Just after the clock struck 8 PM, in the 1,066-member internal work group of Dreame Technology, where a few messages about project progress were still floating, no one anticipated that the next second would turn it into a boiling pot of oil—a message tagging Founder and CEO Yu Hao landed like a sudden clap of thunder, instantly shattering the usual workplace calm.
"Are you high on something? Surpass NVIDIA in one year, achieve in one year what all Chinese automakers haven't accomplished in 30 years?" The words, sharp and unvarnished, glared starkly on the screen. The sender was an unknown employee within the company, offering no preamble or diplomacy, directly aiming the barrel of their质疑 at the highest decision-maker. The group instantly fell into a dead silence; hands that were typing paused mid-air, freshly edited messages were silently deleted, and the gaze of over a thousand people was likely glued to their phone screens, with even breaths held—this was a direct, public confrontation with the CEO in front of the entire company!
Before anyone could recover from the shock, the "lone brave employee's" second message popped up, this time also tagging a senior executive named Chen in the group, with undiminished火力: "Do you even understand what a chip is, what an algorithm is? Is this the level Peking University taught you?" The accusatory tone in the text almost seemed to burst through the screen, as if one could feel the force in the sender's fingertips as they typed. Immediately after, a third message struck even closer to the core risks: "When the boss gets fined into bankruptcy by the US government, will the reason be that you强行 shipped a few cars to sell in America?" Each sentence was sharper and more direct than the last, the air in the group seemingly凝固 into a solid. Some secretly took screenshots, their fingers trembling slightly; others privately messaged colleagues exclaiming "so bold," their chat boxes filled with astonished emojis; still others held their breath, guessing whether the CEO would lose his temper on the spot. This scene was more刺激 than any workplace drama, more confrontational than any debate, because in reality, who has ever seen an employee so mercilessly "blast" the boss and executives in a group the size of a thousand-person assembly?
The catalyst for all this was a series of "explosive" bold statements recently made by CEO Yu Hao that had gone viral online. On social media, he had written in black and white that "the Dreame ecosystem will become the first hundred-trillion-dollar company ecosystem in human history," his tone so confident it was as if he already held the key to success. He stated that Jensen Huang and Elon Musk were getting old, and that he, from the younger generation, would carry the banner, pushing the company's market valuation to the hundred-trillion-dollar level; he also promised that "everyone working at Dreame will achieve financial freedom, and their family members won't need to work—the company will support them." This vision sounded thrilling, but the chasm with reality was simply too vast. NVIDIA, the world's most valuable company, is currently valued at around $4.5 trillion; a hundred trillion is equivalent to the combined size of over 20 NVIDIAs. This isn't a goal; it's a seemingly unattainable myth. What drove frontline employees crazy was the company's "cross-boundary sprint"—before even solidifying its main business of robotic vacuums, it plunged headlong into new energy vehicles, home appliances (refrigerators, washers, ACs), drones, and even claimed ambitions for asteroid mining. Recently, noticing movements by Ctrip, it swiftly announced plans to develop a rival product to "break the monopoly." It's like someone who has just learned to walk immediately thinks about running a marathon, climbing Everest, and venturing into space. Stretching the stride too far inevitably makes those following along nervous. The employees' anger fundamentally stems from anxiety over this "boundaryless expansion": resources are stretched thin, the core business is diluted, current work isn't even sorted out, yet they must tackle one new field after another. This feeling of "never having their feet on the ground" would frustrate anyone.
Two days later, Yu Hao's response finally arrived. On Weibo, he explained calmly that the hundred-trillion-dollar target was a "goal for the next twenty years," not a short-term sprint, and emphasized that the company has been profitable for six consecutive years without burning through investor money, stating that "most of the past boasts have been realized." As for the employee who confronted him, he downplayed it, saying the person had "already submitted their resignation, and their Feishu account was deactivated that very evening," adding, "I have the magnanimity not to mind."
This response did not quell the controversy; instead, it fueled more heated discussion online. Some dug into Dreame's past development,感慨 that "the ambition is indeed huge, but it needs to be grounded"; others empathized with the employees, saying "listening to unrealistic targets every day leaves no sense of direction for actual work"; still others joked that "this employee probably had a 'I'm leaving anyway, so I'll say what I want' attitude—pretty潇洒 in its own way."
Looking back now at this "confrontation of the century" in the thousand-person internal group, it still feels震撼. On one side was the helmsman's grand, star-gazing vision; on the other, the executors' grounded anxieties about reality. On one side was blunt, unrestrained直言不讳; on the other, an attempt to smooth things over with a composed response. This "war" without smoke or fire had no clear winner or loser, but it served as a wake-up call for all businesses: even the most magnificent blueprint must be rooted in the soil of reality; even the most ambitious goals must present a clear path for those who execute them. After all, what workers want isn't a distant "hundred-trillion-dollar dream," but the steadiness and peace of mind that comes from taking one solid step at a time.
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