The middle-level people in the front pole have spoken out: Xia Yiping originally did not pass the interview.

The article was first published on the public account "Intelligent Emergence".

Written by Tian Zhe

Edited by Su Jianxun

Jiyue Automobile has become the focus of attention in the past week. Most of the industry's attention is on Jiyue's current financial gap and the disputes with its major shareholders, Baidu and Geely.

At 2 a.m. on December 16, Xia Yiping, the CEO of Jiyue, posted on Moments in the middle of the night, denying that he had run away, and said: "Strategically, I didn't do well... I was too optimistic in the early stage and didn't foresee the seriousness of the financial problem."

"It's all my fault." Xia Yiping wrote.

Then, why did Xia Yiping become the helmsman of Baidu's car-making project? A former employee of Jiyue recently spoke to "Intelligent Emergence", filling in another piece of the puzzle of Xia Yiping's car-making origin.

"Xia Yiping was not Li Yanhong's first choice. He didn't even pass Li Yanhong's interview at first." The person said that before Xia Yiping, Baidu had contacted many candidates for this position. But with the strong recommendation of other Baidu personnel, Xia Yiping eventually became the CEO of Jiyue.

Among the new car-making forces in China, Jiyue is not the only company on the verge of bankruptcy. New car-making companies such as WM Motor, HiPhi, and Nezha have all been on the "List of Bankrupt New Energy Vehicle Brands".

But unlike the former, Jiyue Automobile is backed by two major shareholders, Geely and Baidu. Jiyue not only has abundant funds, but also can receive the support of the two shareholders in software and hardware technology and vehicle manufacturing. It should have more cost and technical advantages.

In the opinion of the above-mentioned insider, the situation of Jiyue Automobile today can be traced. He believes that the reason is that Xia Yiping and Li Yanhong did not have the same goals from the beginning: Baidu hopes that Xia Yiping will fulfill the duties of a professional manager, while Xia Yiping is more inclined to position himself as the founder of Jiyue and has a "strong possessiveness".

Xia Yiping has served in Ford Motor, Fiat Chrysler and other automobile companies, and participated in mid-level R & D work such as the Internet of Vehicles. In 2015, Xia Yiping participated in the founding of Mobike. Three years later, Mobike was acquired by Meituan for $2.7 billion.

But in his opinion, as the CEO, Xia Yiping is lacking in enterprise operation and management experience.

It is described that in 2021, except for the manufacturing, product planning and after-sales departments of Jiyue Automobile, which were staffed by talents in the automotive industry, the key positions such as brand, human resources, BD (Business Development), digital marketing, social communication, public relations and sales channels were mostly staffed by non-automotive industry employees from Mobike and those close to him, and did not help the enterprise to build the brand from 0 to 1 very well.

In daily management, Xia Yiping also lacks the professionalism of a manager. He recalled that in meetings, Xia Yiping often spoke for several hours, but the content was not targeted at the business, so it was difficult to be effective. The fact that Jiyue Automobile has reached the point where there is no money on the books today is also closely related to the chaotic internal financial mechanism, insufficient cash flow management and the lack of an exit mechanism.

Jiyue Automobile is just one of the enterprises that have experienced the storm during the reshuffle period of China's new energy vehicle industry, but its fate of facing the dissolution of its employees with abundant resources makes its story more instructive.

The following is part of the conversation between "Intelligent Emergence" and an early employee of Jiyue Automobile (hereinafter referred to as "A"), edited.

Intelligent Emergence: Are you surprised that Jiyue has come to this point?

A: I'm not surprised at all.

The goals of Li Yanhong and Xia Yiping were not consistent from the beginning. As the founder of Baidu, Li Yanhong is a very successful generation of Internet entrepreneurs. He recruited Xia Yiping in the hope that Baidu could find a new commercialization path.

But Xia Yiping's behavior is more like treating this enterprise as his private company to realize his personal pursuit. He regards himself as the founder, and his operating style is very similar to that of some private business owners, and he does not respect the law.

For example, he once asked employees to work overtime during the National Day holiday without paying overtime pay. After the Human Resources Department reminded him that this was not in line with the law, he continued to insist on his request. In his work, he is more like a founder who thinks he "owns the company", rather than a professional manager.

Intelligent Emergence: Running a company as if it were your own startup is sometimes considered to have an entrepreneurial spirit, and it is not entirely a bad thing?

A: When nothing goes wrong, it's his own; when something goes wrong, it's the shareholders'. When the company has problems, he chooses to confront Baidu instead of promoting the bankruptcy plan and exit mechanism. He may not even have thought about preparing a plan, and he shifts the blame to the shareholders, causing great harm to the society, the industry, employees, car owners, and suppliers.

Xia Yiping's self-introduction on Xiaohongshu is "The one who knows the most about cars in the AI field, and the one who knows the most about AI in the automotive field". He will present himself as an automotive professional in front of Li Yanhong, creating an image of an "automotive expert". But in the actual internal work, he does not respect the value of automotive professionals and the manufacturing industry, will belittle and attack employees with an automotive background, and even belittle Geely.

Intelligent Emergence: Do you think Baidu made the wrong choice?

A: Yes. Baidu may not have sufficient research on the automotive industry, resulting in an unclear key competence profile when selecting a leader. As a company that excels in technology, Baidu may focus too much on the technical background while ignoring the comprehensive capabilities of the leader in industry experience, financing ability, brand building, business management and market development. This leads to a mismatch between the key capabilities of the selected leader and the job requirements.

Xia Yiping was not Li Yanhong's first choice. He didn't even pass Li Yanhong's interview at first. From the exchanges of some insiders, before Xia Yiping, Baidu had contacted many candidates for this position, including many senior figures, who did not join Baidu for various reasons. It can be said that Baidu chose Xia Yiping among the remaining candidates.

Intelligent Emergence: How much influence does his past experience, especially his successful experience at Mobike, have on his management at Jiyue Automobile?

A: I remember that he frequently mentioned the achievements of Mobike, trying to use these to prove his value. He seems to regard Mobike as his benchmark and even spiritual pillar, staying too much in the past glory instead of actively exploring and solving the current industry challenges.

However, there were previously media reports that reproduced his behavior during the Mobike acquisition stage. He voted in favor at the board meeting, but then voted against at the shareholders' meeting two days later. From this article, he is a dangerous business speculator who will seize benefits through information asymmetry.

In fact, his successful experience at Mobike has very limited influence on running an automotive enterprise. We have seen that many successful cross-industry automotive founders or professional managers will be full of awe of this industry in the 0-1 process of the enterprise, and explore and learn from the historical experience of the industry, so as to expand a successful path of their own. This is not seen in Xia Yiping.

Intelligent Emergence: What is Xia Yiping's management style within Jiyue?

A: Xia Yiping's management style within Jiyue is very autocratic, even in areas where he has no experience at all. When everyone is silent, he will affirm himself. For example, he will claim to be a "brand expert" and a "marketing expert" to promote the business direction he wants. Another example is that he compared himself to "Elon Musk in China" at the meeting and quoted the praise from a certain media to strengthen this conclusion.

Intelligent Emergence: Has Xia Yiping successfully reused the experience of Mobike?

A: Xia Yiping often recalls the growth flywheel theory of Mobike, emphasizing that he was responsible for the growth business at Mobike, but this theory obviously has not been successfully applied in Jiyue.

This may be due to the background differences of the growth flywheel - Mobike relies on high-frequency shared bikes and rapidly accumulated data to achieve growth through Internet subsidies. While the automotive manufacturing industry is a field with low consumption frequency, a complex and long industry chain, and the growth flywheel is difficult to adapt.

More importantly, Xia Yiping's successful experience in charge of growth at Mobike seems to be more on theoretical output, and he has failed to transform these experiences into practical and operational actions.

He expressed that he learned the skills of bargaining with investors at Mobike, but this skill has limited effect in the practice of Jiyue. Because the company's largest investor is both Baidu and Geely, who have been supporting and investing from the beginning, there is no such thing as bargaining. Jiyue has not obtained more financing other than Baidu and Geely, but instead has eventually experienced a broken capital chain.

Intelligent Emergence: In Xia Yiping's management, are there methods to avoid Jiyue from falling into a financial predicament?

A: In terms of business, it should be cautious to participate in the price war. It cannot just to fulfill the individual's sales commitment to the board of directors and violate business principles, causing the enterprise to fall into an irreparable and unhealthy operating state. According to other media reports, Jiyue still owes Geely a huge amount of OEM fees that have not been paid.

At the same time, the enterprise staff size should also be matched with the business scale planning. It is hard to imagine that the enterprise can rapidly expand to 5,000 employees with an operating expense of a huge amount when the sales volume is only within 3,000 units and the profit margin is insufficient.

Intelligent Emergence: What do you think is the impact of the Jiyue incident on the entire new car-making forces?

A: He is a person who likes to obtain results quickly, even at great risks. For example, he recruited an executive who had participated in the Apple car-making project. This person was later pursued by the FBI on suspicion of taking away Apple's confidential data, and even involved the Chinese Foreign Ministry's call. This behavior not only caused direct harm to Baidu, but also seriously damaged the image of Chinese car-making brands internationally.

In addition, Xia Yiping's way of dissolving the team is also very rash, directly affecting thousands of employees, car owners, suppliers, and even the decision-makers of the entire industry. These behaviors expose his great flaws in management and employment.

There is a voice in the market that this Jiyue incident reflects that those who gather resources will inevitably fail, arguing that Li Yanhong did not personally get involved but found the professional manager Xia Yiping to manage. In my opinion, this observation is not in-depth enough and only from the perspective of Internet companies' car-making.

Xia Yiping's influence on the new car-making industry is like "a rat dropping spoiling the whole pot of soup". This is an individual case. The industry still needs to encourage innovative and down-to-earth enterprises. Just as Li Bin, the CEO of NIO, said in his speech at Harvard, "Cooperation is always the best option".