What Alibaba and JD.com lack is not their founders.

@新熵 Original

Author 丨 Gu Nian Editor 丨 Yi Ye

The battle between cats and dogs never ends. First, Jack Ma sent an internal letter affirming Alibaba's current leadership for daring to admit mistakes; shortly after, Richard Liu made a digital avatar debut in JD.com's live stream to kick off his sales show.

When former industry leaders face declining dominance, the "comeback" of their founders is often met with high external expectations. But whether it's Alibaba or JD.com, what they lack now isn’t this kind of superstitious spiritual therapy.

Looking at their retirement timelines, Jack Ma officially stepped down as Alibaba’s board chairman in 2019, while Richard Liu resigned as JD.com’s CEO in 2022, exiting frontline management. During their tenure, Jack Ma in 2019 failed to recognize the threat of Pinduoduo, and Richard Liu in 2022 couldn’t prevent JD.com’s "211" delivery speed from being overtaken by Meituan’s 30-minute delivery.

A founder’s strategic vision translates into corporate opportunities. For Pinduoduo, it was the lower-tier market; for Meituan, instant retail; for Douyin, live-stream e-commerce. These three approaches correspond to pricing, fulfillment, and traffic in the e-commerce market.

Neither Jack Ma nor Richard Liu seized these opportunities while in charge. After losing three battles, their so-called "comebacks" are more symbolic than substantive. For Alibaba and JD.com, rebuilding teams to win a battle is far more critical than pinning hopes on their founders.

In 2023, after a year of price wars among domestic e-commerce platforms, neither Alibaba nor JD.com managed to shake Pinduoduo’s mindshare dominance. The unresolved challenge carried into 2024, with the keyword quietly shifting to AI. Jack Ma declared Alibaba would go all-in on the future, using AI to reinvent all businesses.

But the reality is, current AI solutions can’t quench immediate thirst. On one hand, Alibaba Cloud, the most direct beneficiary of the AI wave, slashed prices globally to retain market share; on the other, the group scaled back non-core assets while aggressively investing $10 billion in AI startups to nurture unicorns.

Alibaba calls this shift "focus." Eddie Wu’s specific strategy is "AI + e-commerce." But contrary to expectations of AI empowering e-commerce, the current phase sees e-commerce fueling AI with financial, material, and human resources. So-called "AI e-commerce" now looks more like an "e-commerce new species" of the large-model era.

In contrast, JD.com is more pragmatic. In instant retail, former Meituan S-team member Guo Qing joined Dada in mid-January to lead internal reforms. Reports say Guo swiftly drove changes—hosting a three-day closed-door meeting with management, announcing a "best-practice benchmarking" (fully aligning with Meituan), and drafting JD’s five-year instant retail plan.

But all e-commerce relies on massive users. Public 2022 data shows Taobao’s MAU at 520 million, Pinduoduo at 419 million, and JD.com at 300 million.

Underdogs have room to catch up. On April 10, JD.com announced $1 billion in cash and traffic subsidies to attract original creators and premium content agencies. This marked the first offensive in JD Retail’s 2024 "Three Must-Win Battles" (content ecosystem, open ecosystem, instant retail), targeting live-streaming and short videos.

As Alibaba narrows its focus, JD.com—long concentrated on logistics—is launching a full-scale offensive. Alongside sustained low prices, JD is pursuing instant retail and live-stream e-commerce simultaneously, aiming to reclaim lost opportunities.

Whether through focus or breadth, one thing’s certain: The "comebacks" of Jack Ma and Richard Liu hardly ruffle Colin Huang or Zhang Yiming, who’ve stepped back. The only one still hustling is Meituan’s Wang Xing.