Pinduoduo: 2021 Shareholder Letter
March 17 2021 - 5:40AM
This year’s shareholder letter comes slightly earlier than usual so
that we can keep everyone updated on some new developments. At our
Board meeting earlier today, the Board approved my resignation as
the Chairman of the Board. Lei will take over as Chairman with
immediate effect while continuing in his existing role as CEO. As I
step down from the Board and relinquish my executive
responsibilities at Pinduoduo, the 1:10 super voting rights
attached to my shares will be removed. I will further entrust the
voting rights of these shares to the Board, which has been guiding
Pinduoduo in the past 3 years. At the same time, I pledge these
shares to another three years of lock-up; they will not be sold.
I stepped down from the CEO position on July 1st
last year, with the plan to fully transition the Chairman role to
Lei one year from then. Two factors have prompted us to accelerate
this transition.
First, the intensifying, and to a certain
extent, distorted competition in some area has made me realize that
the traditional approach of competing through scale and efficiency
has its inevitable limitations. To change this, we must take action
on deeper and more fundamental issues and seek answers from core
technologies and the fundamental theories that underpin them.
Although Pinduoduo is still a young company with a long runway for
growth, it is about the right time to explore what’s next if we
want the same quality and pace of growth in 10 years. As the
founder of this company, I am probably the most suitable person to
take on this task by stepping out of the business and the comfort
zone to embark on a journey of exploration. It would be all the
better if the journey is also aligned with my personal
interests.
Second, the pandemic has caused dramatic changes
externally, which accelerated the evolution of our operations and
management team internally. Pinduoduo has transformed from a pure
asset-light third-party model to becoming more asset-heavy, with
new investments in warehouses, agriculture-focused logistics, and
upstream sources of agriculture products. New businesses have
sprouted and grown rapidly internally. Not only have these new
developments stimulated Pinduoduo, they have also birthed and
groomed a new generation of leaders and managers. It is time to let
them shape the Pinduoduo they aspire to build. So, what will
Pinduoduo become in the future? I cannot say for sure, but I am
happy to share my thoughts.
First, Pinduoduo will always be a company that
puts the interests of its consumers and societal value first. The
philosophy of “Benefit All”, “People First”, and “More Open” that
we have practiced will be more distinctly acknowledged by the
industry and the public. Pinduoduo, being a platform that serves
the masses, will make every possible improvement – significant or
invisible – prudently bit by bit and strive to create value for
consumers and society. And because of this, it will increasingly be
embraced by the public. The various obstacles it faces will slowly
be broken and overcome, even if the journey may require some time
and may be bumpy. Nonetheless, “Benefit All”, “People First”, and
“More Open” should be the direction, as they will bring new life
and hope in this new era.
Next, Pinduoduo will be an imaginative and
constantly innovating company. Our vision of “Costco+Disney” will
be more distinctly and vividly presented to our users. Even though
we are still at the very early stage of “More savings, More fun”,
we have already sensed the subtle differences sparked by the
multiplier effect of compounding “More savings” with “More fun” and
felt the tremendous force behind this chemical reaction that makes
1+1>2. Our execution and experiences of “More savings, More fun”
over the past few years have led us to believe that this vision is
rewarding, fun, hopeful and worth pursuing.Finally, Pinduoduo will
endeavor to become a mature and global public organization. In our
2018 Shareholder Letter at the time of IPO, we said that, “We
envision Pinduoduo to be an organization that reports to the
public. It should create value for the public, rather than being a
show-off trophy for a few or carrying too much personal color. We
want it to be an independent organization that brings value to the
society with its unique organizational structure and corporate
culture. Most importantly, it should continue to strive to better
itself.” At that time, Pinduoduo was still a child just starting
elementary school. Even though it has only been three years since
then, Pinduoduo has become a youth entering adolescence. Observing
its rapid transformation and growth, I am both joyful and anxious.
Pinduoduo will have its own growth journey regardless of whether I
am nervous, excited, or frightened as its guardian. I hope
that my stepping down as the Chairman of the Board will aid this
young person into independent adulthood.What will I be doing after
stepping down? I want to work on research in the fields of food
sciences and life sciences. Pinduoduo has its roots in agriculture.
In the past years, Pinduoduo’s contribution in agriculture has been
mainly in downstream distribution and improving midstream supply
chain efficiency. We have created greater income for farmers and
savings for consumers by streamlining the supply chain and matching
supply and demand more efficiently. However, improved efficiency in
distribution and sales still does not fundamentally add value to
agricultural products, nor inherently improve our health
significantly. What can we do if we were to take a step further and
go beyond efficiency improvements?For example, through managing the
farming process, can we implement reliable and effective control of
harmful heavy metal content in potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes,
etc, while improving their micronutrient content in a managed and
standardized manner? If the tomato could be cultivated such that
every single fruit is packed with the optimal amount of Vitamin C
and other micronutrients our bodies need, would our quality of life
be much improved?Or, if we could better comprehend how our bodies
would react to and be affected by the different plant and animal
proteins we consume, and then incorporate these insights into the
synthetic production of alternative meats, could we create a next
generation of meat that is simultaneously healthier, greener, and
more sustainably supplied?Taking one step further, if we further
research into the protein structures and their traits in the human
body, could we build on the work of the 2016 Nobel Prize in
Chemistry Laureates on molecular machines to produce protein-based
molecular motor that can travel through the blood vessels in the
brain and unclog them to prevent strokes?When we are young, our
teachers always ask us what we aspire to become when we grow up.
Like many others, I declared that I wanted to be a scientist.
Alas, in the blink of an eye, I am already in my forties. It
is probably unlikely for me to become a true scientist. But if I
work hard and combine the chemistry that I loved in high school,
the computer science that I learnt in university, and the operation
experiences I acquired at work, maybe I can still make something
meaningful happen. Though I can no longer become a true scientist
myself, I would feel very lucky and blessed if I have the chance to
become a research assistant to a future, possibly great,
scientist.
For investor and media inquiries, please contact:
Pinduoduo Inc.
investor@pinduoduo.com
internationalmedia@pinduoduo.com
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