As far as China’s Internet is concerned, most of the CEOs of early Internet companies were from technical backgrounds, such as Ding Lei, Robin Li, and Ma Huateng. Of course, there were also those who were not from technical backgrounds, such as Alibaba’s Jack Ma and Sohu’s Zhang Chaoyang. , Dangdang Li Guoqing.
However, among Internet companies started in the past five or six years, the proportion of CEOs who are technical experts is getting lower and lower. The well-known CEO of Didi Chuxing, Cheng Wei, was born in the Alibaba China Railway Supply and Mobike Group. CEO Hu Weiwei is a journalist, Ele.me CEO Zhang Xuhao studied architecture at Tongji University and Jiaotong University, and Dai Wei, the founder of Xiaohuangche, studied finance and economics at Peking University.
The reason why most of the CEOs of early Internet companies came from technical backgrounds is mainly because fifteen or twenty years ago, the Internet was still an inconspicuous industry. Except for Chinese people like Zhang Chaoyang who had seen the world in the United States, Most Chinese people who are not programmers do not have a deep understanding of the potential of the Internet industry, so they are unwilling to join the Internet industry.
Programmers can not only deeply understand the potential of the Internet, but also personally lead the team to write code, saving the company the time of looking for a technical master, and avoiding the risk of not finding a technical master. NetEase's 163 mailbox was created by Ding Lei, Baidu's hypertext link technology was patented by Robin Li, QQ was jointly created by Ma Huateng and Zhang Zhidong, and the first three versions of foxmail were also typed out by WeChat founder Zhang Xiaolong.
However, as the Internet becomes more and more popular and is more and more familiar and recognized by the Chinese people, and there are more and more programmers in China, technical background is no longer an advantage for those who want to start a business in the Internet industry. , financing and execution capabilities have become the core advantages. If you have money, you can spend money to hire a CTO or technical partner. Didi CEO Cheng Wei, who was born in the China Railway Supplies Army, has strong execution ability. Therefore, under his leadership, Didi was the first to break through due to its strong execution ability, even though it was technically unqualified at the beginning.
I think Liu Qiangdong is a node in this transformation.
Liu Qiangdong graduated from Renmin University, majoring in sociology, but he taught himself programming at Renmin University and also has a certain background in economics. Therefore, when Liu Qiangdong decided to build Jingdong Mall, he could see both With the development potential of the Internet, we can deeply understand the efficiency of self-built logistics for the entire commercial trade industry, and can also use the knowledge of economics to propose the Sugar Cane Law.
So JD.com, founded by Liu Qiangdong, has strong execution capabilities and strong financing capabilities on the basis of relatively emphasizing technology. However, Yi Xun, which has a similar model to JD.com, can only fail again and again. It sold itself locally, first to Tencent, and then to JD.com. Now the brand has completely died.
Internet companies after JD.com that do well are mostly those with strong financing capabilities and strong execution capabilities, such as Ele.me, Mobike, and Didi Chuxing. The founder has a technical background, but he may overestimate the company's technical strength and end up in a "miserable future". Wang Junyu, the founder of Wandoujia, joined Google after graduating from Peking University and was responsible for user experience. To a certain extent, he has a technical background. , but judging from Wandoujia’s development trajectory, if Wang Junyu’s team had stronger financing and vertical and horizontal management capabilities, it might at least be able to become the current UC or Ele.me.