Here, Lei Jun just squatted on the street in Wuhan to eat Hot dry noodles, and was complained by primary school students that "so many people need to take photos for breakfast" (the picture of pushing the door was "hated for breakfast" and bet with one billion people, and Lei Jun's traffic besieged the city). Over there, Ma Yun took a dozen core executives from Ali and Ants to plant rice seedlings barefoot in the paddy field outside Hangzhou.

One is "too early", the other is "planting rice seedlings". Have Internet tycoons recently made an appointment to "sink" collectively?

Lei Jun was questioned for posing, and Jack Ma was speculated about the signal. But compared to Lei Jun's "down-to-earth attitude collapse", Jack Ma's rice planting drama is obviously not that simple.

01. One transplanting, two refutations

On June 22nd, Alibaba partner and Chairman of Gaode, Liu Zhenfei, posted a post on Alibaba's intranet titled "Having rice seedlings in hand ensures future food supply".

The article documented a "luxurious" team building event, led by Jack Ma, with core management from Alibaba including Wu Yongming, Shao Xiaofeng, Jiang Fan, Wu Zemin, and Jiang Fang, as well as Ant Group Chairman Jing Xiandong and CEO Han Xinyi. Over a dozen people rolled up their pants and worked tirelessly all morning before finally planting half an acre of paddy fields.

An Alibaba employee joked that the live action version of "Baba Farm" has been launched.

But discerning people know that this is not for fun.

At least two things have been completed in this rice planting. Firstly, refute the rumors against Zhou Jingren. Just a few days before the event, there were rumors circulating online that Alibaba's chief scientist, Zhou Jingren, had submitted his resignation application. As the core leader of Alibaba's AI and big model sectors, Zhou Jingren's departure or stay directly affects the nerves of the capital market. What was the result? A photo of him stepping on mud and holding green seedlings went viral on the internet, debunking rumors. One photo is more effective than ten debunking statements.

Secondly, align with the management team. The core management teams of Alibaba and Ant are playing with mud together, and the implicit message conveyed to the outside world is that once the management team is stable, they will take their respective positions. In the turbulent and tumultuous autumn of the organization, the leading figure in Qianwen Technology, Lin Junyang, resigned in March, the CEO of DingTalk resigned in June without any recruitment, and the AI organizational structure underwent three reorganizations within three months. This rice planting campaign was more effective than any employee email.

02. From "Nomadism" to "Farming"

But the significance of this rice planting event goes far beyond debunking rumors and team building.

Liu Zhenfei wrote a paragraph in his post: "The principle in the field is simple: when the season comes, you must plant when you need to, and when you need to cook, you must cook. As long as you take good care of the land, choose the right seedlings, and do everything seriously, leave the rest to time, and the land will not mistreat you

Everyone understands, this is not about agriculture.

In the past two decades, the Internet industry has pursued a "nomadic logic", chasing the wind, racing to encircle land, burning money for subsidies, and quick realization.

But now, this gameplay has come to an end. The traffic dividend peaked, and the competition of hard core technology became the main theme. The Internet giants had to shift from "nomadism" to "farming", select a piece of land, cultivate deeply and carefully, and look forward to a long-term harvest.

For Alibaba, this' land 'refers to AI big models and cloud computing infrastructure. In February 2025, Alibaba announced that it would invest over 380 billion yuan in building AI infrastructure over the next three years; In May 2026, CEO Wu Yongming further stated that the investment for the next five years will far exceed 380 billion yuan.

This is a big gamble and a long 'sowing'. Low level computing power and general large models are businesses that require high investment, long cycles, and slow results. Jack Ma, leading the management team to plant rice seedlings, is taking a stance that Alibaba is ready to bid farewell to the mindset of making quick money, embrace the long cycle of technological breakthroughs, and tolerate the short-term pains of business transformation.

Can we hand over food in autumn?

Of course, there are also people who don't buy it.

Some comments bluntly state that Alibaba's rice planting drama is essentially a carefully choreographed public relations performance art. If a company has a clear strategic direction and visible progress in execution, there is no need to engage in such fancy activities. After 380 billion yuan is smashed down, there is still no convincing stage result visible externally.

Zhu Keli, founding director of the National Research Institute for New Economy, put it more bluntly: behind Alibaba's announcement of 380 billion yuan in AI investment, Alibaba Cloud is being squeezed by Huawei Cloud and ByteDance, models are being disrupted by DeepSeek, and there has been no phenomenon level product in the application layer for a long time. A full stack layout may sound domineering, but when translated, it means there is no single point advantage.

The logic of agriculture is linear growth, where good weather leads to harvest; But the logic of AI is non-linear and highly iterative, where the winner takes all. Whether Alibaba's seedlings can grow into grain or not depends not on determination, but on the real algorithm computing power and scenario verification

The cruelest part of transplanting rice seedlings is that autumn has arrived, and you can't deliver the grain. Any story is just empty talk.

From Lei Jun's premature move in Wuhan to Jack Ma's planting of rice seedlings in Hangzhou, big shots are all striving to be down-to-earth. The difference is that Lei Jun passively entered the hot search, while Jack Ma actively created the topic.

But whether it's "too early" or "transplanting rice seedlings", ultimately we have to return to the same question: will the market buy what you bring out?

Lei Jun presented Hot dry noodles, and everyone tasted them fresh and then dispersed. Jack Ma planted 380 billion AI seedlings, and everyone is waiting for the autumn harvest.

Having seedlings in hand is the key to ensuring food supply in the future. But whether the seedlings can grow into grain depends not on the ritual of transplanting, but on the daily cultivation that follows.

The land does not deceive people, and neither does the market.

*The image is from the internet and has been hacked and deleted