By CHENG Lu
Following his resignation as CEO of Alibaba Group, Daniel Zhang has surprisingly quit Alibaba Cloud. The vacuum Zhang leaves behind opens the door for the return of Alibaba co-founders, Joe Tsai and Eddie Wu.
The new chairman Tsai plans to invest 1 billion yuan in Zhang's new technology fund. Zhang joined Alibaba in 2007 as CFO of Taobao and quickly took on the role of COO. In 2015, he became CEO of Alibaba Group and oversaw the creation of Tmall and the first Singles Day (November 11) shopping festival.
By October 2020, Alibaba's market cap hit US$860 billion in the US and HK$6 trillion (5.6 trillion yuan, US$770 billion) in Hong Kong, setting an unbreakable record.
In 2019, the rise of platforms like Pinduoduo, Kuaishou, and Douyin had begun to encroach on Taobao's e-commerce market share. Since then, scandals have continued to emerge within the group, and Alibaba's value has plummeted by more than half. Although Zhang's departure may be described as voluntary, change was inevitable.
Tsai and Wu were with Jack Ma at the inception of Alibaba. Wu led the construction of the architecture for several of Alibaba's businesses, including Taobao and Alipay. In 2007, he shifted to business development, and in 2014, founded Vision Plus Capital.
Chairman Tsai is Alibaba's only permanent partner besides Jack Ma. He masterminded financing in the early days, such as the acquisition of Yahoo China, and was the rainmaker behind Alibaba's IPO.
