On April 12, 2019, during the public debate over the 996 working schedule, JD’s founder Liu Qiangdong posted on WeChat Moments: “People who just muddle along are not my brothers!” JD would never force employees to work 995 or 996, he wrote, “but every JD person must have a fighting spirit.”
His brothers, he explained, were those who fought together, shared the pressure and shared the rewards. The post came while reports of mass layoffs at JD were circulating. JD called the reports “completely untrue.”