The founder of the Chinese e-commerce group Pinduoduo unexpectedly stepped down as chairman.
Colin Huang is China’s seventh richest person and is worth more than $ 50 billion from his stake in the online business.
Huang’s exit comes when Pinduoduo overtook rival tech giants JD.com and Alibaba with 788 million active buyers on its platform last year.
But his company has been criticized for its work culture following the recent deaths of two employees.
Mr. Huang will explore “new, long-term opportunities”, the company said in a statement on Wednesday when it released figures that it is now China’s largest e-commerce company.
Shares in Pinduoduo, valued at nearly $ 200 billion (£ 143 billion), fell nearly 8% following the news, wiping out about $ 4 billion of Huang’s wealth.
The former Google employee was briefly ranked as the second richest person in China last year, following an increase in sales in his e-commerce business.
Pinduoduo’s active buyers of 788 million surpassed Jack Ma’s Alibaba’s 779 million annual buyer count for the first time in 2020.
Its latest features are team buying, where customers come together to buy more units at a lower price. They can also play games on the site and are sometimes rewarded with gifts.
“Journey of exploration”
In a letter to shareholders, Huang said: “As the founder of this company, I am probably the most suitable person to tackle this task by stepping out of the business and the comfort zone to embark on an exploration.”
Pinduoduo has appointed Chen Lei as the new chairman of the company. Mr. Chen was a classmate of Huang at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was appointed CEO in July 2020.
The rapid growth of the e-commerce business is driven by cheap transactions, but it still stops losses.
Pinduoduo has repeatedly sought more funding and raised about $ 9 billion from investors since the Wall Street stock market was launched in 2018.
The online grocery market in China has become very competitive as more shoppers buy daily meal ingredients from their cell phones after the pandemic.
But there is widespread online criticism of the intense work culture in China’s booming technology industry.
In December, the death of a Pinduoduo employee who collapsed after leaving work sparked fierce criticism of his work culture.
Many tech workers follow a “996” schedule, based on daily work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.