A 75,000-character resignation letter cost DingTalk's CEO his job in 8 days

In early June 2026, a DingTalk AI product manager named Teng Yaxin posted a 75,000-character resignation letter on Alibaba's internal network titled 'Inside DingTalk.' The letter meticulously documented the rise and fall of Project ONE, DingTalk's flagship AI initiative — from an aggressive push toward 3 million daily active users to its eventual failure, user loss, and scaling back. She described how she and her colleagues burned out under extreme pressure imposed by DingTalk's founder and CEO Chen Hang, known internally as Wuzhao.

The letter spread across Alibaba within days, then leaked to external social media where it went viral, sparking a national debate in China about workplace 'involution' and extreme work pressure. Alibaba's Partners Committee issued a rebuke of DingTalk's management — an unusually swift response for internal criticism at a large Chinese tech company. Just eight days after the letter began circulating, on June 11, 2026, Alibaba removed Chen Hang as DingTalk CEO.

Chen Hang had returned to lead DingTalk only 14 months earlier, in April 2025. His management style was described as aggressive, with a 'burning people' approach aimed at catching up with rival Feishu (Lark). During his tenure, over 300 employees left DingTalk. His flagship AI product, Project ONE, was rapidly scaled back after his departure. Alibaba's stock fell 5.9% in Hong Kong on the day of the announcement.

Chen Hang was replaced by Chen Yusen, a 34-year-old technologist born in 1992, making him the youngest business unit CEO in Alibaba's history. The speed and decisiveness of the leadership change — from internal letter to CEO ouster in roughly one week — was unprecedented for Alibaba, a company not known for acting quickly on internal criticism.