Great changes in Youku Tudou: Yang Weidong took the lead, Zhu Huilong resigned, and the tide of departures may continue

Yang Weidong, co-president of Youku, was appointed as president of Heyi Group and reported to Gu Yongqiang, chairman and CEO of Heyi Group. At the same time, Yang Weidong will be fully responsible for the related platform businesses of Youku, Tudou, Laifang and Laifang.

Last night, Gu Yongqiang, chairman and CEO of Heyi Group (Youku Tudou), issued an internal letter stating that adjustments would be made to the company's organizational structure. The internal letter shows that Yang Weidong, co-president of Youku, has been appointed as president of Heyi Group and reported to Gu Yongqiang, chairman and CEO of Heyi Group. At the same time, Yang Weidong will be fully responsible for the related platform businesses of Youku, Tudou, Laifang, and Laifang.

The internal letter pointed out the following four important arrangements:

1. The group will establish the Heyi Venture Capital business. Group President Liu Dele will serve as chairman of Heyi Venture Capital and will no longer serve as group president from the date of announcement; Heyi Film, the group's investment, finance, legal, marketing and government affairs teams report to Liu Dele.

2. Yang Weidong, co-president of Youku Tudou, was appointed as president of Heyi Group and reported to Gu Yongqiang, chairman and CEO of Heyi Group; Yang Weidong is fully responsible for the related platform businesses of Youku, Tudou, Laifang, and Laifang, and is responsible for the overall content of the above-mentioned platforms, management and operation of various businesses such as publicity, membership and brand. The above-mentioned business team and person in charge will report to Yang Weidong from now on. CTO Yao Jian and his business team, Zhu Xiangyang, CEO of Unity Culture, and his business team, and Li Jie, Senior Vice President and his business team (business development BD, strategic cooperation and operator business) will report to Yang Weidong from now on.

3. In order to further open up the collaboration between Alibaba Digital Entertainment and Youku in relevant business resources, the copyright content procurement and self-production team of Alibaba Digital Entertainment team has been merged into Youku's relevant business teams and will report to Yang Weidong from now on. Senior Vice President Li Jie will be responsible for the rest of Alibaba Digital Entertainment's business. At the same time, he will integrate Youku and Alibaba Digital Entertainment's virtual reality (VR) business product technical teams and BD teams, and report to Alibaba Group CEO Xiaoyao Zi and Heyi Group President Yang Weidong.

4. In order to further improve the strategic and business management capabilities of the Group's executives, the Group will successively launch senior executives 'further study abroad programs. Wei Ming, co-president of Youku Tudou BG, will go to the United States for a six-month study period, during which he will be responsible for VR investment, product cooperation and talent layout, and will serve as a partner of the Unity Venture Capital VR Fund.

Don't think that this is just a simple personnel change. At least these points are worthy of attention.

1. Yang Weidong took office.

Public information shows that Yang Weidong came from the State Power Company and worked in the World Bank, Lenovo Group, Nokia and other companies. On February 4, 2013, Youku Tudou Group announced that it had appointed Yang Weidong as president of Tudou. com and concurrently served as senior vice president of Youku Tudou Group. This is the first major personnel appointment made by Youku Tudou Group for Tudou's business after the merger of Youku Tudou in August 2012. Yang Weidong, who entered Tudou in the form of parachuted, was fully responsible for core operating businesses such as content, marketing, and content marketing under the Tudou brand.

Yang Weidong's appointment at that time was quite a turning point. In August 2012, Youku and Tudou officially completed the merger, and Tudou founder Wang Wei subsequently "retired", and the position of CEO of Tudou became vacant. Yang Weidong's joining also means a new adjustment by Youku Tudou Group to the "post-Wang Wei" era.

An interview circulated in the media in 2013 showed that Gu Yongqiang and Yang Weidong had a deep relationship. Yang Weidong met Gu Yongqiang during his tenure at Nokia, and later provided him with many valuable suggestions while Yang started his business. Yang Weidong founded Matt Culture in 2011. The company received a lot of help from Gu Yongqiang from "architecture design to financing". At the beginning of 2013, Yang Weidong, Gu Yongkeng and Wang Wei reached an agreement on an invitation to join the Youku Tudou management team. Yang Weidong later recalled,"When Youku and Tudou were not merged, Tudou had to bite Youku in the market competition and be youthful. It was really difficult for Tudou to effectively punch in both directions. At least my ability at the time was not enough. But at the beginning of this year, when Gu Yongqiang and Wang Wei talked to me about the possibility of joining Tudou, I thought the time was about."

As a young executive who was once described as a free style and passionate about acting, Yang Weidong once said,"Gu Yongqiang and I have a tacit understanding in terms of sensibility and rationality, and it seems that there has never been any disagreement. After setting Tudou's direction, he didn't encounter any objections from him when it came to specific things. Perhaps in his opinion, what I wanted to do was exactly what he wanted to do. Even if this thing failed, the cost of failure could still be borne." During his tenure as president of Tudou, Yang Weidong was committed to building Tudou into a "cultural brand", and later created Youku Tudou's first live video platform "Lai Fan", and led the group to invest 500 million yuan in incubation animation IP to promote young style and young audience.

This time, it is not difficult to find from the internal letter that Yang Weidong, the "young marshal" who joined Youku Tudou in 2013, has been reused, and it is a big enough reuse. On the other hand, Wei Ming, Liu Dele, Zhu Huilong, and Zhu Xiangyang, the entrepreneurial veterans who fought with Gu Yongqiang in the world, seem to have been "exiled".

In fact, the clues of Yang Weidong's reuse can be seen as early as 2015.

At the beginning of 2015, Gu Yongqiang announced that he would make adjustments to the two business units (BU) of Youku and Tudou and the copyright content team to form 6 major BU and 9 major centers. Wei Ming, president of Youku BU, is responsible for the operation of TV dramas, productions and PGC content; Yang Weidong, president of Tudou BU, is responsible for the operation of variety shows, music and other related content.

For some time since then, Youku Tudou fell into various resignations. In July 2015, Lu Fanxi, Youku Tudou's vice president in charge of homemade content, announced his resignation and start a business (in 2016, Lu Fanxi was taken away by the police for investigation on suspicion of using his position to commit illegal and criminal activities). In October 2015, Li Li, vice president of Youku Tudou, resigned and joined LeTV.

On November 30, 2015, Youku Tudou announced its personnel appointments, appointing Wei Ming and Yang Weidong as co-presidents of Youku Tudou BG; Wei Ming is mainly responsible for the overall member business and information content section; Yang Weidong is mainly responsible for the entertainment content section and platform operation business. At that time, the group's original Youku BU, Tudou BU, and Laifang business teams were merged into Youku Tudou Business Group (BG).

At that time, the business teams within Youku Tudou BG reporting to Yang Weidong included: Youku Tudou Editor-in-Chief Office team, Youku Tudou domestic drama copyright cooperation team, Youku/Tudou content marketing center team, Youku Tudou TV drama operation team, Youku Tudou Animation Center team, Youku Tudou Entertainment, Variety and Music Center team, Tudou Brand Market Center team, and Lai Fan Business Team. It is not difficult to find from the reported business alone that Yang Weidong has enough power.

In the new Youku Tudou management structure at that time, the management system of Wei Ming and Yang Weidong two carriages can already be seen.

In 2016, Yang Weidong gradually became high-profile. Whether it was from the press releases of the public relations team or in communication with Youku Tudou's internal employees, the three words "Yang Weidong" appeared frequently. Obviously, the team is planning to promote Yang Weidong.

From this point of view, this young young Marshal must have been ready.

2. Zhu Huilong resigned

. It is worth noting that the internal letter did not mention Zhu Huilong, CEO of Heyi Pictures.

Zhu Huilong is an entrepreneurial veteran of Youku Tudou. He joined Youku in 2006 and is responsible for the overall strategic cooperation matters of the company. In February 2007, he became the vice president of Youku. com, and later served as the senior vice president of Youku Tudou Group. On August 28, 2014, Youku Tudou Group officially announced the establishment of a film company, named "Unity Film", with Zhu Huilong as CEO.

It is not difficult to find from past Youku Tudou press releases that since the second half of 2014, Zhu Huilong has made frequent appearances and has also spoken with Gu Yongqiang many times. Since the end of 2015, Zhu Huilong has rarely been seen appearing.

The last time Zhu Huilong made his public appearance as CEO of Unity Pictures was at the China Music Industry Conference in late December last year. On behalf of Heyi Pictures, Zhu Huilong announced that he would invest 100 million yuan in the next three years to participate in the development, main creation, and music creation of interludes and theme songs of film and television works. Plans also include holding 1-2 large-scale theme concerts for film and television music and future IP adaptations of music. Before and after Zhu Huilong left office, Heyi Pictures had invested in more than 20 films, including popular films such as "Monster Hunt","Gardenia Blooms","Fate", and "Unexpectedly".

So where did Zhu Huilong go? After many inquiries, the reporter received news that Zhu Huilong had recently resigned. The main reason for his resignation was that Zhu Huilong failed to reach a consensus in many negotiations with Gu Yongqiang on the independence of Heyi Pictures.

With Zhu Huilong's departure, these old entrepreneurs are also being marginalized. Citing Tencent Technology, relevant people believe that when Wei Ming went to the United States in June, it also vaguely indicated that he would deviate from the company's core management.

The internal letter pointed out that Wei Ming will be responsible for VR investment while studying in the United States and serve as a partner in the VR Fund. Just now (May 11, 2016), Youku Tudou released its VR strategy in Shanghai, which is to cooperate with the world's top production companies and top stars, ally with the strongest hardware partners in the industry chain, and Invest in comprehensive measures such as VR funds to create the strongest VR platform and fully advance the VR industry. Wei Ming gave a keynote speech at the press conference. In his words,"God's perspective will be gone in the future, and everyone can choose their own perspective."

3. All these changes occurred after Ali came in.

In April 2014, Alibaba and Yunfeng Fund invested US$1.22 billion in Youku Tudou. Alibaba's shareholding ratio was 16.5%, and Yunfeng Fund's shareholding ratio was 2%.

19 months later, in October 2015, Alibaba issued an offer to Youku Tudou, offering to purchase the remaining 82% of its shares with a "dowry gift" of US$4.5 billion. That month, Li Li resigned. Since then, it has been repeatedly reported that many senior executives have the intention to retire.

In April 2016, Youku Tudou announced that Heyi Group and Alibaba Group had completed the merger transaction and officially became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alibaba after privatization. At that time, Gu Yongqiang emphasized that a domestic listing plan had been launched and would be listed on the domestic capital market within three years.

"There should be more people leaving next." A person from Youku Tudou who declined to be named told reporters. He said that with Youku Tudou returning to the domestic capital market, many excellent people are planning their own entrepreneurial projects.

Editor: yvonne