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The pinnacle of nation members of the family at Chinese language seek immense Baidu has created her personal PR disaster next posting a number of movies on social media demeaning personnel, within the original instance of the occasionally brutal office practices in China’s tech sector.
“I can make you jobless in this industry,” stated Baidu vice-president Qu Jing in a single video. She added that she wanted workers devoted plethora to do 50 instantly days of commercial go at her aspect and didn’t support if it affected their private lives. “I’m not your mum,” she stated. “I only care about results.”
Qu additionally stated she used to be so dedicated to Baidu that she used to be blind to her son’s elegance generation in school.
The chief posted the movies on Douyin, the Chinese language model of TikTok, intending the clips to handover as examples to her staff of easy methods to worth social media to advertise Baidu. In lieu, they have got reignited grievance of the office tradition at Chinese language tech firms.
“Employees will never feel at home at a company that doesn’t have even a little bit of warmth,” wrote one person at the social media platform Weibo, on which Qu’s feedback are trending. As of Thursday, the dialogue had drawn 150mn perspectives.
“She wanted to create an ‘iron lady’ image, but the context has changed,” stated free tech columnist Wang Qingrui. “Now people don’t agree with the logic of those in power.
“She is not only representing herself in the videos, but also Baidu’s culture and values,” he added. “This deepens Baidu’s image problems.”
Qu’s feedback have additionally revived issues over operating statuses. The lengthy hours regularly anticipated of tech workers are referred to as “996” — which means they begin paintings at 9am, reduce at 9pm and paintings six days a moment.
Pace there used to be some development next Beijing cracked ailing at the nation’s tech giants in 2021, Qu indicated she nonetheless demanded lengthy hours from her personnel. In a single video, she stated PR workers had to be to be had 24 hours a hour and may just by no means walk on leisure.
Many workers stated the new tech sector slowdown and large-scale activity cuts had revived long hours amid intense festival. In alternative cases of difficult practices, PDD Holdings has tracked and sued former workers who violate non-compete contracts, moment social media staff Kuaishou has begun to push out personnel above the moment of 35.
Baidu particularly has struggled to reinvent itself as its seek ad industry has stalled and bets on alternative industry traces have arise decrease. The crowd has lately long gone all in on synthetic wisdom, vying to be China’s solution to OpenAI.
Advisable
Via Thursday, Qu had got rid of the movies from her Douyin account and apologised, pronouncing she had “earnestly read peoples’ opinions and criticisms” and would “deeply reflect” on them.
“I sincerely apologise that my videos have caused external misunderstandings about Baidu’s values and culture,” she wrote on social media.
Amid the talk, some other video unfold on Chinese language social media appearing Qu coping with a destructive article from the South China Morning Publish newspaper.
The clip presentations a paper doll hung up in Baidu’s workplaces with 4 purple knives pointed at “SCMP” written throughout its chest. Qu is not hidden whipping the doll with a rope.
Baidu didn’t straight away reply to a request for remark.
