Among Chinese technology companies, DJI stands out for keeping a low profile while continuing to set standards across multiple categories.
In recent years, one pattern has surfaced repeatedly: former DJI employees often appear on startup rosters, at investors’ dinner tables, and on headhunters’ priority lists. Over time, that visibility has fed a broader theory that DJI can no longer retain its people. A closer look at the gap between that judgment and the available facts suggests something else.
Start with the business itself. In 2025, market rumors held that DJI’s revenue had approached RMB 80 billion (USD 11.6 billion). In an internal letter that later circulated publicly, founder Frank Wang was even more explicit, saying the company expected to surpass RMB 100 billion (USD 14.5 billion) in annual revenue in 2026 on a stable basis.
At the same time, DJI is no longer simply a leader in drones. In action cameras, its global market share has reportedly held above 60% for an extended period. In the 360-degree camera market, it reportedly captured nearly half the segment with a single product, the Osmo 360.
Its product cadence also appears to be accelerating, and it continues to expand into new categories. Together, those developments complicate the narrative of talent loss. If DJI’s core innovation capacity is still strengthening and its organizational resilience is still deepening, the central question may not be whether it can retain talent.
A more useful question is this: As DJI pushes toward RMB 100 billion in scale, how is it building a more resilient growth model with a more diversified talent base?
That question is central not only to understanding DJI’s current position. It may also offer a useful case study for how Chinese technology companies move into a more mature phase of development.
A misread narrative
When repeated talk of talent loss surrounds a company, it usually points to something else: weakening appeal, the departure of strong performers, and a fading sense of momentum inside the organization. DJI has not clearly shown the usual signs of companies in that position.
One reason outsiders may believe DJI is suffering serious talent loss is not that it cannot retain people, but that those who leave are highly visible. Former DJI employees often enter the market with strong technical credentials. They launch startups, build products, and meet investors, making them natural subjects of market attention. The public sees who is leaving, but not who is arriving. It sees visible departure stories, but not the quieter, steady inflow of new talent.
That may reflect a familiar cognitive bias. Markets tend to remember dramatic movement more easily than they notice a stable and healthy overall talent base.
If a technical organization had truly been hollowed out, the clearest signal would be a decline in capability. Product lines would shrink, iteration would slow, and expansion into adjacent sectors would become harder. Yet DJI’s trajectory over the past few years appears to point in the opposite direction. It has not remained fixed on drones as a single-product business. Instead, it has continued to develop products in handheld imaging, spatial intelligence, and the low-altitude economy.
More precisely, what DJI appears to be experiencing is not a passive drain of talent, but an active shift toward a more open and diversified talent structure.
As a company scales, business complexity tends to rise sharply. The early model of relying on a small number of brilliant individual contributors is no longer enough to support the stable operation of a large system. The organization needs more multidisciplinary talent, more systems thinking, stronger cross-functional collaboration, and greater managerial depth.
In that process, some employees shaped by the company’s earlier style may find that their skill sets no longer fully match the demands of DJI’s next phase, and choose to leave or change direction. That kind of movement can be understood as structural renewal, undertaken so the organization can adapt to competition at a higher level.
Outsiders may see only that some people are leaving, while missing the fact that DJI is also bringing in large numbers of more experienced specialists and managers. What determines a company’s condition is not outflow alone, but whether its overall talent mix is improving. DJI’s growth curve in recent years suggests that this transition has not weakened the organization. It may have strengthened its foundations.
Necessary evolution
One clue to DJI’s current approach to talent lies in an internal letter from Frank Wang that has recently circulated in technology circles.
In a year’s end message to employees, Wang used a vivid metaphor. Early-stage DJI, he said, was more like a herbaceous plant: fast-growing and full of vitality, but structurally thin. At its current stage, the company must evolve into something woody, with not only lush leaves, but also a sufficiently strong trunk and branches.
That metaphor captures the logic behind DJI’s talent transition with unusual precision.
In the early stage of a startup, the central challenge is moving from zero to one. What a technology company usually needs most is standout engineers, people who can charge ahead, execute, and build the product. At that stage, the organization is pursuing innovation. The people who can deliver and solve problems matter most.
But once a company enters deeper waters, the nature of the challenge changes.
It no longer needs only people driven by interest and enthusiasm. It also needs people who can build systems, lead teams, and enable coordination. The center of gravity in corporate development shifts from assembling concentrated talent and energy to building a durable backbone that can support the stable operation of the whole system.
What headhunters may be sensing, then, is not simply a more aggressive hiring push by DJI. It may reflect a deeper restructuring of the company’s talent architecture. The industry’s impression of DJI has long been that it had an exceptionally high concentration of geeks. What DJI now appears to be adding are the people who can sustain the long-term operation of an entire system.
Many global technology companies have gone through this process, along with the tensions that come with it. DJI appears to be searching for its own answer through a more self-reflective approach.
When a company moves from RMB 10 billion (USD 1.4 billion) to RMB 100 billion in scale, the hardest task is often not finding a few more smart people. It is turning an organization full of smart people into one that can keep a complex system running steadily. The former depends on talent density. The latter depends on structural depth. The former is built for milestones. The latter is built to last.
That is why the most important change at DJI may not be that some people are leaving. It is that the company is trying to evolve from a place full of people who can get things done into an organization capable of sustaining growth after the zero-to-one phase.
This also helps explain why outsiders can come away with a false impression. On the surface, departure stories keep appearing. Beneath that, the organization may be reinforcing itself. What is visible is movement at the surface. What is harder to see is the structural reshaping underneath.
Taking the long view on talent
What is a more advanced capability than simply retaining every employee?
It may be neither control nor the ability to bind people to the company. Rather, DJI suggests another model: creating a stable field of attraction for talent, one in which people may leave but still retain respect for the company, identify with it, and continue to benefit from what they gained there.
That is precisely the point most easily missed in outside interpretations of DJI.
From fragments of internal remarks that have surfaced, DJI’s emphasis on “seeking truth” in its corporate values is also reflected in its respect for objective realities: that talent is shared wealth for both companies and society, and that the movement of talent is a natural part of industrial progress and value creation. DJI is willing to draw talent from society, and it is also willing to cultivate people for society who possess innovative spirit and practical capability.
The idea sounds straightforward, but it is difficult to practice. Many companies approach talent with a desire to possess it. More mature organizations understand mobility, respect it, and use it to support faster growth and iteration as they move into the next stage.
That respect can also show up in smaller, more personal details.
Consider, for example, the discussion of DJI’s “departure gift boxes,” which circulated widely online before the Lunar New Year. The recipients were not current employees, but former staff who had left years earlier. The contents were reportedly nearly identical to those given to current employees, including Lunar New Year couplets, red envelopes, badges, tea sets, and fountain pens. Some former employees commented that only after leaving DJI did they fully appreciate the experience, and that despite their complaints at the time, many still felt proud to have worked there.
What made that episode resonate during a period of visible talent tension was the signal it appeared to send: this is not a company that treats employees as disposable resources. Leaving does not mean being erased. Remembering people instead suggests the confidence of an organization that feels secure in itself.
At a time when competition for talent is intensifying, that way of handling relationships can itself become a source of attraction. Top talent often cares not only about pay and title, but also about respect, growth, and organizational character. A company that speaks only of loyalty and does not understand mobility may struggle to attract the best people. By contrast, an organization that remains open to movement and treats former employees with respect is often better positioned to build a lasting pull for talent.
From a broader perspective, DJI appears to be in the middle of an identity shift. It is no longer just a company that makes breakout products, nor merely a place that produces notable founders. It is becoming something closer to a self-renewing system. People will leave it, and people will enter it. It will spill outward, and it will draw inward. Anyone who focuses only on how many people have gone will miss the larger picture.
In fact, the best way to judge whether a technology company has weakened has never been to ask whether people have resigned. Better questions are these:
- Can it still attract top performers?
- Can it still build new things?
- Can it continue growing as its stage becomes more complex?
For now, DJI appears to remain on an upward path on all three measures.
So when it comes to DJI, what matters most may not be who left most recently, but that today’s DJI appears to function as a living reservoir of talent: always in motion, never static, and still capable of renewing itself through each departure and arrival.
KrASIA features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Xiao Xi for 36Kr.
Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.92 = USD 1 based on estimates as of March 30, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.