The first programmer of Taobao has left the company. He once made it onto the Hurun Rich List with a fortune of 2.6 billion yuan.

On August 13th, according to a report from the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily, Cai Jingxian, a former partner of Alibaba Group who had worked at Alibaba for 25 years, has left the company. His status on both internal and external Alibaba platforms shows as "retired from the arena," and people close to Alibaba have confirmed this news.

As of the time of publication, Alibaba's official has not responded to the above news.

Public information shows that Cai Jingxian goes by the nickname "Duolong." He was one of the three development engineers in the initial Taobao startup team and is known as "the first Taobao programmer." In 2000, after graduating with a master's degree from the Department of Biology at Hangzhou University, Cai Jingxian joined the then little - known Alibaba. In 2003, he was recruited by Jack Ma into the Taobao project team. Together with two other engineers, he built the Taobao website from scratch in just one month and completed the development of the trading system and the forum system.

In the early days of Taobao's development, Cai Jingxian demonstrated extraordinary personal abilities. From 2003 to 2007, he was solely responsible for the entire development and maintenance of the Taobao search engine, and this was not even all of his work. He also led the construction of the Taobao trading system and the forum system. In the eyes of his colleagues, he could quickly solve all kinds of tricky problems, even if he had never been exposed to the relevant fields before.

In April 2014, Cai Jingxian passed the review of the Alibaba Partner Nomination Committee and officially became a partner of the group in September of the same year. The reasons for his selection included "record - breaking contributions to the Taobao business" and "a simple and focused technical character."

The selection of Alibaba partners has a strict set of standards and procedures. The selection takes into account employees' contributions to the company, cultural identity, and team recognition. Candidates need to have worked at Alibaba for more than five years and be nominated by at least three existing partners. This requirement ensures that the nominees have a certain level of recognition within the company.

During the election, the number of people present for voting must not be less than 75% of the total number of partners. Those who are absent are considered to be against, and abstention is not allowed. A new partner must obtain the approval of 75% of all partners to be elected. This strict voting mechanism ensures that new partners can be recognized by the majority of existing partners and can integrate into the partner team.

Except for Jack Ma and Joe Tsai, who are permanent partners (permanent partners are elected and can also be designated by retired or serving permanent partners), other partners serve a three - year term for each session and can be re - elected. Once ordinary partners retire or leave Alibaba Group or its affiliated companies, they must step down (they will also be removed from the list in case of violations).

When talking about Cai Jingxian's selection as a partner, Peng Lei, the then Chief Talent Officer of Alibaba, once said that it was not easy for Cai Jingxian and others to be selected as partners, as they had gone through nearly a year of assessment. In Peng Lei's words, Cai Jingxian was a person who could be so absorbed in writing code that he seemed to enter a state of "meditation."

Multiple sources show that Cai Jingxian is not good at socializing and does not use social networks. It is very difficult to see him in public. On Alibaba's internal network, he is labeled as "the monk sweeping the floor in the Shaolin Temple" and "a technical expert." When colleagues asked him technical questions, he was always available. There was a popular saying within Taobao: "When in trouble, find Duolong."

After becoming an Alibaba partner, Cai Jingxian made it onto the Hurun Rich List in 2017, with a net worth of 2.6 billion yuan. However, in 2023, with the "1 + 6+N" structural reform of Alibaba Group, Cai Jingxian was removed from the list of partners.

In recent years, the Alibaba partner team has been continuously shrinking. First, the management of Ant Group withdrew from the Alibaba partner organization, and nine partners left in 2022. On June 26th this year, the latest partner information disclosed in Alibaba's annual report for the fiscal year 2025 showed that another nine partners had left, reducing the total number to 17, the lowest since its listing in 2014.

Currently, among the Alibaba partners, only four "veterans" remain: Jack Ma, Joe Tsai, Wu Yongming, and Jiang Fang. The rest are mostly front - line business leaders, leading core businesses such as e - commerce, cloud computing, and AI respectively. Among them, Jiang Fan, the CEO of the e - commerce business group, is the youngest of all partners, only 39 years old, and there are also four post - 80s partners.

Cai Jingxian's departure means that a legendary technical figure at Alibaba has bid farewell to the stage where he has fought for 25 years. The continuous streamlining of the Alibaba partner team also reflects that the company is constantly focusing on front - line business in terms of organizational structure and business layout, promoting the rejuvenation of the core management to adapt to the ever - changing market environment.

This article is from "Jiemian News," reporter: Song Jianan. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.