A letter from a Bitmain R&D employee (recommended by Wu Shuo)

On the 18th, Wu said that the blockchain received an anonymous letter from a grassroots R&D employee of Bitmain. The letter was detailed and sincere. Bitmain was his first job, and he had deep feelings for it and many expectations. R&D engineers do not like or cannot speak publicly, so there are few voices from the outside world. However, for mining machine companies with technology as the core, it is indeed the essence of competitiveness. It is also a very good perspective to observe the history of this company from his perspective.

However, we also need to remind you that the truth often has multiple sides and the iceberg is not the same. Especially those who are in it will see different views due to their different personal circumstances. Wu said the blockchain tries its best to provide you with reliable and trustworthy information. This article is also published because it is relatively objective. The author authorized Wu said the blockchain to publish it exclusively. It does not represent Wu said’s views. Please indicate the source when reprinting. Infringement will be investigated.

The full text is as follows:

Bitmain was the company where I had my first formal job, and it made me feel extremely proud.

I joined Bitmain in mid-2018, when the company was at its peak and most glorious moment. I still remember the recruiters from Bitmain going to universities to give presentations, with their attitude of recruiting talents, and the fact that two people had to share one workstation on the first day of my employment because the company was overcrowded. I also remember the fact that the department boss arranged me to join a project on the second day of my employment and officially started working. I remember their attitude of employing people, and I never doubted anyone.

As a newbie in the workplace, I was really full of expectations and longings at that time.

All is past! As much as people miss the past, they hate the current chaos. The decline of the Roman Empire did not happen overnight, and the fall of Byzantium was just the "last straw that broke the camel's back."

The crazy expansion in 2018 was the beginning of all the chaos. At that time, as a new employee, I clearly saw that the company's business was in chaos, the division of labor was in chaos, and there was no clear project planning. In my first month on the job, I didn't even know who the project (product) manager of our group was, who I should report to, and all employees carried out their work on their own initiative.

The company experienced rapid development from 2016 to 2017 and needed an upgrade in strategy and talent. However, under the circumstances at the time, the company's own management and organizational structure had not been upgraded, but it blindly introduced a large number of talents, and the high salaries and high positions did not bring exponential returns. In other words, "the Ren and Du meridians have not been opened yet, but one wants to practice peerless magic skills, which is bound to go astray."

Later, the cryptocurrency market took a sharp turn for the worse, and the market window shrank rapidly. In such a context where the company should be cautious and careful in protecting the existing achievements, the company suffered several tape-out failures and participated in the Bitcoin Cash fork with a large amount of money, which dealt a heavy blow to the company. At the end of 2018, the company started a large-scale layoff. Fortunately, this layoff mainly eliminated non-core businesses, and the laid-off employees were treated well. The company retained a large number of outstanding talents during the layoff, which retained the company's foundation and retained its reputation in the employment market.

Time flies, and it is the spring of 2019. The company has appointed Hai Chao as the new CEO, issued a "letter to all employees", and reshaped the company's business logic. Seeing that President Han and President Zhan have reconciled, everyone chose to give in and made their own considerations for the future of the company in their own way. At that time, everyone felt hopeful, and this Bitmain was still the Bitmain that everyone was familiar with. Everyone worked together.

But later events proved that problems would arise if the balance of power leaned towards either side. Bitmain is like a small boat sailing between rapids and steep waterfalls. Only by being cautious can it "stay afloat for a thousand years". Only when President Han and President Zhan each bear the two oars of this giant boat and work together can they resist external threats, avoid being stranded on the shore, and continue to move towards the blue sea.

A large number of "Huawei gangs" have settled in and occupied important positions in the company. Everyone knows that Mr. Zhan's starting point is to introduce higher-end human resources to the company, complete the company's strategic talent upgrade, and get rid of the previous small workshop-like business model. As one of the largest companies in China, Huawei does have something worth learning. However, there is a huge difference in the management methods of a company with 100,000 people and a company with 1,000 people! The bureaucratic style and the bad habits of forming cliques for personal gain of the Huawei system have all been criticized by the industry, but they have been introduced into the company.

As a start-up company, Bitmain mainly relies on the self-driving of its employees. Everyone has a high degree of self-awareness and no one likes to be bossed around. Moreover, "all the people in the world come for profit, and all the people in the world go for profit." A person without any feelings, who enters the company with astronomical salary, does not understand the company's business, and whose actual ability has not been tested, it is difficult for people to believe that such a person will work hard for the company and the majority of employees.

In 2019 , the "Little Bull" first appeared, but the company's operating conditions later confirmed all the previous foreshadowing. More than 40% of the mining machine market share was taken away by companies founded by former employees of the company, and the absolute dominant position of the mining pool was also taken away by companies founded by former employees of the company. Everyone joked that "Bitmain has provided a large number of excellent talents for the blockchain industry." The helplessness of this joke also indirectly shows that the company cannot retain talents and its market advantage is gradually lost.

In summary, from January to October 2019, the company made two major strategic mistakes: one was the blind introduction of Huawei executives, which shook the company's existing management foundation; the other was the failure to seize the market trend and lose most of the profits. But at the same time, there have been some improvements in other aspects. The technology and management structure of the three main R&D lines of AI, IC, and mining machines have matured. During this period, chips such as BMXX98 and BMXX84 have no longer repeated the mistakes of previous generations of products, and have indeed found technical improvements. The mining machine department has also digested some of the chip inventory that was previously defined as unproducible, such as BMXX93, and BMXX97 still occupies most of the market. As a R&D staff, I have also seen some problems in R&D and production, such as arbitrary changes in chip FT standards, high and low product yields, excessive pursuit of technical indicators that the market does not care about, no effective communication between IC and embedded software, and difficulty for new and old employees to cooperate.

At the end of October 2019 , Mr. Han returned to the Beijing office and pointed out the problems in the company's operation and management in great detail. Everyone saw hope. Some employees who were not qualified for their positions were eliminated, and the company returned to the concept of customer first, and implemented the salary increase for all employees that everyone had been looking forward to for two years. Later market feedback also proved that these measures were effective.

At the end of 2019 , President Han began to "prepare for a rainy day, streamline staff and prepare for winter", splitting up new business departments such as "Normandy", "Dunkirk" and "R2D2". Any company should eliminate redundant personnel and those who do not meet corporate standards. But this time the layoffs seemed indiscriminate. Many backbones of R&D business were laid off. For example, only one person was left in the DFT R&D of a chip department, resulting in the inability to carry out normal business. At the same time, many senior engineers who had been in AI and mining machine business for more than two years were also laid off. These people undoubtedly became powerful bargaining chips for competitors in the industry. Coupled with complaints about the compensation for layoffs, the company's reputation in the talent market plummeted.

The situation of forming cliques among the various business departments that were split up was very serious. Even joining the company at the same time became the entry condition for some business departments, which was completely unreasonable. The allocation of specific R&D tasks among the various business lines was also extremely biased, with "all those who were not assigned specific R&D tasks" once considered themselves "reserves to be laid off." This greatly divided the relationship between employees, exacerbated the misunderstandings between new and old employees, and undermined everyone's confidence. Many employees voluntarily resigned during this period, and the company was hurt again.

As an ordinary employee of Bitmain, everyone is happy to participate in the development of the company and is willing to work hard for the company. During the epidemic, brothers and sisters from the human resources, administrative department, and security department spontaneously formed an "anti-epidemic team" with great humanistic care. During this period, no employee of the company was infected. All businesses were also carried out smoothly. R2D2's K5 and Z15 models achieved good results; the AI ​​department also opened up new markets, and the mining pool and the mining machine department jointly developed overclocking firmware to serve customers; for inventory chips, the R&D brothers also worked hard to improve the R&D production methods, improve the yield, and remove the inventory burden; at the same time, the BMXX98 series chip models were a great success. These are the achievements of each colleague during the epidemic.

As mentioned before, the more you miss the past, the more you are disappointed with the present. I still remember that when President Han returned to Beijing to work, he said, "People love Caesar, but they love democracy more." Similarly, at this moment, "Everyone loves President Han and President Zhan, but they love Bitmain more." Now, whenever a friend or family member asks me, "How is Bitmain doing?" I don't know how to answer.

No one wants to take sides, no one wants to see you two founders at odds with each other, no one wants to see the giant ship of Bitmain sink or run aground, and no one wants to let recent events become a Byzantine battle that defeats the company.

As the saying goes, "fighting tigers is like fighting brothers". Looking back at the most glorious years of Bitmain in 2016 and 2017, it happened to be the time when the two founders, Zhan and Han, were the closest. In Chongqing dialect, "iron buddies" means two people who start a business together, fight big battles together, and discuss major issues together, which is what "iron buddies" mean. Since there is no deep hatred, then why can't the two sit down and make money in harmony? There is no blood feud, so why can't the two take a step back and the world will be broader? The Berlin Wall can be torn down, so why can't two people with a common value foundation and common interests drink and talk happily and put aside their past grudges?

Perhaps managing a company is not as simple as we thought, and perhaps our influence is insignificant. But as a Bitmain employee, we sincerely hope that our efforts will be rewarded and not go to waste; we sincerely pray that President Zhan and President Han will take a step back, so that the company can quickly get back on track and Bitmain can thrive.

A Bitmain employee

June 16, 2020

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