Thread by @ruima

So Pinduoduo $PDD Colin Huang resigned as Chairman, giving up his voting rights to the Board, to pursue an interest in the life sciences. Some folks seem to think this is bc "all billionaires are afraid" in China. I'd like to give a bit more context: 👇

1/ PDD is ruled by Partnership (a max of 5). The Partnership controls the Board and CEO nomination. Does Colin really cede all that much control? Most think not. He seems really involved still in large strategic decisions, ie going into CGB community grp buying, for example.

2/ Per employees, he hasn't been involved operationally for a while, as in, no one on staff directly reports to him. It's all to CEO or COO or both, and both of these have been w him for 10 yrs or more. So this is a team that's pretty cohesive.

3/ Duan Yongping, the billionaire mentor who is also one of his angels, & the guy who made BKK successful and is behind the OPPO VIVO empire (also OnePlus, J&T, etc.) did the SAME thing at age 40. He retired as well from operations. But he continued investing.

4/ BTW, Duan did this 20 yrs ago. He is 60 now. It was unconventional for the time, and I guess it remains so today, but it's worked well for him, and I assume his protege Colin wants to replicate. They went to same alma mater, Duan took him to Warren Buffett lunch in 2006.

5/ That being said, there are obvious bumps in the road for PDD. The co is caught in a pretty bad news cycle. Ppl were pissed abt not just the 996 death but the way the co handled it. There was also an employee claiming to be fired for speaking truth abt working conditions.

6/ The latest scandal is bootleg books. PDD has a counterfeit prob, but its customer svc said "bootleg is not fake" leading to more public uproar. Now I dunno if there is some kinda smear campaign going on but like I said, bad news cycle. Maybe Colin feels the bullseye.

7/ Note that counterfeits are a big priority for the govt these days. Unequivocally they've said it's the platform's responsibility. It seems mainly around food safety, medicines, etc. esp for seniors, but since PDD has emphasis on agricultural goods now, they need to be careful.

8/ Anyway, everyone found it surprising he resigned. But PDD is not your typical company. We don't even know who most of the “people with power" are. (They're not the ones on the website.) I'm not sure you can use the conventional ways to think abt the co or its leadership.

9/ I'm not one to give absolute answers when I don't know the truth w certainty. I just think it's pretty silly to link "PDD beats Ali" (in just active buyers) as related to Colin's resignation. For one, his resignation as CEO last yr was supposed to be first step.

10/ Two, if we wanna be all gossipy abt it, the guy has had health issues in the past (at 33) and almost quit before. He's obsessed w investing, and he wouldn't be the first Chinese billionaire to focus on life sciences. See Chen Tianqiao of Shanda.
onezero.medium.com/the-chinese-bu…

11/ So there you go. There are many challenges for Pinduoduo, each investor has to figure out which are the right ones to focus on for themselves.

And seriously, why does no one care there's still no CFO? 🤔 /end