Why China's Big Tech Leaders Are Lying Flat | Stepping Down and Staying Quiet

While China's strict "zero" COVID policy has had a serious impact on the country's economy, another phenomenon has also drawn attention. The bigwigs who once led China's booming Internet industry are gradually disappearing from the public eye, either by quitting their hard-earned careers or emptying their social media - Weibo, and no longer raising their voices. The majority of these people are still in their 40s, in the full vigor of life, but many choose to retire and lie flat. What is the story behind this? We will talk about this topic today.
On April 26, William Ding, the founder of NetEase, a major Chinese Internet company, announced his retirement as legal representative, general manager and director. On April 21, CEO and Chairman of Alibaba Group, Daniel Zhang, stepped down as chairman and general manager of Taobao and Tmall, 2 of the most popular online shopping platforms in China.

Daniel Zhang took over this position in September 2019, after Jack Ma stepped down as Chairman of the Board of Alibaba. It was Ma who started the trend of big tech moguls retiring to the behind the scenes.

Last November, Su Hua, co-founder of China's second largest short video sharing platform, Kuaishou, announced his resignation as CEO, saying at the time that he would "devote more time to developing long-term strategies”. Zhang Yiming, founder of TikTok's parent company ByteDance, and Colin Huang, CEO of e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, have also resigned as chairman of the board. Richard Liu , the founder and CEO of China's second largest e-commerce company Jingdong, also stepped down as CEO.
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