A career guidance lecture at a prestigious university, intended to offer advice to students, devolved into a public spectacle where the CEO boasted about wealth, insulted the audience, and stormed off stage.
On June 3rd, Fenbi CEO Zhang Xiaolong was invited to deliver a career planning lecture at the School of Philosophy at Renmin University. According to students present, the scheduled topic was civil service exam preparation, which was the primary reason most students attended. However, after taking the stage, Zhang unilaterally changed the theme to "Career Planning in the AI Era," spending the entire lecture discussing stock trading and U.S. market investments, deviating significantly from the expected content.
Addressing the students, Zhang openly shared his stock market experiences and unabashedly flaunted his wealth. A circulated audio recording from the event quotes him saying: "I don't have a lot of money myself. I have about 80 million yuan in cash, which I used to buy stocks last month. I calculated on the way here today and made 53 million yuan. I'm talking about this mainly to show off my wealth."
Furthermore, during the lecture, Zhang suggested that the ideal career path was no longer pursuing civil service but trading stocks: "It's best to trade tech stocks, even better to trade U.S. stocks, and the best is to get your whole family involved in stock trading." He also elaborated on three reasons for not wanting to discuss civil service exams: first, the government is reducing recruitment, with acceptance ratios exceeding 100:1, making exams extremely difficult; second, he bluntly stated that students seeking exam tutoring "are those who can't pass," and the company is merely providing emotional support; third, the company itself is facing layoff challenges.
However, the philosophy students were unimpressed by this "capitalist's" impromptu sharing. According to attendees, most students came specifically for civil service exam guidance and had no interest in the sudden shift to stocks and AI. Student engagement was extremely low. The audience maintained basic decorum; even when disinterested, they quietly occupied themselves without causing disruptions. Consequently, the overall reaction was tepid, with sparse applause, leading to an awkward atmosphere.
Faced with this apparent indifference, Zhang's tone shifted from a calm sharing session to provocation—attempting to incite the audience by stating "I'm just here to show off my wealth." When this tactic still failed to elicit a strong reaction, his emotions boiled over. Based on a complete transcribed audio recording circulating online, he launched into a minutes-long public tirade:
"I'm a bit angry, let me criticize you. Don't think just because you're from Renmin University... You have zero feeling for fresh new things that bring huge transformation and immense wealth to society. So it's only right that you can't find jobs; society shouldn't give you jobs. Let me tell you straight, aside from squeezing into the system to become civil servants and idling away, you have no real skills. That's all you can do."
As the awkward silence persisted, his language escalated further: "I've given at least 20 lectures at various schools this year, and yours is the worst. I'm not continuing. That's it. My time is very precious. I don't like ending it like this with you, and I won't give you time for questions. You are bad, very bad. Idiots, damn it, ridiculous."
He then threw down the microphone and left the venue in anger. Attending faculty went downstairs to pacify him, a dean出面 to maintain order, and a small number of students also left in protest.
The capital market reacted swiftly to this inappropriate incident. At the time of writing, Fenbi shares had fallen nearly 9%, indicating clearly dampened market sentiment.
Subsequently, on June 4th, Zhang Xiaolong issued an apology letter via the official Fenbi Technology account, admitting he had "acted inappropriately in personal speech and conduct, left midway, and made improper remarks," and stating that "the responsibility lies entirely with me." However, the restrained tone of the apology letter stood in stark contrast to his暴躁失控 and verbally abusive behavior on stage. The capital market did not reverse its decline based on this apology, and netizens remained unconvinced.
Public information shows Zhang Xiaolong graduated from the Department of Philosophy at Sun Yat-sen University. He entered the civil service exam training industry as a lecturer in 2006, joined Yuan题库 in 2013 to oversee its civil service exam project and serve as CEO of Fenbi网, and founded Beijing Fenbi Lantian Technology Co., Ltd. in 2015.
As the founder and controlling shareholder of Fenbi, Zhang is associated with 20 enterprises and holds a 92.75% stake. His言行 directly represent the public image of the Fenbi brand. Once revered as the "godfather of civil service exams" for his deep roots in the sector and trust from examinees, his recent loss of composure and public humiliation of top university students has severely eroded public goodwill.
When he stood on the Renmin University stage angrily telling his potential clients they "deserved to be jobless" and were "the worst," he personally pushed the former "number one internet vocational education stock" off the pedestal it had built over many years of dedicated effort.
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