“Take America Telephone & Telegraph Company as an example. In the 1920s, they monopolized America’s telecommunications business and invested three percent of their annual telecommunications profits into Bell Labs.”

The inventions of radio telescopes, transistors, digital switches, Unix operating systems, C programming language, and many others all originated from Bell Labs.

As a result, Bell Labs, the crown jewel of the telephone and telegraph company, was later sold to Nokia.

"So I don't expect Kechuang Bio to always be a company that leads the development of science and technology, but at least I hope it will be before I retire."

"I still have at least thirty years until I retire. In these thirty years, I hope to do more research and make more contributions to society."

"We hope that everyone will create a good working environment for researchers in terms of personnel and management."

“Our company’s profit margin is actually very high. There’s no need to work overtime for the sake of working overtime. I don’t need everyone to demonstrate their contribution to the company by working overtime themselves or forcing their subordinates to work overtime.”

"For a research and development-oriented company, the internal atmosphere must be relaxed and comfortable so that research and development talents can have enough creativity and motivation."

"Although I am a workaholic myself, I do not expect my employees to be workaholics like me."

Even though many executives had never met Zheng Li in person, his workaholic nature was a well-known fact within the company.

Even some middle managers sometimes use Zheng Li as an example when asking their subordinates to work overtime:

Gu An

"The big boss works until midnight every day, 365 days a year without a break. What's wrong with asking you to work overtime?"

Although Kechuang Bio never encouraged overtime under Li Miaomiao's management, it couldn't stop the middle managers who graduated from big companies and came to Kechuang Bio from bringing their overtime culture with them.

Moreover, when a middle manager takes the lead in working overtime, even if his superiors disapprove, they can't say anything.

As for the employees' inner complaints, they mostly do not affect the status of middle management.

Zheng Li had seen similar situations on an anonymous forum within the company, and he left a comment directly below:

"If your work hours are already full, you can refuse unreasonable overtime requests."

However, this behavior cannot be completely prohibited.

The larger the company, the less likely top-level managers are to directly interfere with frontline employees.

Especially when Zheng Li takes the lead in working overtime, some middle managers, in order to climb the corporate ladder, will force their subordinates to work overtime to produce results.

Pharmaceutical pipelines, for example, are constantly burning through cash, and are in a stage where only the input is visible but the output is not.

In such situations, it is obvious that the one who develops the pipeline first will reap the greatest benefits.

As the privately-owned enterprise with the highest market value in China, the internal competition within Kechuang Bio is no less intense than that of Huayi.

Therefore, the pharmaceutical pipeline is the most competitive sector within Sci-Tech Biotech, with thirteen research routes, each aiming to be the first team to enter the clinical trial stage.

Not to mention that the salaries and benefits offered by Kechuang Biotechnology are in no way inferior to those of major internet companies.

Compared to the workload of employees at major internet companies, some employees worry that if they are paid for a salary but their workload is not sufficient, they may face being laid off.

Why has working overtime become the norm in Chinese internet companies, whether they are large or small?

In contrast, I've never heard of any of America's internet giants having employees working overtime.

Furthermore, foreign internet companies contribute just as much as their domestic counterparts to valuable open-source projects.

This is because foreign internet companies do not update versions, release new features, or iterate products as frequently.

Domestic internet companies have perfected the art of taking small steps and iterating rapidly.

However, Kechuang Bio is not an internet company or a biopharmaceutical enterprise; simply piling on workload will not produce results.

This is not something that can be achieved by simply piling on a large number of people.

If simply increasing manpower were effective, given the number of graduates in related fields in China, China would have already caught up with the world in the biomedical field.

"In addition, I would like to mention the company's short-term goals. Regarding endorphins, I have completed the first phase of research and development on the industrialization method."

The subsequent optimization work was handed over to the company's R&D team. The goal was to reduce costs and optimize the production process, but without compromising product quality.

The production of endorphins requires highly skilled workers, and simplifying the production process can improve production efficiency to some extent.

"Another aspect is lithium metal cathode materials. There is actually a lot of room for optimization in graphene coatings. The current three-dimensional structure of graphene may not be the optimal solution."

The design of lithium metal cathode structures may not necessarily be the optimal solution. We have made many attempts in this area over the past six months, and we can appropriately increase investment in it in the future.

"The rest are brain-computer interfaces and innovative drug development. We are a leader in the field of brain-computer interfaces, which is also my main responsibility."

"The next step is to convert electrical signals into neural signals, and then develop virtual reality. This process will be very lengthy."

"During the research and development process, the only way for companies to increase their revenue is through innovative drugs."

"Then we need to create a good environment for our staff in order to truly improve their efficiency."

“We are not CROs, so we don’t have that much of a urgency regarding the timeline.”

CRO refers to a contract outsourcing service provider for pharmaceutical research and development. Because they take orders from clients, they have very strict time constraints and must deliver certain results by a certain date.

Therefore, when CRO companies receive projects, overtime work is the most severe.

This chapter is not finished, please click the next page to continue reading!