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Baidu’s public relations head Qu Jing has left the company after posting a series of social media videos in which she demeaned staff, sparking a backlash over workplace practices in China’s tech sector.
The videos featured Qu demanding long hours from her team members and devotion to the company. They were intended to teach her staff how to use their personal social media accounts to raise the profile of Baidu but instead engulfed the Chinese search engine giant in controversy.
Qu has left the company as of Thursday evening, said two people familiar with the matter. Baidu did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Qu could not be reached for comment.
On Thursday, she apologised on social media for her videos causing “external misunderstandings about Baidu’s values and culture”.
In one of the videos, which spread widely on Chinese social media, Qu said she did not care about how long hours and extensive business travel would affect the personal lives of her staff. “I’m not your mum,” she said. “I only care about results.”
Her comments revived concerns about working conditions at Chinese tech groups. The long hours often expected of tech employees are known as “996”, meaning they start work at 9am, leave at 9pm and work six days a week.
“People in China have started to rethink the relationship of employee and employer and are questioning why they get little reward for devoting all of their time and energy to work,” said Ivy Yang, a corporate communications expert and founder of Wavelet Strategy.
Qu’s comments were viewed as a window into how the top echelons of China’s corporate world thought about their employees, said Yang. “It provoked an emotional reaction,” she said.
Qu joined Baidu from Chinese tech group Huawei and was close to Melissa Ma, Baidu founder Robin Li’s wife, according to two people familiar with the matter. Ma is involved with recruitment and HR at the company.
Chinese media reported Li had held a small meeting with employees about Qu’s comments on Thursday afternoon and said Baidu’s employees “represent the real Baidu”.
The Chinese tech giant, once considered a rival to Alibaba and Tencent, has in recent years been plagued by a series of disappointing product initiatives compounded by stalled growth in its main search advertising business.
The Nasdaq-listed company’s market value has fallen from a peak of about $115bn in 2021 to $39bn.
With the rise of generative artificial intelligence, Li has concentrated staff and resources on turning Baidu into China’s answer to OpenAI.
The company’s chatbot Ernie, its counterpart to ChatGPT, is among the leaders in China, but Baidu faces competition with dozens of start-ups creating their own large language models.
Additional reporting by Nian Liu in Beijing
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