Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This is a touching story in which an once well-known enterprise played on its own and finally got rid of itself.

In the growth process of this generation in 8090, Xunlei was once a company with a strong sense of existence, and the download completed that "Ding", which once stirred the souls of countless people. This reminds Uncle face of the glorious years of this wonderful sound every lonely night in college, with his brother in the upper bunk under the dim lamp.

In the era of PC, Thunderbolt as a download tool is the same as that year's QQ, it can be said to be necessary to install the machine. But later Xunlei did not like Tencent, NetEase, what big waves in the mobile Internet era, on the contrary, it is declining, now can only rely on card download network speed to cut the few remaining users again.

So why didn't Xunlei, which was in its prime, fail?

As we all know, because of piracy, Xunlei's download business has been walking in a grey area, and it is difficult for enterprises to get rid of genetic inertia and difficult transformation.

But the ulterior motives hidden behind the interests are even more surprising.

Thunderbolt this company in infighting, cutting leeks and other bad behavior, is simply a walking industry wonderful work, others are afraid of their own bad, like what serious illness, he is afraid that he is too good.

In 2020, Xunlei Group suddenly issued a notice accusing CEO Chen Lei of embezzling a large amount of funds by taking advantage of his position, as well as illegal and deceptive means to transfer Xunlei's assets and core technical personnel to the company he controlled.

At the end of the announcement, it was also affectionately written: I hope Chen Lei will return home as soon as possible for investigation. It belongs to a clear indication that Chen Lei has run away with guilt.

As a respectable listed company, this is not the first time that Xunlei has sued the top management of the company.

Three years ago, Yu Fei, a former senior vice president of the Xunlei Group, was also sued by the Xunlei Group for position misappropriation, saying that while the Philippines was in office, he embezzled the company's assets and was suspected of job-related crimes. Interestingly, Chen Lei was also involved in the case of Yu Fei's defendant.

When the company is big, there are all kinds of "talents", and management confusion is common, but there are not many people who can sue former executives one by one. After all, under normal circumstances, people fight back, the basic face is still a little bit.

In order to make it easier to understand, let me give you an account of the whole story:

On November 28, 2017, Xunlei's official Weibo issued an announcement, pointing out that Thunderbolt big data's "Xunlei Finance", "Xunlei easy loan", "Xunlei Mini Game" and "Xunlei Love Trading" are not currently operated by Xunlei. And Xunlei Group's shares in the company of Xunlei big data have been secretly diluted by Yu Fei, the person in charge, losing the decision-making power, so the group will withdraw the authorization of the trademark. Do not take any responsibility for these products, I hope you will invest carefully.

When Xunlei Group issued this announcement, CEO was Chen Lei, and the person in charge of Xunlei big data was Yu Fei.

After discovering that he had been diss by the parent company, Xunlei Finance quickly came forward, saying that the establishment of Xunlei big data, approved by the Xunlei board of directors, using the Xunlei trademark to carry out business was protected by the agreement, and now it is obviously not moral to take back the authorization.

Since you are not benevolent, don't blame me for being unjust.

In its reply, Xunlei Finance stressed that the incident was the revenge of Chen Lei, the current CEO of Xunlei, on Xunlei big data. Because the playing with guest coins developed by Chen Lei is an illegal product, and Xunlei big data is unwilling to be in cahoots with him, so he maliciously planted it.

Followed by mutual revelations, letters from lawyers and other palace fighting dramas. When you look at it, you all call a good guy!

After mediation, the matter was settled temporarily, but in 2020, Chen Lei, the plaintiff of that year, became the defendant again because of the same charge.

Three years ago, Yu Fei was accused of biting CEO Chen Lei for illegal fund-raising, saying that he did not want to be in cahoots with him. Three years later, Chen Lei was accused of following suit, biting that there was something wrong with Xun Lei and wanted him to take the blame.

I have to say, although the business of Xunlei is not very good, but this corporate culture of "seniors put it into practice, future generations emulate", it is called precision and in place.

As a listed company on NASDAQ, senior executives export such scandals as enriching their own pockets, corruption, and threats to each other on the public platform. This kind of coquettish operation, which does not treat everyone as an outsider at all, has caused a devastating blow to the share price of Xunlei.

# 02 it can be seen that the management problem of Xunlei is the biggest BUG in the whole enterprise.

As the old saying goes, "everything is man-made". Once something goes wrong, things can hardly be done.

Here I would like to tell you something else about Chen Lei:

Chen Lei graduated from the computer Science Department of Tsinghua University with a master's degree in the United States. he was once the president of Tencent Cloud Computing Company. Later, he was introduced by Xiaomi Lei Jun and joined Xunlei.

As for the embezzlement of his position, this is what the news says:

"Chen Lei, through the former senior vice president Dong haddock, netted a group of fellow villagers and girlfriends from Hegang, Heilongjiang, and placed them in key positions in the company to extract company funds through illegal means such as fictitious trading links and the preparation of false contracts, involving a huge amount of money."

How much information is there in this short paragraph? let me unravel it for you.

Dong haddock is a former senior vice president of Thunderbolt, not only high-level, but also good-looking. She is a confidant brought by Chen Lei from Tencent. From Tencent's ordinary public relations, he became the senior vice president of Xunlei.

I believe that when you see this, you all smell gossip.

Chen Lei is a Christian, and when questioned by the board of directors, he swore on his Christian dignity that he and haddock were only colleagues, but the various revelations later rubbed the word Christian reputation on the ground.

Those who are familiar with the gossip routine must know that in this day and age, swearing is basically tantamount to a real hammer.

Chen Lei and Dong Cock already had an improper relationship when they worked in Tencent, and it is said that Dong Cod asked for a year off in the United States to give Chen Lei a baby.

I don't know if it's improper to have children.

As for the matter of "recruiting a group of fellow villagers and girlfriends of haddock to be placed in the company's positions", it is really strange to say. In theory, at my uncle's age, I was no stranger to the operation of going through the back door, but one of the details almost shook my waist.

After Chen Lei joined Xunlei, he set up a new company called Netheart Technology. He asked Dong cod to hire two technical experts from his hometown in Hegang, Heilongjiang Province, to act as "blockchain technical consultants" in the name of net core science and technology, but after the thunderstorm in Chen Lei's incident, we learned that the two technical advisers were actually relatives of Dong cod-a couple of farmers in their sixties.

The two peasant experts didn't see any consulting fees at all, and the money ended up in the cod's pocket.

You say that this kind of money collection means that my second uncle, who has never been to school, is like the behavior of an elite who came from Tsinghua University and once worked in Microsoft and Google.

And I really do not understand, how much is this batch of consultancy fees, it is worth Chen Lei to bury his good future? Of course, it is also possible that the lice are not itchy and rotten to the root, but these little things are nothing.

Although it is said that "everything is man-made", as the old saying goes, "it is up to heaven to plan things".

In the past, the coal boss fooled around every day, and the coal mine business was still booming, but then the industry failed, and so did the coal boss. Therefore, an enterprise is still not good, it is still in the business.

The second reason for the decline of Thunderbolt is that the core download business has shrunk, and Thunderbolt's attempt at multi-domain transformation has not been successful.

Download, is the core business of Thunderbolt, but to the Internet era, the serious loss of download business, so that Xunlei pre-accumulated advantages have been completely lost.

The main reasons depend on these four aspects:

First, with the development of Internet technology in China, all kinds of rising stars begin to shine in the market. With Youai Teng and other online video platforms, coupled with the convenient viewing of mobile devices, the demand for downloading movies using Xunlei is reduced, resulting in a natural loss of users.

Second, Thunderbolt as a download tool, its practicality has been developed to the extreme by the old drivers. I don't know what to say here. I know everything I know. Even in the hot era of fast broadcasting, Xunlei is also very popular with old drivers. But this part of the download business has brought a lot of judicial risks to Xunlei.

Third, eat ugly, do not open members, download speed is too slow, and open members, but also divided into three levels, ordinary members, platinum members, super members. More fees, more advertising, mandatory bundling software, and so on, people are disgusted.

The fourth is the issue of copyright. As a main tool for downloading movies and TV dramas, Xunlei has no film and television rights, which has become Xunlei's pain point and has to lose a lot of money for it every year. And if you run into a top-up member, click on the link, only to find that you can't download it due to copyright problems. The collapse of user reputation caused by this is irreversible.

As a result, under many problems, Thunderbolt had to start to seek transformation on the basis of download business.

In just a few years, Xunlei has developed dozens of products, including financial products, players, games and many other areas, but none of them came out in the end.

Especially in the game industry, it is not only unprofitable, but also has a poor reputation.

Thunderbolt has a business called Niu X Page Tour, that's right, it's called Niu X Page Tour, Niu X. The games they offer are page games like Legend and Blue Moon.

As we all know, there are so many local people in page games. If it's a brother, come and cut me. But searching for the X page of Thunderbolt Niu will bring out a lot of posts accusing it of cheating money. One player said that he spent nearly 30,000 yuan on a game, but the server would be shut down very often, and the promised compensation would not be given. Customer service was often lost, and the appearance was too ugly.

There is also a brother playing a game called Genghis Khan, he and his friends each charged tens of thousands, as a result, a few months later, can not directly log in, no more than 50 online players, completely become a ghost area.

Generally speaking, if the main business is not good, and the sideline cannot be solved, people will engage in finance, cut leeks on the capital plate, and make quick money simply and rudely. Of course, Xunlei, the wave rider of our time, is not willing to lag behind.

As mentioned earlier, during his time in Xunlei, Chen Lei made a thing called playing with guest coins, which was later used by Xunlei Finance to attack Chen Lei.

So, what exactly is playing guest coin? Why did he break the law?

If you want to play with guest coins, you have to mention playing with guest clouds.

Playing Guest Cloud is an intelligent device launched by Xunlei that uses blockchain technology. It will make use of users' idle bandwidth to serve Xunlei, but at the same time, users who contribute bandwidth can also get revenue and privileges such as accelerated download and search for resources.

And playing guest coins is the virtual assets generated by this device. Users can use them to expand cloud disk, block chain, mining, and virtual coins. Does the word sound a bit like air coins?

Yes, this is also the reason why Xunlei Finance says it is illegal to play with guest currency.

After Bitcoin was restricted by the government, playing guest coin became a substitute for Bitcoin. Although playing guest coins can not be converted into cash, they can only buy virtual services like Q coins, but they still retain the attribute that can be traded in private, which gives them room for hype.

Xunlei Financial also said that Chen Lei's play with guest coins did not use blockchain technology at all, which was deceptive, illegal fund-raising in disguise and in violation of documents issued by state ministries.

Bitcoin is famous because its algorithm is open and transparent and it can build its own mining machine, but although it claims to use blockchain technology, it has no public algorithm and can only be dug through their own hardware devices. equivalent to playing guest coin, the rules of the game and the power of life and death are in the hands of Xun Lei, and the value definition is only between their thoughts.

As for whether it violates the law or not, uncle will not dig deeply here, but I have to say that Chen Lei does have two brushes. After the introduction of playing guest coins in 2017, the share price of Xunlei rose beautifully, and the price of playing guest coins also soared 80 times.

With the help of the tuyere, Thunderbolt began to put the core business on the block chain, which can be regarded as a continuation. But the good times did not last long, before long, play guest coins on the rapid depreciation, up to now a dime is not worth, many players lose all their money, funds return to zero.

Through the above events, we can see that the company, from people to its core business, has been broken up in almost all directions in recent years, and it is rotten to the bone. Compared with Tencent and NetEase in the pc era, Tencent and NetEase still enjoy unlimited scenery in the mobile Internet era. Thunderbolt is undoubtedly the other side of the coin, but the question is why, as a trainee who made his debut in the same period, why others can become bigger and stronger, Xunlei can only fall on the wall.

The root cause of the failure of Thunderbolt can be explained by the word "path dependence".

It can be said that Xunlei is a typical dividend-oriented enterprise. In the era of Internet boom with imperfect legal system, the concept of copyright protection is far from universal, and the next piece of learning materials is a kind of rigid demand. As a result, download this business develops abnormally, hiding dirt and dirt. In the era of heavy water and heavy rain, the flow rate also blowout. Traffic is the oil of the new era and the hard currency of the Internet world.

On the basis of traffic, Xunlei allows users to upload and download content, control channels, open membership system, collect fees and make a lot of money through current restrictions and other technical means. In this gray area, you can make easy money without practicing your internal skills. Over a long period of time, people will think that making money is their ability, and such days will last forever. If you get used to making money, you can't make hard money. This is path dependence.

Thunderbolt is a company caught in the curse of dividends. With the advent of the mobile Internet era, traffic has moved to the mobile phone, Xunlei is indifferent. The whole society pays more and more attention to copyright, the gold hoop on its head is getting tighter and tighter, everything is drying up, but it is difficult for enterprises to change.

From doing junk game harvesting users to sending virtual coin harvesting users, Xunlei's approach has a certain degree of speculation, and the purpose is to make quick money simply and rudely. The inertia of path dependence determines that an enterprise will only do what they are familiar with.

The curse of dividends, coupled with the long-term business wandering in the gray area, the pursuit of profit and short-sightedness in the development of enterprises will eventually be poisonous. The infighting among Xunlei executives and the tidbits of CEO mentioned above are all kiwi fruits on this crooked neck tree.

Just imagine, in this cursed company, it is very difficult to produce people with long-term ideas. If a person has no permanent property, he has no perseverance, and if he does business so diligently, it means speeding up breaking the law, so all he can do is to do seven and eight.

After all, man is only a product of the environment.

Among the Internet companies that grew up with Xunlei, Ali made Aliyun business and mastered the core technology, Tencent also dominated the social media business with Wechat, and NetEase was also busy raising pigs for a while, but now Xunlei has been overwhelmed by the tide of the times.

Today, when we talk about the fancy arrangement of Xunlei, we don't want to throw a stone into a well, or to make Xunlei better with the help of criticism. Just try to analyze the development process of Xunlei, sum up some experience, so that friends in life and work can avoid some risks caused by myopia.

When we sigh about the fate of Xunlei, we can look back at our lives, and are we not always trapped in everything we are familiar with?

-END-

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: true stories Research Room (ID:zhengulab), author: uncle Mian

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