A Chinese tech executive has reportedly been fired after a series of viral videos exposing his autocratic management style sparked a public relations crisis.
Qu Jing, vice president of Chinese search giant Baidu, was seen shouting at a colleague who was struggling with a recent breakup. I’m not your mother. All I care about is your results.” wall street journal Previously reported.
In other videos (most of which were posted on Douyin, TikTok’s sister platform in China), Qu berates her subordinates for not wanting to work on weekends, and complains that her late-night work messages are being used by one of her employees. dismissed a complaint that a crying child had been bothered.
“Why should it matter to me that your child is crying?” she said in another highly viral clip seen by the Journal.
yet another place Strange video posted on XQu, who previously worked as a public relations officer for fellow Chinese tech giant Huawei, was seen hitting a cutout of a person with a white rope.
The stick figure is wearing the words “SCMP” under a picture of a knife, and according to the Asia Tech account that posted the video, the China Morning Post, which published negative news about the executive, It is said to represent
The video went viral, and after facing a wave of backlash, Koo posted the video on his Douyin account, saying he tried to do a good job but lacked patience and failed to adopt a “proper approach.” I replaced it with an apology video. According to the Journal, he manages others.
Baidu Chief Executive Robin Li has been furious with Qu since Thursday, when public anger soared, the Journal reported.
He then fired Mr. Qu.
Mr. Qu’s comments at work were “inappropriate and did not represent or reflect Baidu’s actual culture or values,” a person familiar with the matter told the Journal, adding that company management subsequently He pointed out that he had agreed to review the
In a statement released Friday, Baidu’s head of human resources acknowledged there were problems within the company, including pressure on employees to work overtime, but insisted the company would continue to improve.
Much of the backlash Koo received came from China’s Generation Z workers, who are distancing themselves from China’s harsh workplace culture.
For example, in 2019, Alibaba’s co-founder championed the “996” trend created by Chinese tech workers, meaning people work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.
Ma called the concept a “huge blessing,” but the younger employees who joined the company no longer have that concept.
“The capitalists don’t even want to pretend now,” one user on Chinese social media platform Weibo wrote in a reply to Koo’s video, according to the paper. “They just handed down their bloody rules to the people like greedy invaders.”
Even the Communist Party-affiliated Youth Daily, in an editorial Thursday reviewed by the Journal, called the incident an example of “wolf culture” and a byproduct of the country’s market economy.
State media said the backlash against Ku was “a reaction against wolf culture by human nature.”
Baidu stock has fallen more than 6% in the U.S. and more than 3% in Hong Kong this week as the company struggles with negative press.
Representatives for Baidu did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
