Editor's Note: This article comes fromEditor's Note: This article comes from, Author: Liu Peng, reproduced by Odaily with authorization.
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Jihan Wu (left) and Ketuan Zhan
On October 28, 2019, Ketuan Zhan, chairman and co-founder of Bitmain, released its latest version of AI server at the Shenzhen Security Expo, ambitious to enter the field of intelligent analysis of video images.
But in Beijing, the headquarters of Bitmain, which is more than 2,000 kilometers away, a storm is brewing against him. Jihan Wu, the co-founder of Bitmain, who resigned from the CEO at the beginning of this year and quit the management, changed the legal representative and executive director of Beijing Bitmain Technology Co., Ltd. from Ketuan Zhan to himself at the Industrial and Commercial Bureau. of supervisors.
The next day, a bigger storm hit. Wu Jihan sent an email to all Bitmain employees, dismissing Ketuan Zhan from all positions and blocking his access to the company. The head of HR brought by Ketuan Zhan was also dismissed, and Wu Jihan appointed Suo Chao, who had also followed him for many years, as the head of human resources again.
At noon on October 29th, after all the staff emails were sent, Wu Jihan urgently held a staff meeting. During the one-hour meeting, Wu Jihan recounted Ketuan Zhan's mismanagement behaviors to appease the employees, and asked everyone to unite to save the company and not to go further down the wrong path.
Tencent News "First Line" exclusively learned that the direct cause of this "coup" was the second annual organizational structure adjustment implemented by Ketuan Zhan internally, which directly caused a large number of old employees who had followed Bitmain for many years to leave, and the internal public anger was great. Even employees commented that "Old Zhan's head was squeezed by the door" and "Old Zhan went crazy". Superimposed on the extremely diligent and hands-on management style of Zhan Ketuan who has an absolute desire for control, the insiders panicked and began to call on Wu Jihan to come back and take over the overall situation.
Previously, in the personnel shock in March this year, Wu Jihan sadly resigned, and Zhan Ketuan went to the stage to become the chairman, but the official seal of Bitmain has been kept by Wu Jihan's assistant. Therefore, on October 28, Wu Jihan was able to The Industrial and Commercial Bureau successfully changed a series of industrial and commercial information including legal representatives and supervisors.
Although Wu Jihan launched the raid without notifying any shareholders in advance, external shareholders began to waver and divide. Internally, Wu Jihan has also obtained a group of executives including CFO Liu Luyao, who joined Bitmain from CICC last year, and his newly appointed veteran HRBP Suo Chao, who is both a shareholder and a new supervisor Ge Yuesheng. layers and general support from employees.
According to a person familiar with the matter, after the general meeting, Jihan Wu began to discuss with shareholders how to negotiate with Ketuan Zhan so that the latter would leave the company. So far, Ketuan Zhan, who was expelled from the team, has not made any statement. Tencent News "Periscope" called his mobile phone many times, but was hung up. However, a person close to Ketuan Zhan revealed that Zhan has already started looking for a lawyer and is preparing to resort to law.
Behind the strong return is the concentrated outbreak of irreconcilable conflicts between Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan regarding the company's development ideas. Starting with a mining machine, and then building a leading advantage in multiple fields such as mining pools, mines, and Bitcoin Cash, the two co-founders of Bitmain disagreed on the future direction. Power advantages cut into the field of AI. However, due to the huge investment in unfamiliar fields, Bitmain has been "raising AI with mines", and the main business has continued to transfuse artificial intelligence research and development, which has led to various problems such as stagnation of main business and loss of personnel.
"Last year, the two began to diverge more and more. Later, due to the bad blockchain market and setbacks in the listing, Mr. Han (referring to Wu Jihan) chose to avoid it, let Zhan Ketuan lead the entire company, and retired by himself. "A person close to Bitmain's high-level executives described to Tencent News "Periscope" that after Ketuan Zhan came to the stage, the situation has not improved. But it has been slow. Whatsminer, a rising star in the mining machine market, has become a strong competitor, and the mining pool has been overtaken by Coinin. However, Ketuan Zhan is obsessed with AI business research and development, and interferes more with the sales department of the core mining machine department. At the same time, because he is not good at communication, he does not have much mass base but has a strong wrist, which leads to great internal resentment.
External shareholders are also showing impatience. In the financing of Bitmain in 2017, the investor and its management signed a VAM agreement to go public within 5 years. Now peer Canaan has officially submitted the prospectus and is about to land on NASDAQ. There are still many uncertainties in the road to listing of Bitmain, which has also failed in Hong Kong stocks.
Tencent News "Periscope" learned exclusively from multiple sources that Bitmain had secretly submitted a listing application to the SEC one week before Wu Jihan launched this "coup" raid, and the sponsor was Deutsche Bank. According to people familiar with the matter, from the initial target of Hong Kong stocks to the current U.S. stocks, Bitmain’s IPO process has been led by Wu Jihan and CFO Liu Luyao, with little participation by Zhan Ketuan.
Wu Jihan’s strong return means that if he wins the support of shareholders, Bitmain will focus on the most advantageous blockchain industry, regroup in the mining machine and mining pool business, and launch an impact on the US stock market.
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"Coup d'état" raid
On October 29, when Canaan, the second largest mining machine manufacturer, formally submitted its prospectus to the SEC and embarked on the road to an IPO in the US stock market, Bitmain, the industry leader, launched an internal personnel "coup".
Wu Jihan sent a rather fierce email to all staff at noon, saying that he decided to remove Ketuan Zhan from all positions in Bitmain with immediate effect. Any employee of Bitmain shall no longer carry out the instructions of Zhan Ketuan, and shall not participate in meetings convened by Zhan Ketuan. If there is any violation, the company will consider terminating the labor contract according to the severity of the circumstances; if it causes damage to the company's economic interests, the company will pursue civil or criminal responsibility according to law.
The timing of this raid coincided with the 2019 Shenzhen Security Expo. Zhan Ke led a team to participate in the exhibition, and released new products the day before the opening of the Security Expo on October 28. Security is one of the most widely used fields of AI at present, and it is also the main direction of Zhan Ketuan's development of AI, so he attaches great importance to it.
On the morning of October 29, Ketuan Zhan returned to Beijing after receiving the signal that he was about to be dismissed, but his access to the company had been suspended.
At the all-hands meeting held by Jihan Wu, starting from the establishment of the company, Jihan Wu explained the difference in equity between the two, the difference in voting rights, and the contradictions in the company's strategic direction. He also pointed out that Ketuan Zhan made an The decision to put the chip into the film made the company consume a lot of manpower and material resources, and also caused a direct loss of 1.5 billion US dollars.
"The one-hour meeting sounds like a couple quarreling, it's what I paid and what you did wrong." An employee described it this way. However, when it comes to the choice of the two co-founders, he still sided with Jihan Wu, believing that Ketuan Zhan’s series of actions after becoming the chairman in March would do great harm to Bitmain. "Both of them have twisted personalities, but in comparison, Wu Jihan's handling is more popular, and customers are more recognized when speaking externally."
Bitmain insiders who have frequent contacts with Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan commented on the internal reputation of the two founders. He cited Yang Zuoxing, the founder of Whatsminer, who is now a threat to Bitmain. After he developed the most popular mining machine Ant S9 for Bitmain, Ketuan Zhan did not fulfill his promise to Yang Zuoxing. Good communication caused Yang Zuoxing to leave in anger.
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Difficulties
Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan both came from prestigious schools, Wu Jihan graduated from Peking University, and Zhan Ketuan graduated from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. According to the description of senior people in the currency circle in the early years, the two hit it off after meeting on the street in 2013, and developed an ASIC mining machine suitable for Bitcoin mining. After its establishment, Bitmain became a giant in the mining machine and mining pool industry.
However, in 2018, the differences between the two on the company's development direction began to emerge, and gradually became irreconcilable. Ketuan Zhan raised objections to Wu Jihan's generous actions on Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and proposed to open up new businesses when the overall digital currency market turned cold, that is, with the help of the accumulation of computing power technology of Bitcoin mining machines, the The computing power experience in mining is copied to the forefront of the world's technology - the field of artificial intelligence.
But AI is obviously a business with huge investment and insignificant results. The three mining machine manufacturers, especially Bitmain, are currently adopting what the industry considers to be "raising AI with mining", subsidizing the profits from mining machine sales to the research and development of artificial intelligence. Ketuan Zhan also revealed in a previous interview that Bitmain has 300 AI chip R&D personnel, which exceeds the size of the R&D team for Bitcoin mining chips.
However, in the field of AI chips, mining machine manufacturers are facing a relatively strong lineup of opponents. Top players such as Google, AMD, and Nvidia should not be underestimated in terms of R&D financial support or technology and data accumulation.
With the increase in investment in AI, Ketuan Zhan suddenly launched an attack at the end of 2018 and asked the management to choose one of the two teams to start. Coinciding with the slump in cryptocurrency, Bitmain’s Hong Kong IPO hit a wall. After several months of internal negotiations, Wu Jihan resigned from all positions and only retained the company’s directors. Zhan Ketuan served as the chairman and Wang Haichao served as the CEO, and announced that the company It will focus on digital currency and artificial intelligence chips, as well as products and services based on them.
According to Tencent News "Periscope", this organizational structure adjustment is advocated by Ketuan Zhan, and the company's strategic direction is also dominated by the direction of artificial intelligence that Ketuan Zhan is responsible for, while Jihan Wu is only responsible for blockchain-related businesses. Subsequently, Ketuan Zhan launched drastic reforms and personnel changes, and led the new equity incentive framework, planning to go public in the United States.
However, when the cryptocurrency market picked up in the first half of 2019, the shipments of Whatsminer, founded by Yang Zuoxing, who once left Bitmain, began to suppress Bitmain. Ketuan Zhan's policies towards major mining machine customers have also attracted criticism, causing more of their orders to flow to competitors Shenma.
In addition to the most advantageous mining machine business, Bitmain’s leading position in the mining pool business has also been overtaken. Coinin Mining Pool, also founded by Zhu Wei and others who left Bitmain, has become the first in the market.
The main business was overtaken by competitors, causing internal instability. A senior employee in the sales department told Tencent News "Periscope" that due to the slow movement in the development of a new generation of chips, "competitors who were half dead before are now alive again." coming".
The dominant position in the market has been lost, and the greater intensification of contradictions has occurred in the adjustment of the internal structure. A number of employees reported that since August, Ketuan Zhan has gradually implemented the second organizational structure adjustment of the year. Multiple departments have been exchanged with each other, and many personnel arrangements have been made that employees do not understand. Many old employees, even business leaders, were transferred to new departments and reported to junior superiors, causing a large number of old employees to file for resignation.
Therefore, at the meeting held by Wu Jihan at noon on October 29, when it was announced that the second organizational structure adjustment, which was officially implemented on October 20, would be suspended, the applause was the loudest. A number of employees described: "Everyone's mood is like Chinese New Year."
However, some Bitmain insiders said that in 2018, Ketuan Zhan, Jihan Wu and other management signed a new gambling agreement with investors. According to the conditions, in the latest shareholding details, Ketuan Zhan’s shareholding ratio has dropped to More than 20%, also lost a veto. Regarding this statement, Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan did not respond to whether it was true or not.
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long road to listing
Tencent News "Periscope" learned exclusively from multiple sources that Bitmain had secretly submitted a listing application to the SEC one week before Wu Jihan launched this "coup" raid, and the sponsor was Deutsche Bank.
When Bitmain hit the IPO of Hong Kong stocks before, the biggest obstacle was the issue of listing adaptability. On January 23, 2019, at the Davos World Economic Forum, Li Xiaojia, president of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, said in an exclusive conversation with Tencent News "Periscope", "For IPOs, the core principle of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange is listing adaptability (suitability) ). Is the business model introduced by the company planning to list to investors suitable for listing? For example, in the past, it made billions of dollars through A business, but suddenly said that it will do B business in the future, but there is no performance yet. Or B’s business The model is better, so I feel that the A business model you used to go public at the beginning is not sustainable. Also, the regulation was ignored before, and then the regulation started to control, so can you still do this business and make this money? ?”
The overtones are ready to come out. Whether it is the mining machine business that has attracted gold before, or the AI business that wants to transform, Bitmain cannot meet the "listing adaptability" proposed by Li Xiaojia.
"The blockchain industry itself is not easy and full of controversies. There are liars and idealists, geeks and speculators. Survive and move forward in the cracks. Only one Bitmain will be born in five years. In the next ten years, all There may not be a second one." A practitioner named Zhang Li said so in his official account. As a representative of the blockchain industry, after the IPO suspension, ensuring sufficient cash flow through the industry's long winter has become a top priority.
From Hong Kong stocks to U.S. stocks, according to the SEC process, after submitting the listing application, it will generally go through three rounds of inquiries. After the answers meet the regulatory requirements, a formal prospectus can be submitted, and then it will be formally listed after inquiry and other procedures. The whole process will take at least 1-2 months.
Tencent News "Periscope" exclusively learned that in order to increase the chances of success in the US listing, Bitmain even hired Zheng Hua, the former chief representative of Nasdaq in China, as a company consultant to advise it.
