Tencent CEO Pony Ma tells staff that ‘responsibility’ was the main lesson learned from a tough year

Senior management of Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings have told employees that responsibility, respect and kindness were the main lessons of 2018, according to published accounts of a staff meeting held Wednesday.

“The biggest takeaway from the past year is responsibility, and we are rethinking Tencent’s mission at the 20th anniversary [of the company],” said Pony Ma Huateng, chairman and chief executive. To become the most respected internet company, Tencent’s products and services need to improve the daily lives of ordinary people and the company must work closely with developers and industrial partners in the ecosystem, Ma added.

Allen Zhang, the enigmatic founder of WeChat, told employees that the messaging app, with more than 1 billion users, was a tool to help people who create receive some value in return.

"[WeChat] users hope to be sincerely treated … Put down your phones and meet with your friends. Sometimes it sounds like a slogan but it is what the users really want,” he said. On the same “feel good” theme, Zhang told staff they can “probably be more kind than artificial intelligence when the technology becomes cleverer than human beings”.

The management comments were posted on Tencent Culture’s official WeChat account.

This year has been a bumpy ride for Tencent, China’s biggest social media and online video game operator. After its share price hit a peak in January, a halt in the approval of new games that began in March and a subsequent global tech sell-off saw the company lose one third of its market value. Ma announced a reorganisation in late September that would shift Tencent’s focus beyond consumers to the huge potential of the industrial internet and the digital transformation of China’s economy.