Former DingTalk VP Ma Ruila Pens Farewell Essay "Outside DingTalk," Says Goodbye to Alibaba After Three Years

On June 9, former DingTalk Vice President and AI Product Lead Ma Ruila published a farewell article titled "Outside DingTalk" on his personal WeChat account yesterday, stating that he completed his resignation procedures on May 15, formally ending his three-year career at Alibaba and leaving DingTalk.

In the article, Ma Ruila shared his thoughts after reading "Inside DingTalk," expressing sympathy for those colleagues at DingTalk who had seriously thought, seriously worked, and seriously struggled. He remarked that such an innovative young product ultimately required 70,000 words to extricate its creators from the system in search of liberation.

According to reports, last week, a 75,000-word article titled "Inside DingTalk" appeared on Alibaba's internal network. The author was Teng Yaxin (alias "Yousu"), the core product manager of DingTalk's "ONE" project. In this lengthy piece, she chronologically reviewed the full journey of the AI product "ONE" — from its inception, to peaking at 3 million daily active users (DAU), and finally to its contraction and dismantling.

Ma Ruila stated that he increasingly struggled to tell whether he was creating products or merely exhausting his body to keep pace with an ever-accelerating rhythm. He mentioned a period when he worked 7 days a week, clocking in at 9 AM and returning home at 2 AM, sleeping only 5 hours before starting again the next day. Due to chronic sleep deprivation, he felt he was in a constant daze.

In the comments section of his own article, Ma Ruila added that it was precisely because of his deep love for DingTalk that he wrote from his true feelings. He emphasized that Alibaba remains a great company — it always has been and always will be. He said he has a clear conscience about his three years at DingTalk, with his only regret being that he couldn't accompany it through the next decade.

Public records show that Ma Ruila, whose real name is Wang Jiamin, previously founded Chinese Music Starry Sky, an online film database (the predecessor of Mtime), and Wolai Real Estate. In 2020, he founded the collaborative office platform "wolai," which was fully acquired by DingTalk in 2023. He subsequently joined Alibaba as Vice President of DingTalk and Head of AI Tables.