Pinduoduo (PDD) Cyber Security Head Qidan He, who also goes by the name Flanker, posted on Weibo saying he was fired by the company.
"I no longer work at the company (Pinduoduo), and I have entrusted a lawyer to deal with issues regarding the rights and interests that the company denied from me," the post says.
According to people with knowledge of the matter, the firing of the genius hacker was just days before he gets his employee stock option. As one of the most prominent hackers in China, Flanker's post sparked wide speculation in the Chinese IT circle on why Pinduoduo dares to offend a top hacker.
Several posts from other Cyber Security figures and Chinese Quora alike Zhihu speculated that Flanker was fired because he refused to perform hacking activities for Pinduoduo.
Flanker didn't confirm this but sent three posts in a serie on Weibo quoting cybersecurity laws in China one week later, leaving more space for further speculations.
Another theory is firing people right before they get company shares is common practice for "evil big tech companies", that it was simply corporate manipulation. Both Flanker and Pinduoduo didn't comment on this either.
This does not look good for Pinduoduo as China turns on its tech titans. Pinduoduo has been under intense public backlash for its "sweatshop" like company culture.
Pinduoduo — the country's third-largest e-commerce firm after Alibaba (BABA) and JD.com (JD) — became a target of public outrage after two of its employees unexpectedly died during the holiday season.
The first occurred in the early hours of Dec. 29 when a 22-year-old female employee working for the company’s grocery business in Western China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region collapsed in the street and died later after getting off work.
That was followed by another death over the weekend when the worker surnamed Tan died in an act that a doctor later confirmed was a suicide.
The first death triggered a firestorm of debate on Chinese social media. Before she died the woman had complained on her own social media account, saying: “The capitalist revolution has truly gobbled up the ordinary people.”
