Chapter 655
Think about what President Yu should do
Chapter 655 Think about what President Yu should do
Bi Sheng is an atypical veteran of Baidu.
He joined the company two years after its founding and worked there until it went public on NASDAQ before leaving. He served as marketing director and president's assistant, and at that time he directly assisted the head of the company, Li Yanhong.
Although it only took three years, the period from development to listing may be the best time for a company. Therefore, after starting his own business, Bi Sheng maintained a good relationship with his former colleagues, and Letao.com even received guidance from Li Yanhong herself.
However, with the changes at Letao and its second entrepreneurial venture, the company was busy and increasingly involved with silicon carbide, so the connection between them faded in the past two years.
As for Baidu today...
Bi Sheng has his own ideas, but just like the recent controversy surrounding the excessive commercialization of Baidu Tieba, the current state of Baidu is no longer just the opinion of a few individuals.
The cooperation between Putian-affiliated hospitals and Baidu can be traced back to 2003. At that time, multiple departments jointly restricted the broadcast of medical advertisements for 11 diseases on television. These diseases, such as psoriasis, epilepsy, and vitiligo, were the main diseases that the hospitals were dealing with at the time. This led to a large-scale shift of related advertisements to Baidu's paid search ranking.
In 2008, Xinhua noticed the spread of medical advertising and published a special article in November titled "Fake Drugs Rampant Online, Paid Search Ranking is the Root Cause," exposing the problems with Baidu's paid search ranking. This caused the company's stock price to plummet by $44, a drop of more than 25%, marking its largest single-day drop since its listing.
This wave of public opinion prompted Baidu to promise to strengthen its review process, remove some medical advertisements, and make rectifications.
However, the following year, with the launch of the "Phoenix Nest" system by Baidu, which changed the bidding ranking rules, the price per click for popular medical keywords increased significantly. In just two years, Putian-affiliated hospitals further became Baidu's largest advertiser, contributing nearly one-fifth of the company's advertising revenue.
In 2014, Baidu also had a conflict with Putian-affiliated hospitals. The former claimed that it rejected 13,000 illegal medical institutions as clients that year, 60% of which were Putian-affiliated hospitals. The latter collectively suspended their paid search advertising in protest against Baidu's high fees.
Clearly, the conflict between the two is a struggle for interests, rather than either party realizing the seriousness of the problem.
This year, the excessive commercialization of Baidu Tieba is just another example of the deep-seated problems that have plagued Baidu for years.
Bi Sheng carefully reviewed the problems of his former employer, referred to various analyses from the Baixiaosheng Forum, and noticed the direction of Baidu's medical advertising pointed out by an anonymous user. He felt that this kind of entanglement of interests was indeed very serious.
He remembered that when he was at Baidu, he talked about user experience, but now... a casual search results would dedicate most of the homepage to advertisements, and the situation was even worse if you searched for keywords related to a medical condition.
Bi Sheng wrote a lengthy critique of Baidu, with clear logic and combining financial data, user experience, public morality, and other dimensions, making the content quite detailed and powerful.
However, after leaving it for half a day and then looking at it carefully again, he was still not satisfied.
There has been no shortage of criticism of Baidu over the years. Not to mention him personally, even the media reports on it from time to time, but none of it has shaken Baidu in the slightest. Even the public opinion that Baidu Tieba is overly commercialized is an impact caused by the aftereffects of the influence of Baidu Baixiaosheng Forum and Big Short.
This impact appears to be gradually recovering at the stock price level.
Bi Sheng pondered how to demonstrate Pinduoduo's initiative and how to counter the impact of the leaked information.
Just as he was racking his brains, an idea suddenly popped into his head—think about what President Yu would do!
The situation suddenly seemed to clear up.
Looking back at Mr. Yu's rise to power, he has always enjoyed directly attacking his aggrieved opponents during key competitions with Tencent.
From Lu Shan, who was in charge of WeChat, to Liu Chiping, the president of Tencent, and then to Pony Ma, the head of the company, Yu was not expressing his emotions, but rather using this opportunity to catalyze the development of WeChat, drive the explosion of public opinion, and ultimately convert a large amount of traffic into the product.
The current situation...
Bi Sheng recalled his earlier phone call with President Yu, pondering the implied meaning in his words. He suddenly realized that the "big short" strategy might be the direction he was looking for. However, the other party wouldn't be so openly encouraging him; he had to choose how to proceed. He re-examined his thoughts on his advisor's advice, and upon reviewing his own writing, he indeed discovered many shortcomings. After careful consideration and adding some supplementary material, he sent it to President Yu's secretary. He then began studying the public activity schedules of Baidu's senior executives, preparing to act when the opportunity presented itself.
Yu Xing quickly saw Bi Sheng's masterpiece. After reading it through, he remarked to Zhang Yangxu, "Only old Baidu people can do this kind of thing. This directly assigns the problem to the right people."
Bi Sheng cited numerous sources to illustrate the persistent problems of Baidu's medical advertising, painfully criticized the company's strategic issues, pointed out the long-standing dissatisfaction of users, and directly named several senior executives as responsible.
The person who bears the greatest responsibility is naturally Robin Li, the head of Baidu.
When Zhang Yangxu saw Bi Zong's scathing critique, he knew that a falling out between this former Baidu employee and Baidu was inevitable. He even called Bi Zong before submitting the article to his boss.
He pointed out the subsequent actions: "President Yu, President Bi said he is prepared to point out Baidu's problems in person."
Yu Xing put down the document, nodded, and said, "Indeed, open and honest, quite the gentleman."
A gentleman is open and honest; what is there that cannot be discussed face-to-face?
Zhang Yangxu was taken aback. Uh, so the boss isn't exactly a gentleman; he was anonymous before crossing the mountain peak.
Yu Xing didn't think much more about Bi Sheng's actions. After a moment's thought, he said, "The so-called anti-Alibaba alliance has turned into a makeshift team tearing each other apart. Pinduoduo's e-commerce business is only a fraction of Alibaba's. Zhang Yong needs to continue to build his achievements in consumption upgrade to prove that he is qualified and capable of taking over. Once we run the data again this year, he will basically have nothing to fear."
"Pinduoduo has a certain level of performance, is backed by many large companies, and has a dazzling growth rate. Institutions are more willing to burn money to take a gamble, which is to win big with a small investment and reap huge profits."
Zhang Yangxu sincerely expressed his feelings: "It just feels like things are pretty chaotic this time."
"Chaos?" Yu Xing smiled slightly. "Chaos is good. Small companies have hope of winning in chaos. How can you fight against giants when your foundation is not solid?"
Without Pony Ma's encouragement, Pinduoduo could have developed quietly, but the investment from multiple companies is a valuable opportunity worth trying.
Now that things have come to this, it is time to seek victory amidst the chaos.
Yu Xing believed that Bi Sheng could stir up enough trouble. Ultimately, Baidu itself had major problems, and the bigger the storm, the more exposure it would attract, which would help the giant to mend its ways.
On March 10, Li Zheng, General Manager of Baidu's Medical Business Unit, attended the "Mobile Healthcare Innovation Forum" in Beijing.
When he picked up the microphone and began to talk eloquently about Baidu's achievements in this area, a loud question suddenly arose from the audience.
"Mr. Li, what are your thoughts on the excessive commercialization of Baidu Tieba?"
Li Zheng's speech was interrupted, and looking in the direction of the voice, he saw Bi Sheng of Pinduoduo.
He paused for a few seconds and said, "So it's Mr. Bi. If you have any questions, you can wait until I finish speaking before we talk. After all, this is an issue that Baidu has already rectified. I'm willing to talk to you about our changes and reflections in this regard."
Upon hearing this, Bi Sheng decisively said, "Mr. Li, then please also discuss the issue of Baidu's medical advertising bidding ranking!"
Li Zheng's expression changed slightly. This question involved many issues and was difficult to answer appropriately.
Those who come with ill intentions will not come with good intentions!
You become like the person you associate with!
The Spring Festival holiday is a fragmented time, involving long journeys and drinking, so I will try my best to keep updating and catch up when I go back after the holiday.
(End of this chapter)