Memories and reflections: My years in a major Internet company

This book reviews the author's career in a large Internet company, explores the phenomenon of involution and corporate culture, provides profound insights for Internet practitioners, and is recommended for reading by professionals.

As an Internet veteran, I have experienced ups and downs for more than a decade. I can be considered a person who has embraced the Internet thigh that has become middle-aged, and has shared the love and vows of love with it... Especially in the experience of working in several large companies, I have reaped the dividends, the gilding, and the world. For most people in large companies, at least those I know or have met, under the continuous blessing of this halo buff, they will unconsciously develop a kind of addiction, paranoia, and an inextricable sense of hypocrisy. The most important thing is that anyone who has been infected will never be able to quit it for the rest of their lives, and they call it "factory taste."

From the perspective of an observer, you (especially the cows and horses in Beijing) may have seen from time to time a group of extremely dedicated people wearing various styles of work cards around their necks on the subway, on the street, and in restaurants. The BAT generation (later the position of B was replaced) is particularly prominent. I am the type of person who will not always wear a work card if there is no need in the company (maybe it is the type you can't stand?), so I am particularly sensitive to such factory-flavored phenomena (I hope it is not purely subjective). At that time, the big factory represented not only the company itself, but also was subtly given various high and powerful value-added hats. This hat seemed to have magic, magnifying the truest side of all kinds of people.

As a person who has been through it, I will now talk about what I have seen and felt in big companies over the years. I am not trying to be inspirational, and I refuse to give chicken soup for the soul. I am just recalling my feelings during that period of time. I write whatever comes to my mind, so please don't take it too seriously. Just treat it as the self-talk of an Internet veteran.

1. Volume! Pain and happiness

Looking back, I have worked in several companies, both large and medium-sized (defined by status, not a single scale), each with its own characteristics and filthiness. Today I will mainly talk about two of the large companies, which are relatively typical and are also a microcosm of the development of the Internet in recent years:

One is famous for its technology, referred to as A, and can be regarded as the ceiling of the Internet industry; the other is famous for its products, referred to as B, and is a national-level application (later surpassed by a newcomer); the former's engineering culture once set off a "localized Silicon Valley trend" in the Internet, and later entrants followed suit; the latter is a place where, under the influence of product culture, everyone is a product manager, and passion, vitality, and creativity are fully reflected here...

These are also among the reasons why countless job seekers and job hoppers dream of them. Behind them are high salaries that far exceed those in most industries, various benefits that ordinary workers in other industries will never enjoy, a battlefield where they can learn and struggle with countless outstanding people and exchange ideas, chips that parents can use to brag in front of relatives, a complete and systematic career path for personal growth and development, an open and inclusive corporate culture, and a corporate culture that encourages and motivates employees to innovate and make breakthroughs... Of course, there is also the most core characteristic of the Chinese Internet: "involution".

Involution originally refers to the phenomenon that after a cultural model has reached a certain final form, it can neither stabilize nor transform into a new higher-level form, but can only continue to become more complex internally. The initial form of involution was still somewhat mild compared to the current stage, and it is very different from now. At least there was no endless internal friction (internal friction between people and things), and it was more reflected in internal healthy competition. Thanks to the dividends of traffic and macroeconomic development, the Internet business developed rapidly at that time; in the rapid development, in order to quickly verify whether a project is reliable, different teams will often do it, which is now called "horse racing." Perhaps everyone only has Tencent's horse racing mechanism in their eyes. In fact, this is the same in other large companies. It's just that Tencent has made a more typical hit through this mechanism.

When I was working at A and B, everyone was working very hard, developing and launching products, iterating and promoting them... Overtime, staying up late, and working on weekends were the norm. Although everyone was very tired, they enjoyed it, and no one complained or complained; especially when you took on multiple key roles, the sense of accomplishment and growth was beyond words. You have the opportunity to discuss with the masters and each role, no matter how ordinary it is, you know a simple truth very clearly: hard work will definitely pay off, year-end bonuses and stock incentives will be rewarded according to merit, and distribution according to work will be fun! Those who did not enter the project were full of envy and pain, but they were happy and satisfied, and even had endless longings. Most people vaguely know what their future will look like (mostly financial freedom), or at least they know that there will be a future...

Unfortunately, the good times didn’t last long. Every feast has to end one day, but no one knew that the feast of China’s Internet giants would end so early.

2. Volume? Those who don’t fight are not my brothers

Let me use Dong Ge’s thought-provoking golden sentence to start our topic: Are you a brother in Dong Ge’s eyes? “No involution, no brotherhood”? In our magical land, involution is a companion product of the Internet, interdependent and mutually causal. If involution in the initial stage is a natural form of struggle, then when the Internet enters middle age, involution has become synonymous with “spiritual Viagra” - perhaps the only experience that makes you feel good is being unable to extricate yourself from all kinds of unpleasant events, which is very sour. All kinds of benefits and incentives in the past are gone, replaced by anxiety and helplessness living in “fear and uneasiness”.

Unfortunately, big companies have once again become the initiators. "Unhappy internal circulation" is like a highly paralyzing virus, spreading in the bones of every practitioner. At the same time, workers who have spent their honeymoon period in big companies will find a phenomenon that everything has changed since they don't know when:

• Those who do more become scapegoats, those with ideas are isolated, and those who are clearly aiming for innovation only find themselves spinning in circles with the same old ideas.
• Those who pick peaches are becoming more and more unscrupulous. Those who can work are not as good as those who can use PPT. Everyone is tiptoeing and shrinking. Those who have many ideas choose to keep their mouths shut.
• Routine affairs require you to prove your own value. You have to prove your worth, try to do what your superiors want you to do, understand your boss's spirit, and rather do nothing than make mistakes because of trying to make a breakthrough.

Everyone is struggling to survive in this invisible cage... Is it too depressing? Is it not positive? Is it a bit alarmist? When you first hear it, you don't understand the meaning of the song, but when you hear it again, you are already in the song. This is the true portrayal of today's workers. The Internet happens to be a typical example. Some people will say that this is a disease! It is a big company disease! Since it is a disease, it must be treated... Is there a medicine?

Judging from the self-reflection that the management of major companies such as Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance have occasionally expressed in the past one or two years, they have not yet found a good solution. At best, they are just treating the symptoms. As long as the machine can still hold on and not fall down, they will just add some oil to the stiff parts and continue to move forward slowly. In this process, the workers have all become cannon fodder under the "prescriptions" that the major companies have prescribed for themselves.

Looking back, it is obviously wishful thinking for a company that makes money without doing anything to get rid of its poison. From Baidu's countless "all in" brainless innovations, to Tencent's shopping spree like an aunt, to Alibaba's self-deception of brainwashing, without exception, they all ended up in failure. The whole process is like what we did when we were children: we would use our fingernails to draw a cross on the mosquito bite to temporarily relieve the discomfort caused by the itch. It was really refreshing at that moment, but it soon returned to its original state, or even more itchy...

In this process, countless workers have become victims of the bosses' self-reflection. It's like a whirlpool. Anyone in the whirlpool will uncontrollably form an inertia of involution, and eventually reach the climax of involution where "others are hell." But sadly, compared with the positive effects of involution in the past, today's involution has become a highly formalized SOP (note: "standard business procedure"): whether it is the reduced lunch break time at Dong Ge's place, the strengthened clock-in requirements, the ineffective slacking rules, or other big companies' attempts to reduce costs and increase efficiency... they are all just self-deceiving and crude showdowns, trying to extend their uncertain future through this one-size-fits-all approach, which is ridiculous.

During the years at Factory A and Factory B, I have seen passions and ebbs and flows. No matter how perfect the start is, it will eventually sink, and no one is spared. Now I feel more and more that involution is like the fate of the Internet. It cannot be escaped or avoided. There is disgust and dependence. Involution, a problem that belongs to the category of sociology, must be solved by management methods. It is really difficult for these executives. You have to know what kind of soil blooms what kind of flowers, and what kind of fruit will be produced; if you are willing to accept such cause and effect and become a part of this cause and effect, then you can continue to work hard. Of course, not everyone has the opportunity to suffer this cause and effect, and it is normal to ask for it but not get it.

3. Engineers and Romantics

Let's talk about "people". I interpret the people in the Internet giants based on my personal preferences and judgment; maybe you can resonate with me, maybe you sneer at me. Let's not talk about right or wrong, just talk about the past. If companies are compared to people, Factory A and Factory B are two typical companies with different temperaments and opposite personalities that I have experienced: the former is more than rational but also stubborn and pedantic, while the latter is emotional and sympathetic but quite pretentious.

Perhaps because there are indeed a large number of cutting-edge and complex technical assumptions that need to be demonstrated and realized, the former usually only look at the cold data indicators in their minds when doing things, and ultimately only consider whether the goals are achieved or not, but lack the consideration of "degree" and "people" in execution; perhaps it is called overcoming difficulties in the right direction, but if used in the wrong direction, it will become hysteria, as if everything can be evaluated and decided through data indicators, and everything can be measured. In daily communication, you rarely hear subjective arguments like "I think, I think, I assume", which basically start with "from the perspective of past data" and end with "the data meets/does not meet expectations after verification". In most cases, you will feel like you are communicating with a highly educated and intelligent machine. It seems that without data, everything cannot be measured and decided.

Is the "engineer culture" of Factory A correct? Perhaps in some fields or directions, such well-reasoned arguments are indeed all that is needed, but in the ever-changing Internet market, data is no longer the only basis for decision-making; but with the prevalence of engineer culture, it is difficult for other roles to stand outside of data to convince these engineers, and there is no chance to even try. In the end, romanticists with ideas and creativity can only leave sadly after being unable to integrate and immerse themselves in the current culture. Most of those who stay have become tools under the engineer culture, which is very boring.

In contrast, Factory B is obviously at the other extreme: it is definitely not a paradise for engineers. If you want to survive as an engineer at Factory B, you need to learn to make your presence felt in various projects, and you also need to be able to endure loneliness - because there are too many ideas, and there are many projects that are promoted and implemented after inspiration bursts out, and products become the first priority. This is all due to the many successful products that Factory B made before "losing its dream" (the products made at that time were really easy to use and always gave people surprises), and it once became the Huangpu Military Academy of Internet products (after "losing its dream", it once had a tendency to be surpassed by up-and-coming companies).

But I don’t know when it started, a company that was good at innovation, courageous in trying new things, and brave in trial and error began to turn to an extreme: because of the utilitarian thinking of Factory B, facing the current situation of numerous projects, it gradually lost patience and craftsmanship. Once the product cannot become the leader in the industry, even if the data and market momentum are still good, or when the production ratio is close to the upper limit, it will be ruthlessly cut off.

The past success gave the romanticists in Factory B an illusion. In the rush for quick success, the internal horse racing mechanism became more cruel and unreasonable. I remember that when Factory B was caught off guard in the short video track, it formally and informally launched a siege campaign. More than a dozen short video-related projects were launched at the same time, which was like "a thousand horses galloping" and coming in full force. In a short period of time, about 17 products were launched one after another, and it was really a scene of loud drums and firecrackers!

However, under the strategy of utilitarianism and one-sided pursuit of data, none of the 17 armies were spared, and the shortest one died before it was a full month. Among them, there were many products that had the potential to break through the circle and differentiate themselves from competitors... When a romanticist begins to become realistic, when an atmosphere full of vitality and creativity is gradually replaced by cold data and short patience, the original intention will inevitably disappear, let alone dreams, so those romanticists who came because of their longing can only become cannon fodder...

Life is like a journey, and I am a traveler. No matter how the environment changes, no matter it is internal circulation or injustice, loneliness or silence, the Internet, this big Buddha, is still a place of worship for many believers. No matter what, even though the current market environment is changing so drastically and disorderly, and various industries are ups and downs, if you ask me to recommend for new entrants to the workplace, I will still insist on recommending the Internet, especially these "big companies", for one reason: if the Internet is the "dragon gate" where ordinary workers (without connections, without family background, and without shortcuts) have the opportunity to cross the level, then big companies are the green channel in the dragon gate, whether in the past, present, or future, there is no other.

Author: Panda is also a cat; Source public account: Internet Phantom Thieves (ID: 1092882)