“Mr. Xie, an article titled ‘A Brief History of a Decade of Burning Cash in China’s Internet Industry’ has recently gone viral online. It says that in your ten years in the industry, you led every major cash-burning battle in areas like ride-hailing, food delivery, and e-commerce in lower-tier markets. What do you think of that?”
“I’m grateful to the founders for their recognition.”
“For example, Zhang Yiming? He called you an extreme investor.”
“He never said that to my face.”
“Cheng Wei said everyone’s a little afraid of you. When Didi was burning through fifty million yuan in cash a day, his hand trembled as he signed the papers. You comforted him by saying history would punish companies that didn’t dare to burn money.”
“I never said that. I just told him he could have a drink before signing the next day, so his hand wouldn’t shake.”
