Get to know Justin Sun, the devil is in the details.
Written by: Chris Harland-Dunaway, freelance writer, this article was published in the American technology media The Verge
Compiler: Perry Wang
If the operation of the Silicon Valley company’s track is fast action and should break the existing things, so BitTorrent is an exception. Its employees like to patiently patch up creative projects and return home from get off work at a reasonable time. The company does not see the tyranny of entrepreneurial culture. The company was founded in 2004. Although its eponymous agreement helped shape the new face of the modern Internet, by 2018 the company was in financial trouble. After all, not everything influential makes money.
BitTorrent an employee told me that they like the slower pace of work: “It is not crazy development.” It is difficult to build new revenue channels, and the company is starting to look like bad assets. There are rumors that someone is actively trying to acquire it, indicating that the only way for management to get out of stagnation is to resort to a wealthy buyer.
BitTorrent fame mixed. Its core technology – a Point to Point Protocol can support large files fast download, its reputation is disgraceful, because these large files are often pirated movies and music. It was acclaimed in part from the idea to the center – to disperse the bandwidth burden and responsibility to many users, rather than a company full commitment. The philosophy of decentralization has shaped BitTorrent’s corporate culture that does not interfere with users. It provides a technology that does not take responsibility for illegally distributed pirated content.
“Sell for coins”
People soon discovered that the rumors of BitTorrent’s acquisition were true. Surfaced buyer is a young Chinese tycoons Sun Yuchen Justin Sun. All this seems to match. Sun Yuchen in Beijing, running a company called encryption currency wave field, similar to BitTorrent, the whole field of philosophy encryption is built on to the center. Some BitTorrent employees are very excited. One of them told me that their initial reaction was, “Oh, cool, encryption, this is a neat field I want to enter.” BitTorrent’s inextricable connection with piracy did not deter Justin Sun. Later, BitTorrent employees will find that he is very willing to embrace this.
But soon, Sun Yuchen hearts of the staff in some BitTorrent has become a controversial figure. First of all, crypto enthusiasts noticed that the TRON cryptocurrency white paper released by Justin Sun and other cryptocurrency projects, including the world’s second largest crypto project, Ethereum, have striking similarities. Twitter is full of allegations about the alleged plagiarism of documents, it draws heavily on two other white paper. Juan Benet, the encryption developer behind these papers, claimed that three pages of TRON’s 44-page white paper also contained the “Ethereum Basic Contract”, while nine pages copied the exact same language used in Benet ‘s decentralized encryption project.
A former employee of TRON agreed that the white paper was indistinguishable in concept: “It must be plagiarized.” Justin Sun defended himself in public, claiming that the white paper is similar to the problems encountered in the hasty translation of Chinese into English. BitTorrent employees watched the dispute quietly, without any internal explanation from the new boss.
A former employee of TRON told me that the new recruits hired by TRON will be brainwashed by Justin Sun’s worldview within a few months, and the company’s internal business strategy is obviously to ” copy Ethereum.” Another strategy is to “pull the market for the currency.” This often-repeated phrase means taking any means to make TRON TRX look dazzling, and persuading people all over the world to convert their national currency (whether it is RMB, rupee or US dollar) into TRON, thereby pulling the market value of wealth and Sun Yuchen own high wave field of currency TRX.
If the encryption currency and BitTorrent protocol is based on technical ideas to the center, then the wave field acquisition BitTorrent seems to be consolidating Sun Yuchen center of power designed to move. White Paper plagiarism Ethernet Square is just the starting point of questionable moral behavior of the Sun Yuchen series: gift Tesla Motors, spent millions of dollars to win Buffett lunch bid; introduction of incentives piracy, product use pornographic content. Then there are his alleged abuses, ranging from threats of violence to physical violence in the office.
When BitTorrent was acquired, the latter’s employees had different opinions. They do not realize that, with the Sun Yuchen bold move and self-promotion, the company will make every effort involved the United States and China political wrangling – a trade war vortex center (according to Sun Yuchen might say, is to pull the currency wave field plate), they The stable and quiet working environment will be completely broken.
Anyone who has followed Justin Sun on social media would not think that his rule over TRON was merely through abuse and uninterrupted victory. Fact and fiction component in the process of trying to distinguish between Sun Yuchen me many stories, the company and its employees between the two countries talked to a number of departments, and senior-level employees are involved. A total of 18 insiders (both current and departed) have talked with me on the condition that their names cannot be disclosed and they are worried about retaliation, but there is one exception, who is willing to reveal the news in real name. Sun Yuchen wave field and asked me to comment on the company raised repeatedly not responded.
Justin Sun’s appearance is not scary. Outsiders describe him as a self-styled ” child prodigy .” His 30-year-old, well known for his co-founder of the Ali Baba, graduated from the University of Asia’s top billionaires Lake Ma presided over. Root Justin Sun’s autobiography “Brave New World” said that his meeting with Jack Ma inspired him on the path to becoming rich and successful. In Justin Sun’s first Instagram post, he stood side by side with Jack Ma, holding the Hupan University diploma in his hand. It made him look like Ma’s protege.
Justin Sun’s first pot of gold came from an application called ” Accompany Me “, a mashup program of an audio version of Tinder and a real-time chat room with 10 million users. The app matches users who send voice chats, but it also has an audio chat room feature in which the host will flirt with seductive voices, and the content often exceeds the scale of pillow talk. In fact, the user may enter the chat room just to find the anchor who sends the orgasm sound. When the application content is often walking a fine line with some hearing pornography, it is easy to understand why it will succeed. In the end, PeiMe was removed from Apple and Android app stores, and the batch of apps that “undermined socialist values” cleaned and closed by Chinese government agencies included PeiMe.
During Justin Sun’s constant journey between Beijing and San Francisco, he bought BitTorrent for USD 140 million . Part of what makes the deal unique is the atmosphere of great power conflict surrounding it. The Pentagon claims that Chinese companies have penetrated the vast intellectual property channels of the United States and brought them back to mainland China. In the summer of 2018, some experts in the United States stated that the Sino-US trade policy caused damage to the US economy, while the United States had very little gains, thus triggering cold war-style delusions in the United States. After acquiring BitTorrent, Justin Sun suddenly surpassed the conflict environment, with one foot based in Beijing and the other based in San Francisco.
BitTorrent senior staff worried that the US government might review the acquisition. Justin Sun was unmoved by the looming risks of the Sino-US trade war. A former senior employee told me that Justin Sun saw the obstacles and thought, “I can get around these obstacles.” “In some ways this is very remarkable. This is the mentality of an entrepreneur,” they said. But “this will also include violating the rules in some less strict matters.” Justin Sun put aside these concerns in one sentence, and this sentence has become a well-known expression within the company: “I think it’s possible. (I think it’s okay) “
After all, even Ma’s Taobao is also due to infringement of intellectual property rights has been included in the US trade office on behalf of “notorious markets” blacklist. But the reason why BitTorrent has survived for so long is precisely because the company’s senior employees and lawyers avoided the gray area. They provide a technology. They did not distribute pirated content. “We want to make sure we are doing legitimate things.”
Justin Sun’s imagination is aimed at the cryptocurrency ” Wild West ” that has swept the world. Here, the rules are not clear and the regulations are not widely implemented. Since the rise of Bitcoin, the emergence of a series of encryption currency, competition for dominance, their value is usually entirely speculative. Their selling point is to claim that their tokens cannot be manipulated or controlled. The official marketing slogan of TRON is “Decentralized Network”.
The old BitTorrent office (left) and the new BitTorrent office (right), source: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Justin Sun’s acquisition of BitTorrent brought benefits. BitTorrent moved out of its old buildings surrounded by freeway ramp, moved into a skyscraper located at 301 Howard Street. “The new office is so beautiful, my goodness,” said a former employee. They marveled at the beauty of San Francisco Bay. Canteen lunch has become the norm. As of that time, BitTorrent employees understand the Sun Yuchen only through video chat. As one former employee said: “He came here with a very approachable attitude, much like a casual attitude of a young man. I don’t talk nonsense, but at the time, it was a bit fun. He didn’t come here in an aggressive attitude.”
Justin Sun finally flew to San Francisco to build his own cryptocurrency empire, wearing his iconic Gucci sneakers with a large pineapple-shaped brand logo on his feet. TRON’s TRX ICO is progressing very smoothly. Justin Sun told employees that one day he will be richer than Bill Gates.
“When you see him in real life, he believes he is a celebrity. He did not laugh.” He had sent an assistant to take away his office. Several employees claimed that Justin Sun’s arrogance was easily exploited. One of Justin Sun’s deputy in TRON will backpack Justin Sun in the office and deliberately walk half a step behind him. These actions further magnified Justin Sun’s confidence in his own reputation and strength. Ordinary English-speaking employees greeted him casually, “Hi, Justin”, but a former employee who grew up in China said that ordinary Chinese employees should call him “Mr. Sun “, which is much more formal . “Like, I’m afraid of you.” They said, as another Chinese employee said: “The attitude may be worse when talking to our own people” and “We can tolerate higher pressure and expectations.”
Justin Sun liked one of the meeting rooms very much, so he occupies it as his office. Outside the house is a frosted glass wall that cannot be seen through, but employees occasionally walk into this office when performing Sun Justin’s random tasks. The scene they see often disturbs them. They occasionally piled on the table in cash ( “piles of hundred dollar bills!”) Confused, there is a time envelope of money ( “like a stripper to spread mad cash!”). It is worth noting that Justin Sun’s office is obviously not locked. He was among more than five phone to hang around, sometimes disappear for weeks, throw the phone on the table in China, while the phone may have proprietary company information. Some employees worry that if a mobile phone is stolen, it may have a huge impact on the company.
“Only the Chinese government can tell you which day you can take a vacation.”
Sun Yuchen could face a pile of cash and a mobile phone with ease, but his attitude toward the employees are quite different. A former employee said that Justin Sun used to complain about 5 to 10 minutes when he was in Beijing that his driver accidentally locked him in the car. It seems to be related to child safety locks. “Who hired this person?” Justin Sun asked. According to a former employee, the peak of his authoritarian behavior was when he fired his personal assistant, only because she booked a doctor’s appointment and ordered an Uber to take him to the doctor. Justin Sun was furious, he wanted the doctor to come to see him . The human resources department explained to the assistant that she did not know how to serve the wealthy.
“Why is he acting like a spoiled child?” One former employee was confused. “He is like a man who made a lot of money but didn’t know how to use it.” A former senior employee said that Justin Sun believed that he was from “China’s elite class. Those people think ” I am destined to be extraordinary “.”
Employees have questions about TRON’s development direction and submitted anonymous questions to the company’s senior leaders in the traditional Q&A session of BitTorrent. A former employee who heard the formal briefing at the meeting said that just a few hours before the Q&A, Justin Sun asked the marketing team to “send him a list of questions” so that he could review the questions he didn’t like. Justin Sun read about real-life issues about the future of TRON, such as “What if TRX TRON goes to zero? ” Justin Sun’s mood immediately became very bad. “He is extremely concerned,” According to the employee, Justin Sun began to yell and lose his temper. “Whoever asked this question, we have to find him/her,” and then threatened to “kill him/her and his family.”
The Q&A meeting after get off work went well through Zoom. The long table in the central conference room was filled with about 10 employees, and the frosted glass wall was outside the room. Justin Sun and TRON joined the conference remotely from the senior management in Beijing. The way a senior employee in Beijing answered the question brought the American employees’ concerns about the company’s survival to the surface again. The Beijing employees shouting, he said: says, “No one should question the fundamental Justin he knew what he was doing, the company developed to such a degree, how dare you question the ability of Justin’s not too polite to ask.? This question is too much.” After exchanging opinions, employees asked about the unrestricted vacation policy they had originally enjoyed. The answer is: “No one can tell you when you can take a vacation. You can take a vacation only when the Chinese government says which day it will be off,” recalled a former employee. “From then on, BitTorrent’s corporate culture began to change.
“What should I do if TRON TRX returns to zero?” This question directly pierces the heart of every cryptocurrency dilemma. People who actually use cryptocurrency derive its value, which is why Justin Sun spread the gospel of TRON. A former employee told me, “I would say he is the king of hype of this century.”
This is a strange compliment, one compliment on the one hand and warning on the other.
Because Justin Sun was born in Qinghai , a poor agricultural province in China, he always felt the need to prove himself.
“From the very beginning, he dreamed of doing things that seemed impossible,” a former employee told me. Justin Sun’s autobiography claimed that his mother was an indomitable ” tiger mother “, and his father was extremely thrifty and hated throwing away old things. Justin Sun left home when he was young to study Go in Wuhan. Other articles stated that he had been studying in the Go school and his parents were divorced, but he didn’t know until he returned home.
He overcomes his disadvantages by virtue of cleverness and concentration. “He is a machine. His work 20 hours a day.” Sun Yuchen began to believe that he should carry out his dedication to the company from top to bottom.
Sun Yuchen to the San Francisco office sent a large number of articles Beijing public relations department made public. “A lot of it is about Justin Sun, touting his genius, how talented, and his outstanding leadership. It is purely to sing praises to Justin Sun,” a former employee said, “very disgusting.”
Some other articles are about transformation, all about the new corporate culture: ” 996 Work System “. A former employee who grew up in China explained, “Basically many Chinese Internet companies adopt the 996 work system.”
The first chapter causing all US employees concerned article is about the Sun Yuchen hero model Ma. In the article, Jack Ma called the 996 work system a blessing. A former employee told me, “I shared this article. The employees in the US office are really confused.” “What does this mean? Is he saying that we should start 996 bastards?” Some TRONs in San Francisco Employees have witnessed 996 culture in the Beijing office. A call at 5:00 GMT, the San Francisco staff appeared surprised by the chief engineer. “He opened the video and it looked like he had just gotten out of bed. He said, “I slept in the office last night”,” a former employee recalled. “I sympathize with him very much.”
“Now we are a threat?”
“Instead of Americans, some of them more lazy, but their creativity better,” recalls a former senior staff Sunyu Chen as saying. “So he basically gave the hard work to the Chinese team,” they said. “Engineers, developers, there is no doubt that the 996 work system.” But the situation in the Beijing office is also ironic. Engineers worked crazy overtime according to 996, writing code all the time, while others in the Beijing office did not follow this system at all. These employees illusion, anyway, Sun Yuchen in San Francisco.
HR applications requiring employees to use Chinese nails alternative Slack. Slack than nails extra monitoring capabilities, you can even use Apple Health staff to calculate the number of steps and stands ping users at any time. A former employee said: “The nail is spyware.” Another employee asked HR, what will happen if they refuse to install. HR responded that it is compiling a list of non-compliant employees and sending it directly to Justin Sun. The former employee recalled, “Well, now we are a threat?”
It is difficult for American employees to gauge which changes in the TRON work environment can be attributed to China’s technical work culture. In Chinese IT companies, management usually has greater control over them, and which changes should be attributed to Justin Sun’s leadership style. Several former employees told me about their past experience of working in Beijing. They saw all aspects of Chinese corporate culture in Justin Sun, but thought that he was actually an outlier, “unique.”
Justin Sun has more in common with another powerful American, which earned him the nickname ” Trump of China “. Justin Sun mocked Donald Trump’s marketing measures on at least one occasion. A former employee also believes that both of them have a preference for dictatorship. The former employee explained that Justin Sun’s inner circle only chooses ” obedient people ” because these people bet their future on him. Some people compare Justin Sun’s choice of loyal followers with Trump’s control of the Republican Party, but Justin Sun is “a few grades higher than that.”
Although Justin Sun promoted the ” decentralization ” of the Internet in the collision of ideas and the winners, the close contact between him and his deputies determined his arrogance to employees. His control preference has also penetrated into the blood of TRON’s business operations.
A former employee said that when TRON was ridiculed on a popular Reddit post, TRON paid the topic administrator “perogies” to allow the company to eliminate negative posts. A former employee said that “perogies” was originally “a hardcore, complete freedom of speech Redditor.” Freedom of speech is part of decentralized thinking. Under this assumption, ideas can spread freely without censorship. TRON began to delete posts arbitrarily. Is getting mad wave of Perogies threatened to open the field to his payment. The former employee said that the Beijing office took over the matter and “he disappeared into the dark forever and never heard from him again.”
“Wow, this is actually illegal.”
Although Justin Sun does everything to control TRON’s public image, TRON’s application store Tron Network is completely free. Users use TRON to purchase some apps, and the company sometimes gets a small portion of revenue. Employee told me that the most popular gambling applications, and the wave field prefer to apply by the cottage “press” any application. Justin Sun eventually opened an office in Shenzhen and hired programmers to develop copycat applications. At the same time, suspicious developers gathered on the TRON network like ants chasing honey. “We do not know who they are. We have no way to contact them. These people will enter our block chain expanded scam. All-weather, year-round fraud. Endless.” Says a former employee. There were constant complaints, such as: “My life savings was scammed!” A former employee recalled that Justin Sun and Beijing’s senior employees completely ignored the employees’ warnings about scams at the weekly meeting, and sometimes even mocked in Chinese and spoke only English. And then tell the interpreter “Do not translate this sentence.”
The deceived user tried to defend his rights. A month, the San Francisco field office received a letter wave Beijing Industry and Commerce Bureau. “Coming very often,” a former employee said. “Pile up in piles.”
Although TRON succeeded in avoiding criticism from victims of scams and Reddit forums, the company still cannot escape self-inflicted, very public injuries.
Justin Sun once claimed that the lottery would send Tesla as a promotional tool. Justin Sun posted a pre-recorded video of the lottery draw on Twitter, but people noticed a one-second ” flash ” on the screen. When you slow down, you can see that the Twitter profile picture of the winner was displayed before the announcement. Encryption currency watchers think this is fake. Justin Sun said that it was caused by Twitter’s video compression, calling it a “small glitch.”
A former employee said: “Before Justin Sun announced the winners, someone messed up. The winner’s avatar appeared on the screen. For any Internet conspiracy theorist, this is “nonsense”. No winner has been selected yet. Everyone’s avatars appear on the screen!” TRON employees insisted that it was a real lottery, but there was a lot of noise on the Internet, and Justin Sun withdrew Tesla. Justin Sun conducted a new lottery and drawn a new winner, but the debate continued. To this end, he gave out two Teslas, one for each winner.
A former employee insisted that Sun Yuchen leadership style is causing the “rollover.” “Justin doesn’t care about how to run the business down-to-earth,” they said. ” He only cares about causing great repercussions and getting rewarded.” When employees later re-examined the Tesla lottery in a meeting, they realized: “Wow, this is actually illegal.”
The Tesla lottery “car rollover” incident has an important internal impact, but for another reason. A former employee said: “This may be his worst breakdown.” Many former employees could hear Justin Sun screaming at people in his office, his screams echoing in the lobby. Sometimes he out of the office, suddenly slam the door, and uttered not particularly angry howl against any person. The assistant sitting outside his office did not respond. Employees talked about hearing him kicking the door many times when he scolded his employees in the office or over the phone. Everyone is afraid of meetings. Since then, “there are always rumors that he wants to fire a group of people.”
After this “rollover” incident, a TRON employee met Sun Yuchen’s hero, Jack Ma’s public relations manager, at an event in the Bay Area. “I just mentioned wave field and Sun Yuchen, she said,” Tell him we did not want to have any ties with him ‘. “
Almost everyone I spoke with had said, Sun Yuchen business is not necessarily the cornerstone of technology, but the use of marketing tools to make money from the user. At a meeting, Justin Sun once compared the business goals of the marketing team to a “brothel” business. After the lottery “rollover” in Tesla, Sun Yuchen responded by seeking greater, even more dazzling show purpose: to become the highest bidder Warren Buffett charity lunch auction, the opportunity to win its lunch.
“He is good at doing anything that is eye-catching and influential,” said a former employee. “Just like what a child says, pursue influence .”
Justin Sun won the auction and spent $ 4.57 million -almost the price of 130 Teslas. When the marketing department asked him how much he was willing to pay, his answer was: “I don’t care, I have to win anyway.” There is no cap. “It’s hard for him to pay the bill, but it’s easy for him to spend money.”
The media carnival hype surrounding this auction is considerable. But when asked by Sun Yuchen CNBC television interview, Buffett “had to buy bitcoins likened to gambling in Las Vegas,” and said that “Encryption is a potent rat poison currency.” Justin Sun will smirk and insist that the world’s most successful investor does not have the correct information channels for understanding cryptocurrencies.
Soon after, U.S. President Trump tweeted that he was “not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies,” and their value was “built on thin air.”
Justin Sun replied: “Mr. President, you have been misled by fake news… Bitcoin and blockchain happen to be the best opportunities for development in the United States! I would like to invite you, as well as the top figures in the crypto field, to cooperate with Mr. Buffett on July 25 Have lunch together.”
A week later, Twitter accounts wave field that due to kidney stones problem Sun Yuchen, and this lunch was postponed. The next day, Chinese media published reports that Sun Yuchen not only suspected of illegal fund-raising, money laundering and gambling, may have been allegedly detained Beijing authorities.
That afternoon, Sun used his Periscope account to live broadcast and appeared in his apartment in San Francisco with the Bay Area Bridge behind him. He repeated TRON’s business plan, and then said “I’m fine.”
“It’s like the entire company was cheated.”
The staff told me what actually happened. A former employee said that the relevant Chinese authorities have been calling Justin Sun for several weeks, “In essence, you can’t go to this lunch because Buffett is the ” symbol of the capitalist pig “. When Justin Sun invited Trump, things reached a boiling point. During the trade war, a Chinese citizen with US President lunch, is clearly intolerable. A former employee said that Justin Sun “actually ignored the warnings of relevant departments.”
Relevant Chinese authorities took action against TRON. In Beijing, “They searched the offices, took six employees.” They even find a relationship with Sun Yuchen estranged father, which was also detained them. Their mobile phones were confiscated and was told Sun Yuchen because of economic problems under investigation. One of the detained employees was terrified and kept crying. Six hours later, the government officials came back and said, “Give you your mobile phone. When anyone calls Justin Sun, tell him that he shouldn’t have lunch with Trump.” They finally said, “You cannot disclose to any media. news.”
Justin Sun finally told his inner circle about the specific situation. “He laughed a little and said, “You know what, a woman is crying”,” a former employee said. “I think I’m fucking frightened. If someone from the Chinese government comes in, I might have pulled my pants.”
Wave field convened an emergency “wartime Committee”, allegedly recommended Sun Yuchen to health reasons not to participate in Buffett lunch. The final result is the reason for using kidney stones. The stories reported by the Chinese media are also false. “The government decided to retaliate against him with official newspapers,” a former employee said, “essentially claiming that he is a liar.”
Justin Sun held an all-staff meeting in the company. He strolled into the venue and laughed and said, “Now I understand why the fake news was said,” and convinced all the employees that the reports were fake. An employee said: “I was completely shocked.” A few hours ago, they were told that Justin Sun had kidney stones. As a result, he showed up at the meeting with no health problems. “It feels like the entire company has been cheated. “
This lunch was being postponed indefinitely. A day later, Justin Sun posted a long post with strange content to millions of media on Weibo, “In the past period of time, during this darkest moment of my illness and difficulty, I experienced an unprecedented storm in my life. , Doubts and pain, I stayed up all night, I deeply reflected on my past words and deeds, over-marketing for myself, and enthusiastic hype behavior. I feel deeply guilty. Then I want to show the public, the media, and the leaders and regulatory agencies who care and love me. , Express my most sincere apologies!”, and said, “In the future, due to illness, we will repair for a period of time, reduce Weibo voices, thank guests behind closed doors, reduce media interviews, and return to the deep cultivation and research and development of blockchain technology from marketing hype. “
This is most unlike a statement of apology Sun Yuchen style, after which he quickly deleted this microblogging.
When Justin Sun was censured in public, the work environment deteriorated: “Everything quickly became toxic.” There were many reasons for colleagues to talk to each other, but on the contrary, they showed uncoordinated silence. TRON The internal events are well hidden.
Lukasz Juraszek, a software engineer who just graduated from San Jose State University and joined TRON , came to the office early in those days, but didn’t realize the shocking incident he was about to witness. Juraszek grew up in Poland and then came to the United States as an Au Pair. He met his future wife on the plane, and his precocious child helped him learn English. In order to obtain a bachelor’s degree in computer software engineering, he owed a lot of debts. His new job in the wave field is of vital importance to his career ambitions and comply with US visa requirements. That morning, Juraszek was sitting at his desk,
Justin Sun rushed out of the nearby office and had an argument with someone somewhere out of sight behind him. The argument escalated. Juraszek saw Justin Sun and Cong Li, the head of the engineering department, standing face to face outside the conference room several meters apart from the desk partition.
“At one point they both looked at me,” Juraszek told me, and he lowered his head.
When Cong Li first joined TRON, he was a soft-spoken technical person who was very good at dealing with people, with an infectious smile. He expanded his staff because “he has the trust of Justin,” one employee said. But there are some reasons related with Darwinism winning a little jig, to protect the Li’s success. He is the only one who can tolerate Sun Justin’s demands and threats. In a meeting with several employees, Justin Sun was half joking and threatened to fire Li if he could not do the promised work.
Juraszek sitting in the office to hear the roar Sun Yuchen Li, unable to concentrate on work. “My hands began to tremble, I started to sweat, and then I heard the sound of spitting.”
Li screamed. Juraszek stood up and sat back down as seen from the partition, placing his hand on the other arm. Justin Sun just beat him.
Almost every employee I talked to recalled that they had just heard this rumor. But in reality, this is not surprising. Li later confirmed to another employee that Justin Sun beat him. The violence seems to have changed Li and office atmosphere.
Justin Sun, Source: Calvin Sit / Bloomberg via Getty Images
TRON adjusted its center of gravity to the BT Movie project. Justin Sun forced Li to launch products as soon as possible, pressing hard on his work, making Li miserable and unable to accompany his two young daughters. Justin Sun sometimes called him at four in the morning but only gave some empty requests. BT Movie is a decentralized video and film distribution applications. Uploaders can be rewarded with cryptocurrency. But an employee worried that this design might actually encourage the distribution of pirated movies, or be used by ” hackers ” to defraud the company of money. The employee also said, BT Movie likely to attract attention of US regulators, because the wave field server may transmit other illegal content such as child pornography.
Oddly enough, according to Juraszek, the discussion of the BT Movie project has not been archived, only informally discussed through Dingding.
Juraszek’s boss is Zhimin He , a Chinese employee, who also expressed concerns about the BT Movie project. One day, Juraszek was sitting at his desk and heard someone arguing in a nearby meeting room. The noise was very loud, even though Juraszek was wearing Bose noise-cancelling headphones while listening to electronic music. Across the frosted glass in the conference room, he could see two people in the conference room, Cong and Zhimin He. Inside, there was a loud noise of the laptop falling on the table. Then Juraszek heard “like punches, slaps or blows with hands”. Li rushed out of the meeting room, and the door of the meeting room opened. Juraszek saw Zhimin He “obviously extremely disturbed, leaning back in an awkward sitting position”.
Juraszek turned to his colleague and said, “What happened in this company is crazy. It will continue.” He walked towards the HR department, trembling throughout the process. He feels that his job is in danger, so his US visa is also in danger. He said: “It is difficult for non-immigrants to understand my plight, but this has been lingering in my mind: if I cannot find a new job within a month, I will be deported.” After explaining the specific circumstances in detail, HR told Juraszek that if there is any retaliation, “please tell me.”
Soon after, HR employees Recommend to a workplace anti-harassment programs.
当员工们质问Li 有关BT Movie 的 合法性问题 时，他回答「不用担心」。毕竟，我们只是处理「工程开发」。这符合孙宇晨的口头禅「I think it’s okay」。
Juraszek 认为这就是一个忽略风险的借口。当时该软件据称还未进入运行阶段， Juraszek 对此表示怀疑。他去启动了BT Movie 进行检查。该应用已经被激活，他所看到的内容让他震惊。可供下载的 好莱坞电影清单 很长，有仅在剧院刚上映几周的《狮子王》，其后包括《好莱坞往事》、《怪兽之王哥斯拉》、《速度与激情：特别行动、《疾速追杀3》《复仇者联盟：无限战争》、《蚁人与黄蜂》、《黑豹》等等。
### 「彻头彻尾的背叛」
Juraszek 后来得知HR张冠李戴地篡改 了他对Li 的投诉，因此他以书面形式予以更正，但被警告说，根据员工手册，他「正在破坏工作场所」。「我心里一凉，」他说。「这有悖于我的价值观、我的原则以及我想要实现的目标。」他认为HR 在说：「小家伙，你在做什么？那不是你的地盘。闭嘴做你的工作。」 Juraszek 直接将员工手册扔回给HR，列出了一系列违反公司规定的事件。一个小时后，HR 之前回复的电子邮件消失了。「好像我从未发送过。」那天下午，Juraszek 的电脑停止工作。他被告知存在「服务器维护问题」。Juraszek 迷惑不解，四处张望，发现其他人访问了他的 波场内部邮箱。更多的电子邮件消失了。
Juraszek 感觉到压迫感越来越强。他打开钉钉来截图证据。他浏览了BT Movie 的讨论，并看到一长串「讯息已删除、讯息已删除、讯息已删除」。Juraszek 冲到项目经理Tom Mao那里，并告诉他钉钉上的消息消失了，他们需要保存证据。Mao 同意，但似乎有些犹豫。他们谈话结束后，Juraszek 瞟了Mao 的电脑屏幕，看到他删除了备用Slack 帖子中的消息。「彻头彻尾的背叛」，Juraszek 说。 （Mao 未回复置评请求。）
在当晚回家的列车上， Juraszek 填写了美国联邦调查局FBI 网络犯罪举报 中心的IC3 举报。
受吹哨人斯诺登的启发，Juraszek 试图过滤掉情绪，在时间耗尽之前建立一个系统的过程来收集证据。Juraszek 说：「再也没有真正的睡眠。」几天后，Cong Li、HR 和波场的律师召集Juraszek 开会。他们指责Juraszek「与『至少一个』第三方共享公司信息」。Juraszek 被解雇。
当我采访Juraszek 时，他穿着一件波场的T 恤。他在他的电脑上向我展示了BT Movie 的源代码，该代码可公开访问。该代码显示，按照规定，波场接收用户在BT Movie 中相互发送的所有文档的20% 。该应用的代码还允许版本控制，每次将对代码的更改及更改人记录下来。每个进行更改的人都有一个标识符——由字母和数字组成的随机字符串。但对Juraszek 而言，他们不是随机的。他标出了属于BT Movie 项目组波场员工的唯一标识符列表。他向我展示了波场员工上传的种子，这些种子会将用户定向到 盗版好莱坞电影 所在的服务器。然后， Juraszek 标注出一小段代码显示波场提取他们所上传的每部电影的其余80%。但波场的服务器上有盗版电影吗？Juraszek 表示，没法知道。
波场直接涉入了中美贸易战的主要议题之一：知识产权盗窃。「这是一个很不真实的情况」，Juraszek 告诉我，回想起他在波场的最后时光。「这是虚构与现实的融合。」
FBI 从未回应Juraszek 的举报。
Cong Li 今年3 月自波场辞职。某种程度上，孙宇晨对他的左膀右臂比对吹哨人Juraszek 还要糟糕。
孙宇晨从未明白Li 为何对他的所有要求都竭力满足的真正原因，Li 与Juraszek 一样，也是持 美国工作签证。一位前波场员工称，Li 一直谨慎地避免让孙宇晨知道他的签证状态。如果Li 被炒鱿鱼，他的家人可能 被迫离开美国。
如果说BT Movie 是负债资产，但与BT Live项目相比简直小巫见大巫。后者让多位前波场员工陷入麻烦，孙宇晨显然希望这一项目的真实目的被严格保密。
表面上看，它只是一个直播流媒体应用。实际上是BitTorrent 聪明的创始人Bram Cohen最初是写了这一项目的代码。「它被封存并置之一旁，因此只能重启。」但当工程师们并不真正知道他们在打造什么，这种情况就非常「诡异」。孙宇晨要求「一个 非常非常激进的时间表」。员工认为该项目「很棒」，但市场上充斥着FaceTime、Facebook Live 和Skype 等实时流媒体应用。一位困惑的前员工想知道，「卖点是什么？」另一名员工说：「通过手机向人们播放流视频并不难。」然后，管理层添加了一个熟悉的目标：「将其去中心化。」「所以你提个去中心化说法，然后说『现在这是一个非常有趣的问题。』这个想法是使用BitTorrent 协议来支持 实时流媒体。不会有中心化系统来控制和转发实时流媒体。一位前员工说：「我想，伙计，如果前几年阿拉伯动荡的时候该应用存在就太好了，叙利亚关闭当时关闭了互联网服务。」 「所以这就是我们对此进行增强的方式。」
看起来孙宇晨可能正在追求全世界持不同政见者梦寐以求的软件。他参加了内部多数相关会议并拍板。员工从未见过这种情况。「他给了我们指令，基本上就像『去复制BIGO Live 』」一位前员工说，「我不能说这是直接引语，因为我参加的几乎所有会议中，他都不说英语。会议中有翻译。」
BIGO Live 是中国一款流媒体应用， 用户可进入聊天室观看直播。观众向主播支付小费。BIGO Live 将 印度 作为中国市场之外的发展桥头堡。所以波场任命硅谷资深人士、英国籍外派工作人员Richard Hall前往印度研究BIGO Live。
当时在职的员工称，Hall 最初对其发现感到非常兴奋。他调研了主播，发现BIGO Live 在印度的运营呈现下滑，波场可以轻松击败它。主播挣得太少，几乎可以忽略不计。一位前员工表示，由于波场需要主播携带过来大量观众，Hall 的设想是「给他们一个高价」，「为他们的直播时间给出一个合理的高价，轻松就能让他们改用BT Live。」
「这对你而言，不会有好结果」
然后，Hall 开始调研BIGO Live 主播。通常，他们是想兼职挣点外快的印度女大学生。他了解到，这些女生日复一日地忍受着网络喷子的猥亵言论。最恶劣的嘴炮党似乎来自海湾地区富有的 石油国家。多位BIGO Live 主播在匿名条件下告诉我曾 受到性骚扰，且该平台缺乏审核措施。一位主播回忆称，她的校园照头像被移植到裸女身上，被一名多次骚扰者传播。大为震惊的Hall 回到旧金山，只给出一条意见「我们不能不审核。我们必须审核。」
Hall 持续推动对多个波场项目进行审核。稍后，当Hall 准备与家人踏上一次耗费1 万美元的邮轮度假、庆祝50 岁生日及结婚20 周年时，波场强迫他取消了行程，尽管已提前几个月批准他假期。当Hall 分享他与管理层的对话备忘录时，被告知「这对你而言，不会有好结果」。最终Hall 被召集开会，然后「不合适岗位」为由而解雇。他走到一位同事的公寓，喝了杯威士忌，誓言要提起起诉（Richard Hall 拒绝对该故事予以置评） 。
孙宇晨对Hall 在印度的发现并不关心。但多位前员工表示，时任BitTorrent CEO 的Jordy Berson作出承诺（他本人深度参与BT Live 项目） ：「除非是进行审核，否则我们不会做。」此外，在印度设立一个审核办公室的 费用微不足道。至少从理论上讲，如果没有审核，BT Live 在苹果或Android 应用商店可能不会停留一天。
孙宇晨对团队的反对意见大为光火。「他基本上要用中国团队 取代整个团队。他说过这个说法，跟我们说过，」旧金山员工试图与BT Live 在中国的工程和产品负责人Garlic 沟通。Garlic 给孙宇晨打了电话，表示「老板想干什么就干什么吧，你们照她说的去做就好了。」他们质疑Garlic 是否会抵制孙宇晨最恶劣的本能。随着孙宇晨施压推进这一项目，没人知道旧金山办公室里有人发现了孙宇晨隐藏很深的具体计划。
有人告诉了我BT Live 团队一位名叫Oscar Ko的产品设计师的故事。他是美国BitTorrent 的一位雇员，虔诚教徒，参加过周末为旧金山流浪汉洗脚的活动。他拥有一项秘密技能。
「他真正想要的是潘多拉魔盒！」
「Oscar Ko 会说中文，」一位前员工表示。「我并不知道这一点。我团队的其他人也都不知道，」有一天， Ko 突然辞职了。这位困惑的前员工问他发生了什么。「线下跟你说，」Ko 说。两人见面后，Ko 讲述了一个故事。孙宇晨有一天走进旧金山的会场，独立用中文解释了他对BT Live 的构想，然后起身离开。Ko 明白了一切。「Justin Sun 就像把它做成一个绕过中国监管和防火墙的 色情应用。」
关键是利用BitTorrent 协议。一位前员工解释说：「由于『P2P』去中心化共享的性质，一旦某事物开始播种和传播时，对其追踪和关闭非常困难。」「在最理想的情况下，人们可以谈论自由、民主以及所有这些东西。」他们解释说，但这是一个 潘多拉魔盒。任何东西都可以直播，包括 虐待儿童 的图像、恐怖分子的内容。「更糟糕的是，可能会让人流连忘返。政府和监管机构将无法关闭它。」
现在这个团队已经知情，直接与孙宇晨对抗。但他的反应让他们震惊。「他要的就是潘多拉魔盒！对他而言，因为在中国受到限制，他想象的是打开潘多拉魔盒，然后 政府没法将其关闭。当一切顺利后，他在市场中有无可取代的地位，任何东西都可以在其中流通。人们以前不能传播、不能看到的任何东西……现在，任何人都可以做到，无法阻挡。」
所有人都要用 波场币 来购买进入这一网络的入场券。
BT Live 团队狠狠 踩下了刹车。在一次会议中，他们要求孙宇晨对该应用进行审核。孙宇晨有了个想法，走到白板前。他画了一个方框，然后在中间画了一条线，看起来像是一张报纸的头版。中线之上所有的东西，或称之为「一屏」，是用户访问BT Live 的登录页面。完全接受审核。然后，孙宇晨指向方框的下半部分「二屏」，则是 未经审核内容 停留的地方。所有用户只需下滑即可看到。
参加此次会议的员工震惊了。该团队甚至开发了价值9000 美元的审核工具 套件能自动执行任务。孙宇晨坦然承认了这一点。当团队负责人向其工程师通报孙宇晨的审核花招时，一位工程师狠狠合上笔记本，「愤而离席」。
「在我看来，孙宇晨是个天才恶魔，没有什么能阻挡他」
该团队不久后向孙宇晨演示了该应用。「很显然孙宇晨完全不关心。他走神了，完全没注意听，」一位前波场员工坚持认为。BitTorrent 的CEO Berson发了封邮件表扬了BT Live 团队的努力工作，隔天就宣布了辞职。「他百分百是被解雇的，」一位前员工说。孙宇晨将该项目转移至其 中国办公室。「在我看来，孙宇晨是个天才恶魔。没有什么能阻挡他，」一位员工称。
几个月后，Lucasz Juraszek 和Richard Hall 对孙宇晨 提起法律诉讼：从欺诈、骚扰、报复举报人的民事指控。他们要求公开审判。孙宇晨的律师要求仲裁。法官支持孙宇晨方，这意味着该案的细节可能永远不会公开。
Juraszek 和Hall 的律师向旧金山的司法部检察官递交了52 页的举报，但他们 从未得到反馈。
去中心化原则上承载着互联网早期的诱人精神，当时互联网受到的监管较少，并且未受到监视的干扰。当时互联网是免费的，但仍然使那个时代就像平静的试金石。也许去中心化确实可以实现这种互联网。但是，很难相信孙宇晨正致力于实现这一崇高目标。他的商业构想并非旨在加强去中心化，而只是想 利用该构想牟利，而不管它可能造成的损害。去中心化给孙宇晨披上了合理的意识形态外衣，在此之下，他可以继续避免被追究责任。
一位前雇员说：「为了实现自己的目标，他没有底线。」「他不在乎任何人。他什么都不在乎。」因为坚持自己的信念而精疲力尽，大批员工辞职或被解雇。最悲剧的是，孙宇晨摧毁了理想主义者，使他们失去了信仰。「我相信这项技术。我认为该技术具有目的，」这位前员工在思考孙宇晨希望如何实施该技术的现实后果时说：「他甚至不会去考虑这一点。」
「我只能看到人类为这一切 付出代价。」
