Tencent CEO Pony Ma reportedly bemoans internal corruption, inefficiency

Tencent CEO Pony Ma has reportedly dumped on his own company in a company meeting, railing against corruption, low quality products, and failing business units being propped up. News of Ma’s displeasure emerged in Jiemian News, an outlet with a good track record of breaking news about Chinese tech companies and a place on the …

[Pascal Monett]

So, a Chinaman moaning about corruption in China

What is the world coming to ?

It is a well-known fact that, if you as a Westerner wish to create a company in China, you'd better have a nice stack of brown envelopes at the ready, otherwise official approval is curiously going to take much, much longer to be obtained. As in, until you get a clue and start greasing the wheels.

This, however, is the first I've ever heard of a Chinese national railing against such an entrenched habit. Maybe some good will come of it, who knows ?

[Lil Endian]

Re: So, a Chinaman moaning about corruption in China

Brown envelopes...in China... Belgium, Spain, Greece...

In the land of pinstriped suits and bowler hats, you'd better have the right coloured tie too!

[Dan 55]

Re: So, a Chinaman moaning about corruption in China

China's neighbour is currently showing them exactly how much of a basket case a country can get if corruption runs rampant. I guess they've decided this isn't a good thing.

[Lil Endian]

Re: So, a Chinaman moaning about corruption in China

I mentioned Belgium in my post above. The Belgians love their "black money", from dentists being paid in cash, to the politicians.

I lived in BE for a number of years. Just before I set up there, they'd had no government for 589 days, one of the problems with proportional representation. However, everyone, from accountants to bar owners, said the country ran more smoothly! And even though the citizens still had their black money deals going on, at least the politicians weren't taking the cream off the top!

Since I've returned to Blighty, they've even even broken their own record, 652 days! I'd be interested to hear from anyone over there about how that went :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So, a Chinaman moaning about corruption in China

It's still the same mess. The Flemish part still makes the money, and the French part is still perfectly happy to drop the government if it doesn't get to spend, sorry, waste it.

Microsoft naturally spotted the wide open door there and has effectively bought itself into government functions which are far too big for MS code to handle, but as senior execitives insists on it being used it has become a daily struggle in some places (for instance, anyone who has ever tried to work with CVS imports and exports into a real database knows how much fun it is, especially if you go multilingual). Add to this blatant breaches of GDPR being circumvented by neutering the responsible compliance monitors and from a corruption point it's pretty much business as usual, just some of the players have changed.

Of course, the plebs are being monitored to ensure they don't avail themselves of the same 'opportunities'. The government used the Covid epidemic to mandate electronic payment capability in every shop but thankfully for the robber barons there are still plenty banks abroad that don't ask many questions when accepting bank note deposits, as long as they're large.

It doesn't surprise me that EU officials were caught in corruption scandals - when in Rome (well, Brussels) ..

[Lil Endian]

Re: So, a Chinaman moaning about corruption in China

Yeah, the North/South divide is ubiquitous in Belgium. In the UK we have our traditional N/S divide, but a Brit would not understand the magnitude of the divide in Belgium without experiencing it. Even the unions (eg. transport) will not come out in support of their "brothers and sisters" from the other side of the divide.

Add to that, three official languages (plus a bit of Spanish for a fourth, unofficial language) and five fiscal regions. It's unsurprising the place is hard to govern, and that governments are hard to hold together (and that accountants barely survive without burnout or worse after 40). I personally loved living there (VBR, ik ben een Vlaamse man!), lovely people and a great way of life.

Oh, did I mention the tripels!

Thanks for the comment AC :)

[herman]

10p

Well, it is only worth one tenth of the Dollar Store, so no problem.

[Lil Endian]

News of Ma’s Displeasure

I thought this was going to be about my Christmas family dinner! [1]

Ma had no news though, she loves her Sun, but they don't publish on Christmas Day! That was ma's disappointment!

[1] I meeded to sate my narcissism!

[IGotOut]

Lesson from the past.

"The company’s gaming business has prioritised quantity over quality, damaging profitability;"

Atari anyone?