What Mr. Wang knows and what he doesn’t know

“Several Opinions on Promoting the Healthy Development of the Food Delivery Industry”

With the release of a document from the Su Province government, the food delivery industry experienced an earthquake.

This was because the document explicitly stated the goal of building the food delivery industry into an expanded employment reservoir, and to stabilize employment, it necessarily required the food delivery industry to avoid significant fluctuations.

Therefore, the document subtly mentioned gradually separating the influence of capital from the food delivery industry, and even suggested establishing a comprehensive salary management mechanism for the industry.

Currently, the entire salary system in the food delivery industry is extremely chaotic, with delivery fees being completely opaque; some orders even show free delivery to customers, which is ridiculous.

Free delivery? What do the delivery riderss eat? Clearly, the wool comes from the sheep.

The main spirit of this document is to strip away common marketing tactics from the food delivery industry. It aims to make food delivery a simple piece-rate system, without so many tricks.

To achieve this, it is naturally impossible for Good Group to dominate.

Following the custom of Longguo's rapid economic development over the past few decades, for industries not related to national defense or the national economic lifeline, the government generally does not intervene directly. As the saying goes, public and private economies each play to their strengths.

However, it now appears to everyone that the Su Province government is clearly intending to intervene, which can only mean one thing—the Su Province government will introduce a mechanism of full competition into the food delivery industry.

This is a very common strategy; even if the document didn't explicitly state it, everyone could guess.

And currently, the only competitor to Good Group that looks half-dead is Lanbiao Factory.

Thus, this document, in everyone's eyes, naturally became a death knell for Good Group and a lifeline for Lanbiao Factory.

The stock market in HK quickly reacted, with Musk's group of international hot money, which had long been in ambush, beginning to furiously dump shares; they were, of course, shorting.

Good Group's stock price plummeted by over 10% on the day the document was released.

Good Group's worst fear had finally arrived.

Normally, the effect of a document isn't so quick, as this was only an opinion-based document; such documents are not policy definitions but rather seek opinions in a consultative manner.

Generally speaking, the stock market would observe for a period.

However, this time, there was a drastic fall. Thus, anyone with a discerning eye could see that Good Group's stock had long been ambushed by hot money.

The festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival had not yet dissipated across Longguo; Good Group's branches and management offices nationwide still had 'Fu' characters and Spring Couplets pasted, but this spring clearly did not belong to Good Group.

All of Good Group's senior executives had their holidays terminated early and were required to report to the company to stand by.

A policy document itself is not that terrifying; as long as there is ample time, Good Group has plenty of time to adjust slowly. But significant fluctuations in the stock market are truly deadly.

Not only does a plummeting stock price create immense pressure from shareholders, but large stock price fluctuations, if they affect the company's food delivery operations, will lead to a loss of trust with the government. This is because the government despises instability the most.

Good Group's CEO Wang used all his domestic and international connections and finally figured out the capital background behind the ambush on his company's stock this time.

To his surprise, the capital that made a move this time was entirely Silicon Valley tech capital.

It should be noted that these capitals generally operate around tech stocks, so why would they come to target Good Group?

Although Good Group also claims to be a tech company, everyone actually knows that Good Group is at most a technology application company; its core business model relies on earning the difference from the labor of a large number of delivery riderss.

To put it bluntly, Good Group is a sweatshop of the internet era, earning the surplus value from intensive labor. It doesn't rely on the high added value brought by high technology.

Good Group's application of technologies like AI is ultimately to enable delivery riderss to deliver food better, and then to take a cut from the delivery riderss' delivery fees.

Essentially, Good Group is not a high-tech company at all, but rather a company that uses high technology as a tool.

Therefore, Silicon Valley's tech capital, by rights, should not touch it, because that type of tech capital thrives on excitement, relying on investing in tech unicorns. As long as one unicorn grows out of ten invested startups, the return can cover the losses on the other nine.

For this type of tech capital to come after Good Group, there can only be one possibility—the other party smelled blood and, adhering to the simple principle of taking advantage when possible, rushed in to join the fun and take a big bite.

So, the question arises, where did the blood smell on Good Group come from, and who spread it?

Good Group's CEO Wang first thought of Lanbiao Factory, because in the long run, the biggest beneficiary of this incident would be Lanbiao Factory. CEO Wang had originally planned to acquire them, but now they were alive again.

This means that Lanbiao Factory very likely colluded with overseas Silicon Valley tech capital to put on this show.

Good Group's CEO Wang, based on factual analysis, reached this conclusion.

However, he found it difficult to believe his own conclusion, which was based on facts and rational analysis, because there was a logical inconsistency.

It is normal for Lanbiao Factory to want to resist, and it is also normal for any international capital, like sharks, to rush in when they smell blood.

But there were two abnormal points here.

First, how was the blood smell on Good Group detected? CEO Wang himself hadn't perceived the crisis before, and he hadn't even thought that Su Province would issue such a document.

Could it be that Lanbiao Factory secretly pulled some strings, finding people to lobby the government?

This is not impossible, after all, Lanbiao Factory is backed by Alibaba.

So, the first question could be explained, albeit with some difficulty, but the second point was completely inexplicable.

Even if Lanbiao Factory knew that Su Province was going to issue such a document after the Spring Festival, how did they team up with overseas capital?

Was Alibaba operating behind the scenes?

Clearly impossible.

Because Alibaba has been fined N times over the years, how could they still have the guts to collude with overseas capital to stir up the HK stock market? Alibaba wouldn't be that stupid, after all, earning this kind of money from the stock market is a one-time gain and unsustainable.

Large companies don't earn money from the stock market this way; they don't do it by manipulating stock prices, but rather by operating the company to go public and then reducing their holdings after listing.

Good Group's CEO Wang understood this well. Therefore, he was certain that Alibaba would not do this.

So, the question arises, how did Lanbiao Factory hook up with overseas capital, and specifically with Silicon Valley's tech capital?

This was completely unexplainable.

CEO Wang thought for three days and three nights but couldn't figure it out. He couldn't have imagined that it was caused by a rogue operation by one of his subordinates, simply because his subordinate had intentionally annoyed a former senior engineer from their own research institute.

And his subordinate acted that way not specifically to annoy Lin Yuan, but because Good Group's company culture, from top to bottom, was just like that.

In other words, under the leadership of Good Group's CEO Wang, Good Group had previously dealt with Lin Yuan strictly according to established procedures.

Therefore, CEO Wang could both claim to be completely unaware and also say: in fact, he knew everything, but was simply unaware of being in the fog.