Liu Qiangdongs American past, the land of blessing is also the source of disaste

01

In August 2018, the sunshine in Minnesota was beautiful and moving. Liu Qiangdong came here for a week of course study.This is a U.S.-China Ph.D. program in business administration from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. It is co-organized with the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University, and the training is to be completed in China and the United States.

Such twin-city programs typically cater to a fast-rising group of Chinese entrepreneurs, and the average age of students enrolled is 50.Even so, Liu Qiangdong's appearance in this kind of course is still somewhat beyond his worth and status.

Sure enough, Liu Qiangdong enjoyed super star treatment in such a course.In the photo, Brother Dong sat in the best position in the first row of the classroom, without an interpreter next to him, nor did he wear the earphones for simultaneous interpretation like other students.In between courses, he even gave a speech on stage.I don't know how the teachers on the stage would feel about such a distraction.

The purpose of this course is to allow participants to broaden their horizons and better understand American society and markets.Especially in today's moment when the economic outlook is full of uncertainties and the situation is changing rapidly, it is necessary to solve the problems of market expansion and sustainable growth.

This is indeed a major issue that Liu Qiangdong urgently needs to solve.Just over a month ago, on the day of the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival, JD.com had just reached a strategic cooperation with Google to explore new retail in many parts of the world, and also joined forces with its old buddy Wal-Mart to expand global business.

Liu Qiangdong did not come alone, he also brought his children, wife and mother-in-law.They took a private plane from Beijing to Arras to join customs and refuel, and flew directly to Minnesota. At that time, volunteers from Minnesota students drove high-end vehicles to the private airport in Shuangcheng to meet them.

The private jet was bought by Liu Qiangdong after Jingdong went public. The market price of this Gulfstream G650 is as high as 400 million yuan, which is even more upscale than the G550 of Ma Yun and Wang Jianlin.

Liu Qiangdong was treated like a star by Chinese students at Ming University.In the morning, there are students to accompany you to run, in the afternoon to accompany you for a walk or fish, and in the evening to accompany you to drink.Liu Qiangdong can drink very well. There has always been a wine table culture in JD.com. He used to drink baijiu, but he developed the habit of drinking red wine when he came to the United States. Yanghe Blue Classic was replaced by red wine.

On the evening of August 30th, US Eastern Time, Liu Qiangdong’s course at Mingda University ended that day. He gathered with Mingda students and fellow students as usual at a high-end restaurant in St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota.Sister Milk Tea just came back from Boston. After a tiring day, she rested in the hotel and did not go with her.

Liu Qiangdong’s table ordered 32 bottles of wine. Since Liu Qiangdong and Suqian’s mahjong can drink half a catty of alcohol, red wine is unlikely to make him drunk.

However, pouring red wine may make him commit a crime.

Sitting next to Liu Qiangdong was the only girl that night. She just transferred to Ming University two weeks ago and was persuaded by the vice president of Carlson College to come to the dinner.She was drunk a lot that night, and Liu Qiangdong drove the girl back to the apartment she rented outside the school.

The balance of fate tilted at this moment.Later, at the suggestion of the school, the girl called the Minnesota police.The police arrested Liu Qiangdong on suspicion of rape in a lounge of Ming University at 11:00 p.m., and he was not released on bail until 4:00 p.m. the next day.

When the most well-known media in the United States published news, they all used Liu Qiangdong's mugshot in the police station.Liu Qiangdong was wearing an orange vest with a sad face, but his signature white bangs completely confirmed the authenticity of the photo.Many people couldn't believe that this was Liu Qiangdong who was full of vigor on stage, and even less that he was a perfect and well-connected Liu Qiangdong. They insisted that this was a Wall Street conspiracy.

After the news of Liu Qiangdong’s suspected sexual assault spread back to China, a Weibo post he posted in 2012 was found out. This is an outdoor photo taken by Liu Qiangdong casually. Wildflowers on the roadside, you are always sobeautiful.Those who are familiar with him understand that both the pictures and the text style are in line with Liu Qiangdong's personality at the time. He often drove off-road into the desert, and he would also cook himself to make tiger skin peppers and tofu for his employees.It's just that no one thought that after 6 years, this sentence would be taken over and become a metaphor for mocking him.

When Liu Qiangdong was caught in the vortex of sexual assault, only two people expressed their support publicly: one was Zhou Libo, who had just been released from US custody, and the other was Sun He, a high-speed rail man.

Zhou Libo deservedly came from a talk show. His support was straightforward and vivid. He said that both of them fell on the gun.The two men trapped by the gun seemed to cherish each other at this moment.It's just that Taotao is still worried about the army in the United States, while Brother Dong is only worried about by the police station.

Liu Qiangdong left the United States like lightning.48 hours later, in an official news release by JD.com, Liu Qiangdong was still wearing a suit and smiling.

But at this moment, what Liu Qiangdong didn't know was that at Ming University, that study room had become a new tourist attraction.On the Internet, college students in Ming Dynasty posted photos of the incident with Brother Dong.

02

Liu Qiangdong first went to the United States in 2000, from Los Angeles in the west to Las Vegas and then to New York in the east.

Liu Qiangdong was shocked by the prosperity of imperialism, just like he saw the Jinling Hotel in Nanjing 12 years ago.At this time, his JD Multimedia had several stalls in Zhongguancun, earning a lot of money by reselling recorders and optical and magnetic products.

Before 2007, Liu Qiangdong's business was operated with its own funds most of the time, and it snowballed like a snowball, and it grew a little bit.He has no exposure to venture capital, let alone how to write a business plan.

But the capital made JD.com and Liu Qiangdong later.So much so that when e-commerce was most prosperous, many entrepreneurs used JD.com to convince investors.JD.com is expanding rapidly and burning money.

In April 2010, Hillhouse Capital invested USD 265 million in JD.com.Two weeks later, Zhang Lei introduced Liu Qiangdong to Wal-Mart headquarters for a visit, and learned logistics and warehousing from this company, which has the largest business scale in the world and is second only to the Pentagon in information transmission and processing efficiency.

Liu Qiangdong stayed in Arkansas for four or five days, and he couldn't wait to find Zhang Lei when he came back. He seemed very excited: I want to transform the entire JD.com.In Zhang Lei's words, Liu Qiangdong originally crawled out of a mud pit, but now he wants to change JD.com into an armored vehicle.

This is the magic of America.A young man born in a mud pit, saw the charm of prosperity in the United States, had dreams and aspirations, and then learned advanced culture and experience in the United States.A small business started to have the possibility of becoming bigger.

Wal-Mart was so open to JD.com at the time, but also for the purpose of cooperation, hoping to become a shareholder of JD.com.The two sides quickly conducted investment negotiations, which lasted more than half a year, and the valuation was settled, but in the end Liu Qiangdong did not agree.

Wal-Mart proposed at the time that it must eventually be able to control JD.com until it is fully acquired.By accepting Wal-Mart's conditions, JD's management and shareholders can get a large amount of cash to exit.The people at Wal-Mart obviously did not do a good background check. This is what Liu Qiangdong is most taboo about. Although the e-commerce war burns money, he has never let go of the issue of controlling shares. Even now Liu Qiangdong only holds 100% of JD.comMore than a dozen shares, but his voting rights are as high as 80%.In the words of Liu Qiangdong, you cannot control the board of directors, you can only politely say: Please go out.

Judging from the follow-up development, Liu Qiangdong’s insistence was right. Wal-Mart later turned around to acquire Yihaodian, which eventually became a failed acquisition. Wal-Mart also packaged its online business in China to JD.com.

But JD.com didn’t intend to give up Wal-Mart’s investment at the time.Later, Liu Qiangdong went to the United States in person and had lunch with the two principals of Wal-Mart.Liu Qiangdong deserves to be an old Jianghu. He did not directly talk about the price, but talked about the nature of new retail and his understanding of new retail.After the meal, Walmart made a big concession on the price of the deal.Later, Wal-Mart continued to increase its stake in JD.com, and now it has become one of JD.com's three major shareholders.

Later, going to the United States with problems became a magic weapon for Liu Qiangdong to seek help from the outside world.

Liu Qiangdong's management philosophy at the beginning has always been relatively traditional, and the investors reallyIt's heartbroken.After the Russian investment group DST invested 500 million US dollars in JD.com, it found that if it wants to convince Liu Qiangdong, it still has to rely on the big dye vat of the United States.Soon, DST also arranged a trip to the United States for Liu Qiangdong, and visited Facebook, Groupon and Zynga, which are companies invested by DST in the United States.

This visit allowed Liu Qiangdong to see the power of new technology companies.In mid-2011, Liu Qiangdong went to the United States to visit the logistics center of Amazon Zappos.There are no employees who are busy sorting goods and running around here. A large turntable is constantly rotating, like a laundry, and automatically transfers the shoes to be picked up to the pickers.Liu Qiangdong was greatly inspired by this automated assembly line. Later, JD.com built JD.com’s logistics center Asia No. 1 by referring to Amazon’s model, which was a step further than Zappos. Not only shoes, but also large and small goods were automatically sorted on the assembly line..

03

In 2010, Li Ruiyu, JD.com’s third Guan Peisheng, accompanied Liu Qiangdong on a business trip to the United States to participate in the activities of JD.com investor Tiger Fund.Liu Qiangdong carries English books and dictionaries with him, and when he hears an unfamiliar word, he has to ask what it means and write it down.The next day, when he spoke to someone, the word came up in his conversation.

He even asked his companions not to speak Chinese with him, but to practice English.This kind of persistence and perseverance is difficult for ordinary people to understand, so on his desk, there is a sign Wen Xin Ti Shi: English only.When he was at the listing appreciation meeting, the outside world also heard Liu Qiangdong's speech in Suqian English for the first time. Although he stumbled, the effect was surprisingly good.

He seizes every opportunity to practice English.On April 27, 2015, Liu Qiangdong gave a speech at Harvard. He originally wanted to speak Suqian English, but found that the guest in front of him was Zhang Lei, the founder of Hillhouse Capital. He is an important investor of JD.com and a top student of Yale.Zhang Lei considered that most of the people at the scene were Chinese students studying abroad, so the speech that day was in Chinese.This pushed Liu Qiangdong, who appeared later, into an embarrassing situation. In order to avoid making mistakes, he quickly switched to Suqian Mandarin. He only said one sentence in English that he didn't know from whom to learn: too young too naive.

The United States seems to have changed everything about Liu Qiangdong, but Dong Ge seems to disagree with the deep value system that supports the American dream.This makes Liu Qiangdong, who has problems going to the United States, always seem to be floating on the water.

For example, the United States failed to change Dong Ge's management philosophy.Although Liu Qiangdong has long understood the management problems of himself and JD.com.

As early as 2009, Liu Qiangdong went to China Europe Business School to learn the management of enterprises and the way of employing people.Liu Qiangdong also specially sent more than a dozen executives to CEIBS for advanced studies.

China Europe International Business School

Liu Qiangdong called this his alma mater, and he met a group of entrepreneurs here.NVC Lighting had a fierce equity dispute. Liu Qiangdong did not hesitate to offend Yan Yan, the then investment circle boss, and supported Wu Changjiang, a classmate of CEIBS.Later, Liu Qiangdong recruited CEIBS classmates Long Yu and Zhao Guoqing to JD.com.

Most entrepreneurs in China have not learned the classics of management in the Western sense.As far as the eye can see, many entrepreneurs in China still have a family style.Liu Qiangdong is no exception.

But this kind of advanced study still has some help.Later, Liu Qiangdong went to Harvard Business School and Columbia University. He went there for several months and worked hard to learn advanced management concepts and adapt to modern management needs.A notable effect is that the executives of JD.com were pleasantly surprised to find that the boss who returned from the study tour not only lost more than 30 catties, but also became more gentle and patient.He will wait for everyone to finish speaking before speaking, and he can even hold back his dissatisfaction and take the lead in applauding.He also no longer intervenes in the company's business in every detail, and don't ask him to sign for 5 million cooperation.

Before that, Liu Qiangdong was a strong manager. In the eyes of the outside world, he valued love and righteousness, and called the courier brothers at the bottom. This is the real him; but on the other hand, what the executives felt was thatWith irrefutable authority and almost fierce overbearing, the VP under him is often scolded bloody by him.This is another real him.

But when he went to the West to learn from it, it is obvious that the hidden dangers of Liu Qiangdong and JD.com have not really been solved.Today, Liu Qiangdong is deeply in a crisis of public opinion, and the most worrying point of outside commentators is that once Dong Ge really wants to go to jail, JD.com will immediately have no leader.

For so many years, Jingdong has no second-in-command or co-founder, and Liu Qiangdong keeps his word.He once thought about bringing in professional managers from the outside as executives, but in the end he recruited these people and opened it himself.Liu Qiangdong's limitation is that he does not trust professional managers and has not found a way to build a wolf-like executive team.

American investors are not stupid.Everyone has doubts about a company where one person has the final say.

Therefore, on the eve of the company's listing, Liu Qiangdong specially ran out for a study tour. He just wanted to show investors that JD.com can still operate without Liu Qiangdong.

He was quite satisfied with this performance art afterwards.Tencent originally wanted to launch a fierce attack on JD.com and support Paipai.com when Liu Qiangdong was not at home.JD.com disrupted Tencent’s wishful thinking. Liu Chiping found that the gap between Paipai.com and JD.com has widened instead of narrowing. Tencent made up its mind to invest in JD.com.The most valuable traffic portal is open to JD.com.

Unfortunately, someone from JD.com revealed afterwards that although Liu Qiangdong left JD.com for a short time, he still had to remotely participate in every meeting of JD.com every day. Even if he did not speak after connecting, Liu Qiangdong had to be present.In fact, Dongge knows better than anyone that Jingdong cannot do without himself.

04

At the beginning of 2013, Liu Qiangdong, who had always been high-profile on Weibo, suddenly disappeared without warning.He deleted all the previous Weibo, and Liu Qiangdong, who loves to use exclamation points, only left a low-key, low-key, low-key on the homepage!signature.

Back in the day, this guy from northern Jiangsu, who was so angry at the air on Weibo, used price wars to stir up flames everywhere, hanging and beating Dangdang Li Guoqing and Suning Sun Weimin one by one. His colleagues called him a price butcher, and the media also called himThe Golden Watering Can Award was presented.

How could a person in the rivers and lakes be willing to leave the rivers and lakes?Afterwards, people found out that Liu Qiangdong went to study abroad in the United States on the other side of the ocean when he disappeared.

In the autumn of that year, the weather in America was particularly pitiful.Tsinghua student Zhang Zetian studied at Barnard College in New York, USA as an exchange student. This is an all-girls school that nominally belongs to Columbia University.Unexpectedly, just a month after Zhang Zetian arrived, a thief ran into her and took away her computer, wallet and study notes.It happened on the campus of Columbia University, and it was done by an Asian girl.

Zhang Zetian, who reported to the police station for the first time in his life, may miss Tsinghua very much.When Zhang Zetian first entered Tsinghua University, she also lost her student card. She quickly posted a post on Renren and rewarded her with a meal.The boys from Tsinghua University were overjoyed when they heard about this incident, and they were blown up one by one.Beihang Sao Nian, who was 2 kilometers away, couldn't hold back anymore, and expressed their intention to join the card hunting army.

It was also in the autumn of this year that another Chinese businessman had just arrived in New York. Liu Qiangdong was determined to get out of his busy business and devote himself to the good time of college.

Liu Qiangdong, who is not familiar with the place where he was born, also encountered embarrassing things on the first day of his arrival.Considering that school will start the next day, Liu Qiangdong, who took an overnight international flight, ran to get a haircut.He sat there, and the barber asked him what hairstyle he wanted. Dong Ge's answer was straight: do whatever you want.Then he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

When he woke up, he realized that it was a nightmare. The black hairdresser gave him an African-style haircut, and a hairstyle that he had never imagined in his life came out. Liu Qiangdong was very depressed. Later, when he mentioned this to others, he used his fingersHe made gestures with his head.And that day when he returned home, he took a selfie with his mobile phone, not forgetting to blackmail himself.

The first stop of his study tour in the United States was at Harvard Business School. He used the Spring Festival of 2012 to study for more than 40 days.In the next year, he basically stayed in the United States, and even the 618 e-commerce promotion did not return to Beijing to take charge.secondThe station was chosen at Columbia University, and he even changed his local mobile phone number. Domestic executives can only communicate with him by email.

The two were destined to meet in a foreign country.Morningside Heights, where Columbia is located, is at the junction of black Harlem and Hispanic Harlem.Cafe.In the United States, where socializing is popular, they create an excellent space for everyone to communicate.

Constrained by cultural differences and language barriers, many Chinese international students have gone abroad, but they still stay in Chinese circles, speak Mandarin, and eat Chinese food.

Zhang Zetian is well-known in the circle of international students, because the photo of holding milk tea in her hand became the first batch of people in China to become popular on the Internet, so even when she was at Columbia University, international students often rushed to take photos with her.And the spare time of milk tea is also quite rich, shooting fraternity posters, guest hosts, performing dances and various alumni association activities.

Well-known entrepreneurs in China soon met the pure and lovely internet celebrity milk tea sister.The relationship between a domineering CEO always progresses rapidly. Only a few months after they met, Zhang Zetian mentioned Liu Qiangdong for the first time on Weibo, and praised him as a kind and humble CEO who loves life.The relationship has gone through several rounds of reversals, and Liu Qiangdong also moved from the headlines of the technology version to the headlines of the entertainment version at this time.

I have to admire the transformation of capitalism or love on his image.For many years before that, Liu Qiangdong was a local entrepreneur who built rockery in the office and acted as an entertainer with a guitar on the street. He was greasy and thick, and his clothes were poor.

He was determined to bid farewell to his past self. He added eggs with milk for breakfast, boiled cabbage at noon, and blueberries with yogurt at night. He lost 36 catties in four months after studying abroad.When a warm and confident Richard in a suit and leather shoes appeared, it really surprised the world.

Liu Qiangdong has become very concerned about his external image.For the first time, he used a professional photographer for a press conference.Even after the interview, he personally requested that the photos he had reviewed be distributed to the media, and repeatedly entrusted the media to use photos from professional photographers.

05

On May 22, 2014, Liu Qiangdong once again stood in New York.This was the highlight moment of his life. JD.com landed on Nasdaq with a valuation close to 30 billion US dollars, becoming the largest IPO of a Chinese private enterprise on Nasdaq.

The people of Suqian, thousands of miles away, sat in the yard of Liu Qiangdong's hometown early on with a bench, waiting in front of the live broadcast screen to witness the glory of Xiang Yu's hometown together.

At the celebration meeting that night, Liu Qiangdong said a touching sentence: I have experienced two major stages in my life in the past 40 years. In the first 20 years, I went from Suqian to Beijing;Beijing has come to New York.

Two years ago, due to the downturn in the capital market and the low valuation, JD.com, which had been losing money, insisted on postponing its listing under the pressure of investors.

In fact, the outside world did not believe that Liu Qiangdong abandoned his domestic career and went to the United States for further studies just for self-improvement.The most guessed at that time was the listing activities for JD.com.

Liu Qiangdong, who just arrived at Columbia University, quickly launched JD.com's international management trainee program and recruited 6 international management trainees from 5 well-known universities in the United States.Later, when he went to Harvard to give a speech, he also advertised for Jingdong Guan Peisheng.

Liu Qiangdong has always attached great importance to Guan Peisheng, especially these foreign Guan Peisheng. For this reason, he created a WeChat group of 7 people alone, and international Guan Peisheng can go to Tianting at any time.In just two years, Hong Jie, director of JD Finance Baitiao, and Qiu Huang, director of JD Global Shopping, appeared in this group.

On the second day after JD.com went public, Liu Qiangdong held a small-scale celebration banquet at his home in New York State, entertaining more than a dozen executives, investors and employees.He went out to buy ingredients himself, and cooked 14 French dishes for them.

He enjoyed the happiest four months here, and I believe that if anyone in the same industry knows about these four months, they will be mad with envy.But then the colleagues did not go crazy, but a group of nerds started to go crazy when they learned that Liu Qiangdong and Sister Milk Tea were dating.

After falling in love for a year, Liu Qiangdong decided to marry his pregnant milk tea sister, who was his second wife.Their wedding was set in the beautiful Great Barrier Reef, Australia, and they even went back to Columbia to take wedding photos before the wedding.

But one week before Liu Qiangdong's wedding, he had to go to the United States again. This is an irresistible reason. He will accompany the state leaders to visit the United States and participate in a grand event that will be attended by Chinese and American Internet leaders.This rare honor is obviously more precious than marriage.He stood in the first row to the left when taking a group photo. It can be seen that he has won honor and status.

They later went back to Columbia to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, and flew to the beach in Hawaii with their children to whack eggs.With the voice of justice on vaccines and other matters, Liu Qiangdong's fans have become more and more widespread; while the milk tea sister has frequently entered and exited the world's celebrity circles, doing charity projects, and personally operating the JD Jewelry Channel.

When the story develops to this point, everything is enviable: the beauty of the man and the woman, the harmony of the piano and the instrument.At the beginning, the nerds who insisted on the milk tea sister's sugar daddy also realized the reality-the goddess belongs to someone else, and I have nothing.However, this tranquility was quickly broken by this trip to the United States.

The United States has always been Liu Qiangdong's blessed land.he isI got to know international big names here, and I was able to turn from a township entrepreneur to an international entrepreneur; I successfully sent JD.com to NASDAQ, and I was able to beat my opponent more willfully and fiercely;The passage to the middle-aged greasy man.

But now, the United States must have become his source of disaster.The persona he had built over the years collapsed, his dignity was gone, and his net worth lost nearly 3 billion US dollars overnight.

This is all his fault. Although he visited the United States several times a year after becoming famous, he failed to learn the low-key and non-luxury style of the old Wal-Mart who has been staying in the Arkansas countryside; although Dong Ge communicated with the best talents in the top universities in the United States, but it never occurred to him that money and status are not all of the American dream.With capital, he can stand proudly on Wall Street, but Wall Street is not the only one in the United States.

America also has Me Too and 911.There are some things that cannot be suppressed by money and status, or in other words, even if it is to be settled, the price you have to pay is beyond imagination.In the United States, Liu Qiangdong never imagined that his course was far from over. Neither going public nor private jets represent real success. If you cannot comprehend the essence of the Western system that separates the individual from the collective, if you are 400 or 500 years ago,If you don't care about the Protestant movement about morality and dignity after entrepreneurs first entered the stage of history, then, sooner or later, you will pay for it.

The blame can only be blamed. After becoming famous, Liu Qiangdong underestimated some things that should have been valued.