This article is the reflection and perception written by the author Luo Qi on the occasion of the third anniversary of leaving Baidu, reviewing his workplace experience at Baidu and his growth and cognitive reconstruction after leaving the company, comparing the differences in workplace culture between different Internet giants, and sharing deep thoughts on future workplace development.
Three years ago today, I emptied the last personal item on my Baidu desk – a mug with the words “simple and reliable” printed on it. When I walked out of the glass building of Xierqi, the sunset was slanting on the logo of “Bear Factory”.
Looking at the endless traffic on Zhongguancun Street, my heart is intertwined with apprehension and anticipation. At that time, I would not have imagined that this journey away from Baidu would give me such a deep understanding of workplace ecology and personal growth.
Today, I would like to talk about what I have seen, heard, thought and realized in the two years of working at Baidu and the three years since I left Baidu.
01 At Baidu: When “simple and reliable” meets a complex workplace
I remember when I first joined the company, the first project I was involved in was an iteration of a content distribution product. My mentor is a “Jindu” who has worked at Baidu for ten years.
In a key product revision, I proposed a new interaction scheme based on user behavior data.
She threw out three soul questions: “Is there a precedent for this function?” “Have other teams done it?” “Did the boss make it clear that he wanted to do it?” ——If the answer is no, the conclusion is always “observe again”.
Later, I learned that her performance for five consecutive years was average or above, because she never made mistakes and never broke through. This “no-mistake philosophy” wraps around innovation like a vine, the first lesson of many young product managers.
This kind of “safe” decision-making is not uncommon in Baidu, and old employees are more inclined to optimize within the existing framework, rather than taking risks to try disruptive innovation.
This may be a manifestation of the phenomenon of the “old white rabbit” mentioned by the outside world, where old employees guard their own one-third of an acre of land like docile rabbits, but lack the courage to break through and innovate.
Another thing that struck me was the “supremacy” culture.
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I remember one time, the plan that our team spent two months polishing was overturned by a high-level meeting that “it didn’t feel amazing enough”.
The director in charge of reporting at the time privately sighed after the meeting: “Sometimes it’s not that the plan is not good enough, but that the leader’s expectations are not accurately captured.” ”
This decision-making model often leads to teams often spending a lot of energy on “guessing” in their daily work – guessing the real needs of superiors rather than focusing on creating user value.
Reporting culture is Baidu’s prominent label. Weekly project progress meetings often turn into PPT production competitions. Once, I saw a colleague working overtime for three consecutive days to make the data charts in the PPT more beautiful, but there was little actual business progress.
This atmosphere of “emphasizing form over substance” has led to many truly valuable discussions being drowned in exquisite slides.
The obstacles to collaboration between departments also gave me quite a headache.
In a cross-platform feature development project, members from different departments were fighting against each other in terms of prioritization of requirements and the selection of technical solutions. When we tried to move forward with the technical solution, another department insisted on repeatedly verifying the requirements according to their process, causing the development schedule to stall. The other party also selectively ignores the technical difficulties we feedback.
The two sides unconsciously built a high wall in communication, only focusing on maintaining their team’s work boundaries, rather than cooperating on the overall business goal, and finally the project was delivered with a patchwork solution in repeated pulls, and the user experience was greatly reduced.
Later I realized that the departmental walls inside Baidu seemed to be particularly thick.
02 “Cognitive reconstruction” after leaving Baidu
In 2022, I left Baidu and joined another Internet giant. On the first day of employment, HR handed over not a thick employee handbook, but a “team collaboration guide”. The guide begins: “We believe that the value of every individual deserves to be respected and every innovative idea deserves to be heard. This sentence makes me look forward to the new environment.
Here, the decision-making process pays more attention to data and logic. I remember at a product direction seminar, a fresh graduate who had just joined the company for half a year put forward a bold hypothesis. The team didn’t take his credentials lightly, but went down the dive in and started A/B testing. Two weeks later, the data proved that this assumption could indeed increase user activity, and the plan was successfully implemented.
This “data-only, not top-only” culture has made me truly feel the value of being a product manager.
The flat management structure also greatly improves communication efficiency.
In the new company, we adopt the “small team + project system” operation model, and each project is directly connected to the business goals by a team of 8 people composed of products, technology, and design.
This structure greatly shortens the decision-making chain, and it only takes two weeks for a feature to go live at the earliest. Team members stand every day to synchronize progress, solve problems on the spot, and there is no cumbersome reporting and approval process.
More importantly, flat management gives employees greater autonomy. In a user experience optimization project, I proposed a bold design proposal that conflicted with the existing framework, but after team discussion, it was directly approved by the leader. This trust gave me an unprecedented sense of professional accomplishment.
What surprised me even more was that the company encouraged employees to innovate.
The new company encourages employees to try and innovate. We have set up an “Innovation Incubation Fund” where employees can apply for funds to support their own creative projects.
For example, an engineer came up with an AI-based content generation solution, and although the initial results were not satisfactory, the team continued to provide support. After half a year of iteration, this project was successfully implemented, bringing new business growth points to the company.
This culture of innovation made me feel a long-lost passion. During a brainstorming, I proposed a disruptive product concept, and although it faced the dual challenges of technology and market, the company not only provided resource support, but also gave ample room for trial and error.
In the end, although the project was not completely successful, the team not only did not hold them accountable, but organized a special review meeting to help us sum up the lessons learned. This inclusive culture dares me to try more innovative solutions.
03 Thinking in contrast
After leaving Baidu for three years, I often think: Why are the cultural differences so significant in the same Internet giant? It may be analyzed from the following dimensions:
(1) The iteration speed of the organizational structure
As an established giant, Baidu’s hierarchical management structure helped it expand rapidly in the early days, but it also solidified the decision-making process to a certain extent. My current company has broken down traditional departmental barriers and built many virtual project teams, which not only improves response speed, but also makes resource allocation more efficient.
(2) Differences in innovation incentive mechanisms
Baidu has also tried to incentivize innovation through “top awards” and other methods in recent years, but the long-term “safe” culture is still difficult to completely change. In contrast, current companies incorporate innovation metrics into their daily assessments and set up dedicated “innovation funds” to encourage employees to explore new areas. This difference in mechanism directly affects the team’s willingness to innovate.
(3) Metabolism of talent structure
As the Internet industry enters the stage of stock competition, the innovative thinking and sensitivity of young employees to new technologies are becoming more and more important. Baidu’s “old white rabbit” phenomenon is essentially a reflection of the aging talent structure. The current company continues to inject fresh blood through school recruitment, social recruitment and internal rotation, forming a more dynamic talent echelon.
04 Write at the end
When I left Baidu three years ago, I was like a traveler holding a compass but losing my way. Looking at it now, this journey is more like a self-iterative practice – in the collision of different workplace ecosystems, I learned to use the rational calibration of data to calibrate the direction, use the temperature of humanity to pour decision-making, and draw my own career coordinates between trial and error and breakthroughs.
Standing at the crossroads of 2025 and looking back, those late-night anxiety, project failures, and ecstasy after breakthroughs have long precipitated into the lines on the workplace armor. Now I still face new challenges every day, but this feeling of playing with problems is the best response to the difficult choice at the beginning.
The workplace is like a vast galaxy, and each company is a unique galaxy. I sincerely wish Baidu to break the waves in the wave of the AI era, and I also hope that every professional can find their own sea of stars.
