In 2012, Lin Ning joined a startup building a ride-hailing app that nobody had heard of yet. He took a modest salary, wrote code, recruited drivers, and stayed up all night getting the app online, hoping only that the company would survive another day.
Later, the company went through funding rounds, subsidy wars, a merger, and an IPO, with its valuation soaring all the while. Some employees cashed out stock options worth tens of millions, some bought luxury homes overlooking the river, and others quietly left as the company grew.
Lin Ning rose from an ordinary programmer to head of engineering, only to discover that the real arena wasn’t in the code. Capital decided the direction, systems determined the hierarchy, and performance reviews decided who stayed and who left. People who had once fought side by side could end up on opposite sides.
From a small startup team to an industry giant, this is the story of ordinary people pushed to the gaming table by the times.
The car has already started moving.
But once you’re on board, nobody knows how long they’ll get to stay.
