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Chapter 2: The Wolf Pack
How PLA Organizational Doctrine Became Corporate Culture—And Why Employees Die For It
```The Story You're Told
Huawei is famous for its "wolf culture." The company describes it proudly: wolves are team-oriented, resilient, self-sacrificing, and relentlessly focused on the hunt. Huawei positions this as entrepreneurial spirit—the scrappy underdog mentality that let them compete with giants like Cisco and Ericsson.
The corporate messaging is clear:
- Wolves hunt in packs (teamwork and collaboration)
- Wolves are resilient (they endure harsh conditions)
- Wolves are strategic (coordinated hunting tactics)
- Wolves never give up (persistence in the face of obstacles)
It sounds inspiring. It's been written about in business school case studies as an example of strong organizational culture. Western management consultants have analyzed it as a model of mission-driven corporate identity.
But here's what those case studies don't tell you: Huawei's wolf culture isn't a metaphor. It's military doctrine. The language, the structure, the expectations, the sacrifices demanded—all of it comes directly from PLA organizational principles that Ren Zhengfei learned during his years in the Engineering Corps.
And unlike the sanitized version presented to the outside world, the internal reality of wolf culture is significantly darker.
Part I: The Marketing vs. The Reality
What Huawei Says About Wolf Culture
From Huawei's official materials and public statements:
"We have a keen sense of smell, and we are good at seizing opportunities. We work as a team, and we are not afraid of difficulties."
The company emphasizes:
- Customer focus: Wolves hunt to survive; Huawei serves customers to thrive
- Teamwork: The pack is stronger than the individual
- Resilience: Wolves endure harsh environments; Huawei endures tough markets
- Results orientation: Success is measured by the hunt's outcome
This framing makes wolf culture sound like enlightened corporate philosophy—a bit intense, perhaps, but fundamentally about excellence and mutual support.
What Wolf Culture Actually Means
But look at what happens when you dig into the details:
The Mattress Culture: Huawei became famous in China for employees keeping foldable mattresses and sleeping bags under their desks. This wasn't occasional crunch time—it was normalized expectation. New employees were reportedly told to buy a mattress as part of their onboarding.
Western media sometimes reported this as "dedication." But former employees describe it differently: it was minimum expected sacrifice. Not sleeping at the office was viewed as lack of commitment. The mattress wasn't a backup plan—it was standard equipment.
The Body Count: Between Huawei's founding and 2008, at least 6 employees died of "unnatural causes" according to reports. A 2008 investigation alleged 38 total deaths attributed to overwork. One 25-year-old engineer, Hu Xinyu, died of viral encephalitis after working continuous overtime. His death sparked rare public criticism of Huawei's work culture in Chinese media.
These aren't isolated incidents of unfortunate tragedy. They're symptoms of a system that prioritizes mission accomplishment over individual wellbeing—which is exactly how military organizations function.
Part II: The Military Roots
Ren Zhengfei's Own Words
Ren has been remarkably open about the military influence on Huawei's culture. He doesn't hide it—he's proud of it.
In speeches and internal communications, Ren has explicitly referenced:
- "The Long March" (Mao's famous military retreat/strategic repositioning) as metaphor for Huawei's rural market strategy
- Military campaign doctrine when discussing market entry strategies
- "Battlefield" terminology consistently in internal communications
- PLA resilience and sacrifice as models for employee behavior
In one particularly revealing episode, Huawei's website and internal communications praised Nazi Field Marshall Erwin Rommel as an "invincible" commander whose tactics should be studied. When this became public and drew criticism, Huawei removed the references—but the fact that they were there in the first place reveals something about the cultural DNA.
Why Rommel? Not for ideology, but for operational doctrine: Rommel was famous for aggressive tactics, rapid movement, exploitation of enemy weaknesses, and personal leadership from the front. These are exactly the qualities Huawei's wolf culture valorizes.
The "Shot-Up Fighter Plane" Brochure
One of the most telling artifacts of Huawei's culture was an internal brochure that featured a photograph of a World War II fighter plane riddled with bullet holes, barely still flying. The caption: "Heroes are forged, not born."
The message was clear: Taking damage is expected. Survival despite wounds is heroic. Keep flying.
This isn't "customer-centric corporate values." This is military sacrifice culture translated directly into business operations.
Boot Camp for New Hires
Huawei's onboarding process for new employees has been described by former staff as resembling military basic training:
- Morning jogs as group activity (military PT)
- Mandatory study sessions on Huawei culture and values (political education)
- Written reports on understanding of wolf culture principles (self-criticism sessions)
- Group activities emphasizing collective identity over individual preference
- Intensive schedule designed to break down external identity and rebuild as "Huawei person"
This mirrors PLA training methods precisely: break down civilian identity, instill military culture, create unit cohesion through shared hardship.
Part III: The Organizational Structure—Command and Control
Regional "War Zones"
Huawei's organizational structure doesn't follow typical corporate divisions. Instead, it's organized into regional operational units that function like military theater commands:
- Each region has significant operational autonomy
- Regional leaders have authority similar to field commanders
- Central headquarters sets strategic direction but regional execution is decentralized
- Resources are allocated based on "battlefield" conditions
This is straight out of PLA organizational doctrine: centralized strategy, decentralized execution, empowered local commanders who can adapt tactics to conditions.
The "Iron Triangle"
Huawei's leadership model is called the "Iron Triangle": three key roles working in coordination:
- Account Manager (relationship with customer)
- Solutions Expert (technical capability)
- Delivery Manager (execution and logistics)
This maps directly to military combined arms doctrine: infantry, artillery, and logistics working in integrated teams. Each element is essential, none can succeed alone, coordination is everything.
The Party Committee
Like all large Chinese companies, Huawei has an internal Chinese Communist Party committee. But unlike some companies where this is largely ceremonial, reports suggest Huawei's Party committee is actively involved in organizational culture.
The Party committee's role includes:
- Political education for employees
- Monitoring ideological alignment
- Reinforcing organizational discipline
- Ensuring cultural consistency across global operations
This is the PLA's "political commissar" system adapted for corporate context: a parallel authority structure ensuring alignment with core principles and preventing deviation from organizational mission.
Part IV: Life Inside the Wolf Pack
The Divorce Story
One of the most infamous anecdotes about Huawei's culture involves a senior executive who requested relocation to be closer to family. According to the story, Ren Zhengfei told him to divorce his wife instead.
Whether this literally happened or is apocryphal, the fact that the story circulates internally is revealing: it's meant to communicate that personal relationships are secondary to organizational mission. The pack comes before family.
This is pure military thinking: soldiers deploy where needed, personal considerations are subordinate to operational requirements.
996 and Beyond
China's tech industry is infamous for "996" culture: 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week. Huawei reportedly expects even more.
Former employees describe:
- 12-14 hour days as standard
- Weekend work expected (not requested)
- Vacation requests discouraged or denied
- Late-night emails with expectation of immediate response
- Performance reviews that explicitly factor "dedication" (measured by hours)
In 2019, a group of Chinese tech workers launched the "996.ICU" protest movement (work 996, end up in ICU). Huawei was specifically named as one of the worst offenders.
The Amnesty Program
In 2014, Huawei conducted an internal amnesty program where employees could confess to past misconduct without punishment. More than 4,000 employees admitted to bribery, fraud, or other violations.
This is significant for two reasons:
- Scale: 4,000+ employees engaging in unethical behavior suggests systemic culture problems, not isolated bad actors
- The amnesty itself: This is a PLA-style political rectification campaign—acknowledge errors, self-criticize, reaffirm loyalty to the organization
Mandatory Study Sessions
Employees at Huawei's international offices have reported being required to:
- Read articles on wolf culture and Huawei values
- Write reports demonstrating understanding
- Submit reports to headquarters in China for review
- Participate in group discussions about organizational principles
This is political education—standard practice in PLA units, now implemented in a corporation. The goal isn't just to inform but to indoctrinate, to ensure ideological alignment, to create conformity of thought.
Part V: Why Wolf Culture Works (And Why It's Dangerous)
The Advantages
It's important to acknowledge: wolf culture is operationally effective. That's why Huawei uses it. Military organizational principles work—that's why militaries use them.
What wolf culture enables:
- Speed of execution: Decisions are made quickly, orders are followed without debate
- Coordination at scale: Thousands of employees can act in concert toward shared objectives
- Resilience under pressure: When markets get tough, wolf culture employees don't quit
- Mission focus: Individual preferences don't derail organizational priorities
- Competitive advantage: Huawei can sustain efforts that would break competitors
This is how Huawei went into rural China when no one else would. How they endured brutal price competition. How they expanded globally despite limited resources. How they survived U.S. sanctions.
Wolf culture is a weapon. And it's devastatingly effective.
The Human Cost
But weapons have costs:
The Deaths: Young employees dying of overwork. Viral encephalitis. Sudden cardiac arrest. "Unnatural causes." These aren't accidents—they're predictable outcomes of a system that demands continuous maximal effort.
The Burnout: Former employees describe mental health crises, marriages destroyed by work demands, missing their children's childhoods, depression, anxiety.
The Attrition: Huawei has high turnover despite good pay. People burn out and leave. The system is designed to extract maximum value during peak productive years, then replace those who can't sustain the pace.
This is how military organizations function during wartime: accept casualties as the price of victory. The mission matters more than any individual soldier.
Huawei applies this same logic to peacetime business operations.
The Selection Effect
Wolf culture doesn't just shape people—it selects for certain types:
- Young (can sustain brutal hours)
- Unmarried or willing to sacrifice family (personal life is secondary)
- Ambitious (willing to trade health for career advancement)
- Financially motivated (high compensation justifies sacrifice)
- Ideologically aligned (believe in the mission)
People who don't fit this profile either never join or leave quickly. The result is an organization that self-selects for those who will sustain military-level commitment.
This is incredibly powerful for organizational cohesion. It's also why wolf culture is so hard to replicate: most people, when given a choice, won't choose this life.
Part VI: The Control Mechanism
Wolf Culture as Alignment Without Coercion
Here's what makes wolf culture brilliant from a strategic perspective: it creates alignment with organizational objectives without requiring explicit state control.
Remember the question from Chapter 1: How does the Chinese state maintain strategic alignment with a "private" company?
Wolf culture is part of the answer.
When employees are indoctrinated with military values of:
- Sacrifice for the collective
- Mission over individual
- Discipline and obedience
- Resilience in the face of adversity
- Distrust of outsiders (wolves vs. everyone else)
...they become self-regulating. They don't need to be told what serves the organizational mission—they internalize it. They police each other through peer pressure. They view questioning the mission as betrayal of the pack.
The Brilliant Trap
Wolf culture is self-perpetuating:
- Selection: Only certain people join and stay
- Indoctrination: Those who stay are intensively cultured
- Peer Pressure: Culture is reinforced by fellow pack members
- Status: Conformity is rewarded, deviation is punished
- Sunk Costs: Years of sacrifice create psychological commitment
Once you're in the wolf pack, leaving means:
- Abandoning identity you've built
- Admitting years of sacrifice were wasted
- Losing respect of peers
- Facing uncertainty outside the structure
This is how cults work. It's also how elite military units work. And it's how Huawei works.
Why This Matters Geopolitically
If Huawei is a state-directed operation (as Chapter 1 argued), wolf culture solves a critical problem: How do you maintain alignment across 195,000 employees in 170+ countries without obvious state control?
Answer: Build a culture so strong that alignment is automatic.
Employees don't need to be told "this serves Chinese national interests." They're told "this serves Huawei's mission" and "we are wolves—we survive by pack hunting." The specifics of what the mission serves become almost irrelevant when the culture is this strong.
PLA organizational doctrine, translated into corporate form, creates an organization that functions like a military unit while operating as a commercial business. It's camouflage that goes all the way down to individual psychology.
Part VII: The Uncomfortable Questions
Is Wolf Culture Just "Asian Work Ethic"?
No. Let's be clear about this.
Many Asian companies have strong work cultures. Japanese, South Korean, Taiwanese, Singaporean companies often expect long hours and organizational loyalty. This is real and should be acknowledged.
But Huawei's wolf culture is specifically military in origin and character. The language, the structure, the training methods, the sacrifice demanded—these aren't generic "hard work" values. They're PLA organizational principles directly transplanted.
Comparison:
- Samsung: Long hours, intense competition, hierarchical. But doesn't use military terminology or explicitly military training methods.
- Toyota: Kaizen culture, continuous improvement, long-term employment. Different philosophy entirely.
- Huawei: Explicitly military language, boot camp training, battlefield metaphors, command structure, Party political education.
The difference isn't degree—it's kind.
Is This Sustainable?
There are signs it might not be:
- Younger Chinese workers are increasingly pushing back on 996 culture
- International employees often struggle with wolf culture expectations
- Competition for talent is forcing even Huawei to moderate some practices
- Government regulations in China are starting to address overwork (somewhat)
But wolf culture has sustained Huawei for 37 years. It's deeply embedded. And it works.
The question isn't whether it's pleasant or ethical. The question is: Does it enable Huawei to do things competitors cannot?
The answer is clearly yes.
Could Western Companies Adopt Wolf Culture?
No. And not just because it would be illegal (labor law violations) or socially unacceptable (which it would be).
Wolf culture requires:
- Employees willing to sacrifice personal life for organization
- Cultural acceptance of extreme work demands
- Limited alternative employment options (or compensation so high it justifies sacrifice)
- Ideological alignment (mission matters more than money)
- Acceptance of hierarchy and discipline
Most Western employees, given a choice, won't choose this. And unions, labor regulators, and courts wouldn't allow it even if they would.
This is a structural advantage for companies that can implement wolf culture in contexts where it's culturally acceptable and legally permissible.
Conclusion: The Pack That Hunts as One
Wolf culture isn't corporate branding. It's not motivational metaphor. It's military organizational doctrine applied to business operations.
What Ren Zhengfei learned in the PLA Engineering Corps—how to organize people for coordinated action, how to instill discipline, how to demand sacrifice, how to maintain ideological alignment—he translated directly into Huawei's DNA.
The result is an organization that can:
- Execute at speed and scale competitors can't match
- Sustain efforts that would break normal commercial enterprises
- Maintain strategic alignment across global operations
- Survive existential threats (like U.S. sanctions) through collective resilience
But it comes at a cost measured in:
- Employees who die young
- Families torn apart by work demands
- Mental health crises
- A culture where individual wellbeing is expendable
Is this a private company optimizing for success? Or a military operation disguised as a business?
By now, you know my answer.
The wolf pack hunts as one because it's not really a pack of wolves.
It's a battalion.
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