The richest man started taking advantage of loopholes after joining Alibaba.

Zhichun Road, Haidian District.

Yingdu Building.

Three o'clock in the morning.

The building is like a tireless behemoth, its stomach still glowing with the light of indigestion.

Zhang Yiming sat at his desk, his eyes so dry it looked as if he had been walking in the desert for three days with his eyes open.

The surface of my eyeballs was covered with red blood vessels, and every time I blinked, the eyelids rubbed against my eyeballs, causing a stinging pain like sandpaper.

But he couldn't stop.

His finger remained hovering above the phone screen, mechanically performing the same action—swiping up.

On the screen, a girl dressed in Hanfu is playing "Reigning Supreme" on a guzheng, the rhythm as fast as a rain of pear blossoms.

Only 15 seconds.

The climax was edited flawlessly.

My finger slipped.

The next video is an experiment where Mentos is thrown into Coke, and brown foam gushes out.

Zhang Yiming's rationality told him: it's time to sleep. There are three high-level meetings tomorrow, and he also has to meet with Shen Nanpeng from Sequoia Capital.

But his thumb betrayed him.

It developed its own will.

"Let's look at one more."

"Let's look at this last one."

This mentality is like a greedy snake, tightly coiling around his nerves.

until.......

The screen suddenly went black.

The power is out.

Zhang Yiming was stunned. He stared at his own tired, blank, and even somewhat unfamiliar face reflected on the dark screen.

He glanced at the clock on the wall.

03: 45.

He remembers picking up his phone to test "Weiguang Video" at one o'clock in the morning.

Two hours later, it disappeared.

Vanished into thin air.

There was no thought, no memory, only the pure, physiological pleasure that remained.

"call......."

Zhang Yiming threw his phone on the table with a crisp "smack".

He let out a long sigh of relief in his office, where he was all alone.

fear.

A long-forgotten, primal fear crept up the spine of this science genius to the back of his head.

He always thought of himself as a hunter.

Today's Headlines is the most sophisticated hunting machine he created, using algorithms to capture information and distribute it to those who need it.

But tonight, he found himself the prey.

It was captured by another, more brutal, and more direct machine.

"Lin Che..."

Zhang Yiming took off his glasses and rubbed his sore nose.

"What you've created isn't a product, it's a black hole."

He stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window.

Outside the window lies the sleeping city of Beijing.

But he knew that in those dark bedrooms, millions of people were just like him, holding their phones, endlessly falling into this black hole.

If nothing is done, Toutiao's daily active users will be completely drained within six months.

This is not alarmist.

This is an inevitable result of mathematical deduction.

Zhang Yiming turned around abruptly and pressed the intercom button on the table.

At this moment, the blankness in his eyes was gone, replaced by a chilling determination.

"Notify Zhang Lidong, Chen Lin, and all those in charge of the algorithm architecture team."

"Whether they're sleeping or in the hospital."

"Get to Conference Room Number One within half an hour."

"Anyone who is late will be dismissed immediately."

..............

..............

..............

Half an hour later.

Conference Room 1.

The atmosphere was so oppressive that it was hard to breathe.

Dozens of ByteDance executives and top tech talents sat in chairs, disheveled. Some were wearing slippers, and others had hair that looked like a bird's nest.

But no one dared to complain.

Because they saw Zhang Yiming's face.

That baby face, which usually wore a gentle smile, was now as cold as an iron plate.

"Take a look at this."

Without wasting any words, Zhang Yiming directly projected a data report onto the big screen.

That's the user time curve for Toutiao over the past week.

A curve that was originally rising upwards suddenly has a shocking sharp angle at its end.

down.

Vertically downwards.

"It dropped by 12%."

Zhang Yiming's voice wasn't loud, but in the quiet conference room, every word sounded like a nail.

"This is the first time since Toutiao's inception that a data avalanche has occurred that is not due to a technical glitch."

"You all know the reason."

"Micro Light Video"

Someone in the audience muttered quietly, "Isn't it just an app for looking at pretty girls? I downloaded that one too, it's pretty brainless..."

"Brainless?"

Zhang Yiming's gaze instantly locked onto the product manager who had spoken.

"You think that's mindless? That's ultimate efficiency!"

Zhang Yiming strode to the whiteboard, picked up a pen, and forcefully drew a frame.

"Its interaction only involves one action: swipe up."

Its algorithm has only one purpose: retention.

"It removed all interference and turned 'humans' into 'receivers'."

"We're still smugly pleased with Toutiao's personalized recommendations, thinking we understand news."

"But Lin Che, what he understands is 'addiction'."

Zhang Yiming threw down his pen.

"We must admit that we have fallen behind in the short video arena."

"Even an era."

The conference room was deathly silent.

Admitting to falling behind is more painful than killing these proud tech elites.

"but."

Zhang Yiming then changed the subject.

"We still have a chance."

"While Weiguang's current algorithm is powerful, it operates in isolation. Our recommendation engine has undergone hundreds of millions of news distribution training sessions, and its underlying user profiles are more accurate than theirs."

"What we lack is just a 'container'."

Zhang Yiming braced his hands on the conference table, leaning forward like a wolf ready to pounce.

"I hereby announce that Project 'A.me' is hereby upgraded to the company's highest strategic priority project."

"Renamed: Douyin (TikTok)"

"From now on, all resources from Huoshan Video and Xigua Video will be reassigned."

"I want the best engineers, the best product managers, and the best operations."

"Two weeks."

Zhang Yiming held up two fingers.

"I want to see TikTok launched within two weeks."

"The logic is copied directly from Weiguang. Full screen, single column, music beat matching."

"Don't feel ashamed of plagiarism. In business competition, survival is the only moral virtue."

"in addition......."

Zhang Yiming looked at Zhang Lidong, who was in charge of commercialization.

"Prepare a budget of 10 billion."

"As soon as the product launches, we'll pour 10 billion yuan into the distribution channels. For every bit of traffic Weiguang buys, we'll buy double."

"I want to win back the users I've lost within three months."

"Did you understand?"

"I understand!"

Dozens of voices answered in unison.

At this moment, ByteDance's terrifying "app factory" went into full power.

...............