A lengthy resignation letter from an employee of Alibaba's mobile office platform, DingTalk, has recently gone viral online, resonating widely within the professional community.
On June 8th, Ma Ruila, Vice President of DingTalk and head of its AI Tables product, published an article titled "Outside DingTalk" on his personal public account, sharing his reflections after reading a widely circulated internal Alibaba post, "Inside DingTalk." He also revealed that he had formally completed his resignation procedures on May 15th, concluding his three-year tenure at Alibaba and leaving DingTalk.
Just last week, a 75,000-word article titled "Inside DingTalk" on Alibaba's internal network drew widespread attention. The author is Teng Yaxin (alias "Yousu"), a core product manager for DingTalk's "ONE" project (the flagship AI work homepage launched with DingTalk 8.0). In this long-form piece, she detailed the entire journey of the "ONE" AI product from its inception, its daily active users (DAU) surging to 3 million, to a cliff-like drop in retention rates, and its eventual scaling back and disassembly.
The ONE project was the first AI-native strategic initiative championed by DingTalk's founder, Chen Hang (alias "Wuzhao"), upon his return. Chen Hang launched the product last August, hoping it would reorganize work information flows through Agent-driven methods, shifting the traditional "people-finding-tasks" office model to one where AI prioritizes and presents information clearly to users via card-based streams.
According to the aforementioned viral 75,000-word article "Inside DingTalk," the project ultimately faced contraction due to multiple conflicts, including a loss of strategic direction, clashes in foundational DNA, disjointed design logic, and high-pressure management within the organization. Subsequently, the project underwent adjustments and a strategic downgrade.
It may have been replaced by another project, "Wukong." In March of this year, Alibaba unveiled "Wukong," described as the world's first enterprise-grade AI-native work platform. According to Chen Hang's on-stage introduction, Wukong currently exists as a standalone application. In May, Wukong began its gradual, scaled rollout.
DingTalk has not yet responded to the viral article. However, relevant sources indicated that DingTalk has numerous internal projects, with some succeeding and others not.
In his "Outside DingTalk" article, Ma Ruila stated that while he was unaware of the internal details of the ONE project described in the long post, he could empathize with the atmosphere it described. "But the kind of atmosphere she wrote about, I know it. That high pressure, that feeling of effort yielding no results, that cycle of frequent reporting, rapid iteration, and no visible improvement—I know it. What pains me is that such a thoughtful young product manager ultimately needed 70,000 words to extricate herself from a system and seek liberation. I feel for those classmates at DingTalk who have thought deeply, acted earnestly, and struggled sincerely."
Ma Ruila mentioned that around this year's May Day holiday, he also began repeatedly contemplating his resignation decision: "After much thought, I found it increasingly difficult to confirm whether I was creating products or merely consuming my health to keep pace with a constantly shifting rhythm." Ma Ruila revealed he has returned to Shanghai to start a business. He also lamented that achieving a company's ideals at the cost of losing all personal life leaves one with "no right to depict a blueprint of AI changing the world."
He further added, "In my heart, I hope Wuzhao can lead DingTalk back to its former glory, but the price should not be everyone burning themselves out in exchange for working hours. In this era, hard work and diligence are important, but flashes of creative inspiration are equally vital."
Public records show that Ma Ruila's legal name is Wang Jiamin. He previously founded Chinese Music Starry Sky, Interconnected Film Library (the predecessor of Mtime), and the WoLai real estate website. In 2020, he founded the collaborative office platform "Wolai," which was fully acquired by DingTalk in 2023. He subsequently joined the DingTalk team, responsible for the development of intelligent collaborative documents and personal edition products.
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