"Nailed Inside" is a long post by a DingTalk employee. On the surface it reviews how an AI product called "ONE" rose and fell, but underneath it tears open the veil of corporate burnout culture.
The article boils down to three key points:
- Product Death β AI Became an Enabler of "Rank-First" Culture
The product's core contradiction was fractured positioning. It had to maintain daily active users, drive high-frequency usage, AND explore monetization β conflicting goals that led to chaos. Algorithms designed for entertainment were used in serious workplace settings. The "auto-read" feature marked messages as read the moment you previewed them, eliminating any buffer for employees.
- Organizational Trauma β Burnout Outpaced the Product
The article describes management chaos: performance theater where leaders invented "Operation Moonrise," obsessing over a competitor's lights-out time and demanding employees stay later. Energy was wasted on PPTs for leadership approval while decision-making was hijacked by executives' whims. The author collapsed twice from overwork and was rushed to the hospital β while the work chat discussed "the next requirement's timeline."
- The Soul Question β Are People an End or a Means?
The author borrows Foucault's panopticon metaphor: AI surveillance makes employees never know when they're being watched, so they begin to self-domesticate. The article predicts that the old management philosophy β ignoring people, grinding hours to pad metrics β is dead in the AI age.
The post caused massive backlash. An Alibaba partner publicly criticized the management style, and shortly after, leadership was replaced.