Coding

FILE PHOTO: JD.com founder Richard Liu attends a Reuters interview in Hong Kong, China June 9, 2017. REUTERS/Bobby Yip
April 17, 2019
By Cate Cadell
BEIJING (Reuters) – The personal life of JD.com chief Richard Liu returned to the spotlight of China’s social media on Wednesday, drawing 360 million views to briefly become the top trending item on the Twitter-like Weibo, after a civil lawsuit accused him of rape.
Liu, who was briefly arrested after a University of Minnesota student accused him of rape last August, maintained his innocence throughout the investigation, which ended in December, with prosecutors declining to press charges.
The civil case brought by the student comes as the e-commerce giant faces a backlash over layoffs and its work culture after Liu railed against “slackers”, with his social media backing seeming to wane, in contrast to its support after his initial arrest and release.
“Now it’s coming to light how hard he’s working people and they’re trying to cut staff … Suddenly the sympathy can evaporate pretty quickly,” said Mark Natkin, a managing director at Beijing-based tech consultancy Marbridge Consulting.
Earlier, people had been more willing to commiserate when the business appeared to be going well and employees were being treated well, he added.
Liu’s accuser, identified in the civil lawsuit for the first time as Liu Jingyao, a Chinese student at the U.S. university, has sought undisclosed damages in a Minneapolis court from both Liu and JD.com.
In a statement on Tuesday, Liu’s attorney, Jill Brisbois, said, “Based on the Hennepin county attorney’s declination to charge a case against our client and our belief in his innocence, we feel strongly that this suit is without merit and will vigorously defend against it.”
She was referring to prosecutors who declined to charge Liu after last year’s investigation.
A lawyer for JD.com, Peter Walsh of Hogan Lovells, said it would defend the company against the claims, which he described as “meritless”.
On Wednesday, some of the highest-trending Weibo comments on the new case contrasted the accusations with Liu’s recent comments that the number of “slackers” in his firm had grown.
“How did he find the time to commit such bad crimes in Minnesota when he was working 996 hours?” said a Weibo user, whose posting received more than 1,200 likes.
The reference is to a practice in the Chinese tech industry of working 72-hour weeks, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on six days, which has figured in online debate and protests on some coding platforms.
A JD.com spokesman has declined to comment on layoffs but said the company was making adjustments as a normal part of business.
Another user joked that Liu himself was the company’s “least cost-effective” employee, with the arrest wiping out billions of dollars in shareholder value.
Shares of JD.com are still down 4.5 percent from the period before Liu was arrested. That is despite a slight rise this year following last year’s fall of about 16 percent, for a loss of more than $7 billion in value in the week after his arrest.
“At that time it felt obvious to me that the woman sought to make some money from the situation,” said Gao Wei, a student in the Chinese capital, whose posts defending Liu on messaging app WeChat after his initial arrest drew hundreds of likes.
“I think there is a better understanding of Liu’s character now because of the 996 … even though these are not directly related issues,” Gao, 22, told Reuters.
(Reporting by Cate Cadell; Additional Reporting by Beijing and Shanghai Newsrooms; Editing by Tony Munroe and Clarence Fernandez)
Source: OANN

FILE PHOTO: Richard Liu, CEO and founder of China’s e-commerce company JD.com, speaks during an interview with Reuters after delivering goods for customers to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of the company, in Beijing, China June 16, 2014. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo
April 13, 2019
By Josh Horwitz and Brenda Goh
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Richard Liu, the founder of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com Inc, has weighed in on an ongoing debate about the Chinese tech industry’s grueling overtime work culture, lamenting that years of growth had increased the number of “slackers” in his firm who are not his “brothers.”
Liu’s comments, which Chinese media said were posted on his personal WeChat feed on Friday, are the latest contribution to a growing discussion about work-life balance in the tech industry as the sector slows after years of breakneck growth.
They also come amid reports this week that the company is in the throes of widespread layoffs. Three company sources told Reuters that cuts began earlier this year and had become more extensive in recent weeks.
A JD.com spokesman confirmed the authenticity of Liu’s note. He declined to comment on layoffs but said some adjustments were happening as a normal part of business.
“JD.com is a competitive workplace that rewards initiative and hard work, which is consistent with our entrepreneurial roots,” the spokesman said. “We’re getting back to those roots as we seek, develop and reward staff who share the same hunger and values.”
Liu, who started the company that would become JD.com in 1998, in the note spoke about how in the firm’s earliest days he would set his alarm clock to wake him up every two hours to ensure he could offer his customers 24-hour service – a step he said was crucial to JD’s success.
“JD in the last four, five years has not made any eliminations, so the number of staff has expanded rapidly, the number of people giving orders has grown and grown, while the those who are working have fallen,” Liu wrote. “Instead, the number of slackers has rapidly grown!”
“If this carries on, JD will have no hope! And the company will only be heartlessly kicked out of the market! Slackers are not my brothers!” he added
The term he used, which is commonly translated in China as “slackers” can be directly translated as people who drift along aimlessly or waste time.
The contents of his note were reported by major Chinese media outlets such as financial magazine Caijing and the 21st Century Herald newspaper on Saturday as well as widely shared on Twitter-like platform Weibo, where it was read more than 400 million times.
CUTS AND SLOWDOWN
Three JD employees, who declined to be named as they were not permitted to speak to the media, told Reuters that morale at the company was low after several senior executive departures and layoffs across the firm in recent weeks. One said the cuts also affected vice-president level staff.
Tech website The Information reported this week that JD.com could cut up to 8 percent of its workforce. JD, which had more than 178,000 full-time employees at the end of last year, said the figure was incorrect.
“Now is kind of an inflection point, where too many people and too many business leaders or department leaders have been laid off. No one is safe,” one of the sources said.
He added that it had affected productivity in his department and that many workers checked Weibo, the stock markets or played games rather than focus on work.
The layoffs “are pretty much all JD employees can talk about,” he said.
The JD spokesman, when asked about morale, said most of the team was highly committed.
“Change – while uncomfortable for some – can be encouraging for most, who are dedicated to our shared future.”
JD, which is backed by Walmart Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google and China’s Tencent Holdings, in February posted its lowest quarterly revenue growth rate since its 2015 initial public offering.
Other Chinese tech giants have lowered growth forecasts and cut staff bonuses amid the slowdown, which has driven calls for better work conditions for its workers.
The ‘996’ work schedule, which refers to a 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. workday, six days a week, has in particular become the target of online debate and protests on some coding platforms, where workers have swapped examples of excessive overtime demands at some firms.
Alibaba Group founder and billionaire Jack Ma also weighed in on Friday, telling the company’s employees in a speech that the opportunity to work such hours was a “blessing”.
Liu said JD did not force its staff to work the “996” or even a “995” overtime schedule.
“But every person must have the desire to push oneself to the limit!” he said.
(Additional Reporting by Cate Cadell and Zhang Min in BEIJING; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
Source: OANN

FILE PHOTO: Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba Group attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 23, 2019. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo
April 12, 2019
By Josh Horwitz
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Alibaba Group founder and billionaire Jack Ma has defended the grueling overtime work culture at many of China’s tech companies, calling it a “huge blessing” for young workers.
The e-commerce magnate weighed into a debate about work-life balance and the overtime hours demanded by some companies as the sector slows after years of breakneck growth.
In a speech to Alibaba employees, Ma defended the industry’s ‘996’ work schedule, which refers to the 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. workday, six days a week.
“I personally think that being able to work 996 is a huge blessing,” he said in remarks posted on the company’s WeChat account.
“Many companies and many people don’t have the opportunity to work 996,” Ma said. “If you don’t work 996 when you are young, when can you ever work 996?”
The issue has fueled an online debate and protests on some coding platforms, where workers have swapped examples of excessive overtime demands at some companies.
Ma, a former English teacher who co-founded Alibaba in 1999 and has become one of China’s richest people, said he and early employees regularly worked long hours.
“In this world, everyone wants success, wants a nice life, wants to be respected,” Ma said.
“Let me ask everyone, if you don’t put out more time and energy than others, how can you achieve the success you want?”
Ma referred to the tech industry today where some people are without jobs, or working at companies in search of revenue or facing closure.
“Compared to them, up to this day, I still feel lucky, I don’t regret (working 12 hour days), I would never change this part of me,” he said.
This month activists on Microsoft’s GitHub, the online code repository site, launched a project titled “996.ICU” where tech workers listed Alibaba among the companies ranked as having some of the worst working conditions.
On Thursday, an opinion piece published in a state newspaper argued that 996 violated China’s Labor Law, which stipulates that average work hours cannot exceed 40 hours a week.
“Creating a corporate culture of ‘encouraged overtime’ will not only not help a business’ core competitiveness, it might inhibit and damage a company’s ability to innovate,” the unnamed author wrote in the People’s Daily.
(Reporting by Josh Horwitz; editing by Darren Schuettler)
Source: OANN

Apple CEO Tim Cook, Oprah Winfrey and director Steven Spielberg stand for a photo after the Apple special event at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California, U.S., March 25, 2019. REUTERS/Stephen Lam
March 25, 2019
By Jill Serjeant
(Reuters) – Apple Inc brought in Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Aniston and Jason Momoa to talk up its new television streaming service at a Hollywood-style event on Monday marked by standing ovations, hugs and soaring rhetoric.
The event ended almost 18 months of secrecy over Apple’s television project and featured some of the biggest names in entertainment promoting their original content shows. Apple is working to reinvent itself as an entertainment and financial services company as sales of its iPhones fall.
“We believe deeply in the power of creativity,” Chief Executive Tim Cook told an audience at the company’s Cupertino, California, headquarters.
He said Apple’s partners on the Apple TV+ service were “the most thoughtful, accomplished and award-winning group of creative visionaries who have ever come together in one place.”
Apple did not say how much the new television subscription service would cost but said it would launch in the fall of 2019 and would be available in 100 nations.
Apple has commissioned more than 30 shows, including a science fiction show from Spielberg, a horror series from movie director M. Night Shyamalan, a new Sesame Workshop show teaching coding to kids and a drama set in the world of morning television starring Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon and popular former “Friends” star Jennifer Aniston.
“This has brought me back to television, and I am really excited about it!” Aniston said on Monday.
In true Hollywood style, Apple saved the biggest performance until last, introducing producer and former talk show host Winfrey.
Winfrey, who ended her daily talk show in 2011 after 25 years to launch her OWN cable channel, said she would interview “artists, newsmakers and leaders,” present two documentaries – one about harassment in the work place and another about mental health – and launch a new, bigger version of her popular Oprah book club.
“My deepest hope is we all humans get to become the fullest version of ourselves as human beings, to join in that mission and unite for our common good and leave this world more enlightened, kinder and better than we found it,” she said in a rousing speech.
Winfrey said she had joined Apple because “they are the company that has re-imagined how we communicate.”
“They’re in a billion pockets y’all. A billion pockets … The whole world’s got them in their hands and that represents a major opportunity to make a genuine impact,” she said.
Cook bade Winfrey farewell with thanks and a hug, wiping away a tear in his eye. “I will never forget this,” he told her.
Songstress Sara Bareilles performed an emotional new ballad that will serve as the theme song from her new musical drama “Little Voice,” while Pakistani-American comedian Kumail Nanjiani performed a brief standup routine to introduce his “Little America” series about immigrants in America.
“We hope ‘Little America’ will help viewers understand there is no such thing as the other. There is only us,” Nanjiani said.
“We are excited that we get to tell these stories with Apple. Connecting humanity is in their DNA,” he added.
Despite the celebrity appearances, there was only a minimal glimpse of the new shows either completed or in production.
A short compilation reel of clips ended with “Aquaman” star Momoa, who will appear in futuristic drama “See” about a world in which everyone has lost the power of sight.
“This is where we build our new home,” he said.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)
Source: OANN

FILE PHOTO: The British flag flies next to European flags at the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium December 8, 2017. REUTERS/Yves Herman
March 19, 2019
By Huw Jones
LONDON (Reuters) – Leaving the European Union is making it harder for fintech firms in Britain to recruit top talent, a report said on Tuesday, threatening to slam the brakes on a 7 billion pound ($9 billion)growth sector just as EU states step up competition.
The Fuelling Fintech report from TheCityUK, which promotes Britain as a financial center, and recruitment firm Odgers Berndtson, said fintech and other financial services firms must work harder to secure the skills they need.
Fintech employs 60,000 people and investment grew by 154 percent in 2017.
The report offers ways to generate more “home grown” tech talent as immigration faces curbs after Brexit.
“Since the Brexit vote in June 2016, there has been a significant decrease of graduates coming to the UK from France and Germany in particular,” said Miles Celic, chief executive of TheCityUK.
Up to a fifth of the skills needed in recent years has come from EU countries, and UK hirers are now seeing a net migration of tech graduates back to the bloc.
Companies struggle to fill roles in coding, cloud computing, machine learning, software development, cyber, artificial intelligence and blockchain, the report said.
“There is a risk that those talented migrants with the skills needed by the UK will leave before these skills can be replaced by home-grown talent,” Celic said.
(GRAPHIC: TheCityUK/Odgers Berndston Report – https://tmsnrt.rs/2ObgELT)
The report recommends copying pharmaceuticals and manufacturing by forging long-term partnerships with academia to create a pipeline of skilled people – and also looking beyond graduates.
Better data gathering on the skills needed and better retraining of existing employees are also needed, the report said.
Britain has emerged as a leading fintech hub in Europe in recent years but now faces increased competition from EU cities such as Berlin, Paris and Luxembourg that can offer access to the bloc’s vast single market. Britain’s future access to the EU market could remain unclear for some time to come.
“The current shortage of tech talent is a strategic issue for the UK’s financial and related professional services industry, yet little has been done to quantify our current and future skills need,” said Nathan Bostock, chief executive of Santander UK bank and chair of TheCityUK’s working group on trade and investment.
(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Mark Potter)
Source: OANN
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