’s was downloaded by 1,100.

They were all waiting to make money!

On the eve of the 618 e-commerce festival, the ride-hailing war was about to get even more spectacular.

Fast Taxi was burning through over 6 million in promotional fees every day, while DiDi Dache was spending over 3 million. Together, that was 10 million a day.

The crucial point was that the two platforms only overlapped in two cities.

Once they expanded to twenty, or two hundred cities, wouldn’t they be burning through hundreds of millions a day?

Fast Taxi’s investors, including Penguin, Ah Li, Digital Sky Technology, Huake, and Jinsha Venture Capital, were getting antsy. They had money, yes, but even they couldn’t sustain this kind of game.

One month was fine, two months was manageable, but if they kept burning money like this, no one could take it!

Liu Zhiping was the first to call. ”President Chen, I think we need to pause this. With over three hundred million in promotional expenses a month, how can you expect Penguin to dare to make a follow-up investment?”

”President Liu, I know you can’t do business that doesn’t make money, but the ride-hailing market is too small right now. If we don’t throw money at it to cultivate user habits, we can’t grow the pie. You should be glad that Qian Du, Gao Ling, and Haina Asia are helping us burn money.”

Chen Yansen said with a light chuckle, sitting in his office in Building 8.

Glad?

Liu Zhiping fought back the urge to curse, patiently trying to persuade him, ”Why don’t we have Zhang Lei step in and arrange for you, Li Yanhong, and Cheng Wei to sit down and talk?”

Zhang Lei of Gao Ling Capital had invested in both Kuai Pao and DiDi Dache, making him the most suitable person to act as a mediator.

”Sure, I don’t mind,” Chen Yansen agreed readily.

In May and June, Qian Du had invested a total of 130 million Hua Yuan, and Cheng Wei hadn’t even spent half of it, with daily orders still under 300,000.

Chen Yansen didn’t believe for a second that Qian Du, at the peak of its power, would give up so easily.

Sure enough, when Zhang Lei approached Li Yanhong, he was rejected before he could even get two sentences out. Li’s only response was, ”Keep fighting!”

In Li Yanhong’s view, negotiations could only begin once they held at least half the market share.

Qian Du refused to negotiate, and Haina Asia and Today Capital were also in the pro-war camp. They believed the battle for the ride-hailing market was still in its early stages, and it was too soon to tell who would win or lose.

Fast Taxi merely had a temporary upper hand.

To compromise and negotiate just because of some temporary competitive pressure would be to give up the chance to dominate the market and reap enormous profits.

Fortune favors the bold!

Cheng Wei, Qian Du, Haina Asia, and Today Capital—none of them were willing to admit defeat.

There were twenty-eight tier-one and tier-two cities in the country, and seventy or eighty tier-three and tier-four cities.

DiDi and Fast Taxi hadn’t even captured a tenth of the market yet. It was far too early to talk about negotiations.

Liu Zhiping, Zhang Lei, and the others were helpless. They had no choice but to keep fighting alongside Chen Yansen.

From a rational investor’s perspective, the most beneficial solution for everyone was for the two companies to merge and reduce internal friction.

But who would get the bigger slice of the pie?

Chen Yansen wanted it, Penguin wanted it, Qian Du wanted it, and Cheng Wei wanted it too.

Therefore, Zhang Lei’s suggestion was naturally ignored by everyone.

...

...

「Xucheng, Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park, Building 8.」

Night had fallen, but inside and outside the building, the lights were blazing and the air was filled with a cacophony of voices.

The Pinbei 618 Grand Promotion was set to begin at 8:00 PM on June 17th.

”Who’s the merchant in charge of Shaopei Rice? Get operations to restock it, stat! No stock? Put up a pre-order!”

”The Xiaomi MI2 is out of stock! Replace it with the 360 G800 Pro Shine!”

”The Midea air-circulating fan is only 269 yuan on Jingdong, 27 yuan cheaper than us. Take it offline! If they can’t lower the price to 268 yuan within ten minutes, kick them out of the promotion pool.”

”Sister Yuncheng, the Jianghuai Tongyue RS is completely out of stock in the North China Region. Can you ask if they can restock? Otherwise, we’ll have to block it in the corresponding delivery areas!”

The office areas for the Merchant Operations Department and the Key Account Acquisition Department were right next to each other, and a constant, noisy din of shouts came from them.

In just two hours, hundreds of products from the ”10 Billion Subsidy” program had sold out completely.

The price of the Orange C1 dropped to 1,499 yuan for the first time, 11 months after its initial release.

With its Snapdragon MSM8260 dual-core processor, 1GB+8GB memory configuration, and 8-megapixel rear camera, it could still compete in the phone market.

It sold 117,000 units in two hours!

The Orange D1, with its 799 yuan price tag, went completely wild in the low-end smartphone market, selling 549,000 units across all platforms.

As the flagship model, the Orange C2’s sales were also astonishing. With a 100 yuan price drop, it sold a cumulative total of 164,000 units across all platforms.

’2012 really is the year smartphone sales exploded.’

Chen Yansen commented blandly.

Compared to 2011, domestic smartphone shipments had more than doubled.

”Class Rep, the buses and hotels have all been arranged. The estimated quitting time for each department is between 12:30 and 1:30 AM...”

Xu Xingxing walked over, methodically reporting on the administrative department’s arrangements.

About forty percent of Pinbei Mall’s employees lived in the Xucheng City District, and getting a taxi home after getting off work in the early morning hours would be a problem.

So, the company made unified arrangements for them to stay in downtown hotels, and a bus would bring them back to the Science and Technology Park tomorrow.

Employees who didn’t want to stay in a hotel could also choose to take a taxi home, and the company would reimburse them.

”1:30? That’s too late! There’s no need to force everyone to stay at the office. Tell all the department heads that at 12:15, for any department with people still at their desks, their entire Q2 quarterly bonus will be cut by ten percent.”

Chen Yansen said with a smile.

In reality, with the support of big data technology, Pinbei’s product functions like risk control alerts, automatic restocking, and algorithmic sorting made it completely unnecessary for the entire staff to stay and work overtime.

Each department only needed two or three people to stay on duty.

But Wang Zihao, Zhang Yifeng, Zhang Wenbo, Zhuang Rui, and the others kept insisting that working overtime during a major promotion was an old tradition from FoxTao that couldn’t be easily abandoned.

For the rank-and-file employees, events like the Double 11, Double 12, and 618 promotions weren’t actually that tiring. The most difficult phase was the preparation beforehand.

The day before and the day of the promotion, everyone was just eating and drinking. The administrative department had it the hardest; every one of them was so busy they were run off their feet.

They had to arrange for the cafeteria chefs to make barbecue for everyone, pre-order hot pot, beer, fried chicken, braised snacks, and other treats, and finally, deal with the post-work travel and accommodation issues.

”Okay, Class Rep!”

Xu Xingxing replied with a grin, and after receiving her task, immediately ran off to relay the message.

PSSSH!

Chen Yansen popped open a can of beer and drank as he walked, starting his inspection tour from the first floor upwards.

In less than a year, Pinbei had grown from just over a dozen people to more than fifteen hundred today.

Building 8 had once been more than half empty, but now every floor housed over two hundred employees.

”Brother Sen!”

”Brother Sen!”

”Boss!”

Chen Yansen walked unhurriedly over to the customer service department, where Meng Xibo, Zhu Xiaopeng, and Fei Qiweng quickly stood up to greet him.

”There’s barbecue downstairs. Go grab some if you’re hungry,” Chen Yansen said with a faint smile, his tone easygoing.

”We’ll go in a bit,” Fei Qiweng said, smiling.

After working for over a decade, Pinbei was the most comfortable company he had ever been in. The overt and covert struggles between departments were minimal, and although the boss was young, he didn’t have any of the arrogant, self-important bad habits of a young entrepreneur.

The base salary was generous, and it came with all the standard benefits—social insurance and housing fund, housing allowance, meal and transportation subsidies, quarterly bonuses, and overtime pay.

Although the work was a bit hard, it made people feel full of drive.

”Are there a lot of customer complaints?” Chen Yansen asked.

”The volume of incoming customer service inquiries has increased six-fold, but the complaints are quite scattered and within the normal threshold,” Meng Xibo replied.

”That’s good.” Chen Yansen smiled and didn’t linger, heading upstairs to the Key Account Acquisition Department.

At this hour, the business development and operations staff were all gathered together, eating grilled skewers and drinking beer. Occasionally, when they came across an out-of-stock item, they would call the merchant to urge them to add more inventory.

”Boss!” everyone greeted in unison.

”Brother Sen! A toast to you!” Chi Kai from the food category’s merchant operations team came over, mustering his courage.

”I heard from Yifeng that your performance has been excellent. Keep up the good work,” Chen Yansen said, patting him on the shoulder.

Privately, Zhang Yifeng had indeed mentioned to him that Chi Kai’s professional skills were solid and that he could be given a chance at a promotion evaluation.

Chen Yansen had the risk control department investigate. This kid, Chi Kai, had never once solicited bribes or favors from merchants during his time at Pinbei.

Perhaps the previous rumors weren’t accurate. It was really possible that Chi Kai’s disgraceful record at Store No. 1 was a result of him taking the fall for his boss.

”Thank you for the praise, Brother Sen. Compared to Brother Feng, President Yuan, and Brother Hui, I still have a long way to go,” Chi Kai responded humbly. His words were very pleasing to Zhang Yifeng, Yuan Wei, and Li Hui, who were standing nearby.

Chen Yansen sat in the Merchant Operations Department, chatting idly with Zhang Yifeng and the others.

The site-wide sales data for Pinbei scrolled across a large screen.

By the early morning hours, the final sales figure had settled at 1.06 billion.