The Event
On June 4, 2026, a former DingTalk product manager named Teng Yaxin published a 75,000-character letter on Alibaba's internal forum titled "Standing Inside the Nail" (置身钉内).
It was a comprehensive postmortem of DingTalk's flagship AI product, ONE — a project that went from concept → 3M DAU → dismantlement in under 18 months.
On June 8, DingTalk's former VP of AI, Ma Ruila, published a follow-up titled "Standing Outside the Nail" (置身钉外), confirming he had already resigned in May and expressing solidarity.
On June 10, Alibaba's Partners Committee published its official response: "Loyalty, Integrity, and Growth — That Is Alibaba Culture."
