Earlier this week, I discovered that writers from the Chinese subsidiary of Half as Interesting,
Inc. have been embezzling weird little facts from the company and using them for personal
gain.
So, I fired them.
But then they said to me, “actually, you can’t fire us, because we have this stamp.”
And then I was like “Oh, you mean like how the CEO of Arm China can’t get fired?”
And then the writers were like, “Yeah, we’re actually about to talk about that in this
video” and then I was like “wait this is a video” and they were like “yeah,
we actually wrote this whole conversation.”
And then my brain exploded.
In order to understand why having a red stamp could keep you from getting a pink slip out
of the blue, then you’ll have to orange-shut up and listen as I walk you through 3000 years
of Chinese history.
These stamps, often called seals, or chops, date back to at least the Shang Dynasty in
1600 BCE.
As of at least the Spring and Autumn Period, seals have essentially served a similar role
to signatures: people have personal seals, which they use to sign letters or pieces of
art, but seals can also represent the authority of a company, specific government offices,
and even the nation as a whole.
The imperial seal, made of jade, used to be passed down to emperors, giving them “the
Mandate of Heaven”; supposedly, when the first ruler of the Shang dynasty yeeted the
last ruler of the Xia dynasty in 1600 BCE, he had to get the seal to establish that he
now had the right to rule.
Today, rule of China is less stamp-based and more unitary one-party socialist republic-based,
but still, seals play an important role, particularly in business.
When a company is formed, it has to create a seal, often called a company chop in English,
that essentially represents the company’s legal signature.
The seal must be registered with the local Public Security Bureau, and there’s typically
only one seal—it’s a single physical item that carries with it the legal weight of the
company.
So if the company needs to sign a contract, or a hiring agreement, or an official firing
they need to stamp it with that specific stamp.
To which you might think “Okay, cool.
Normal.
Chill.
Dope.
You use a stamp as a company’s signature.
That makes sense—arguably a lot more sense than having someone write their name illegibly.
What’s the problem?”
Well, let me tell you about a little company called Arm China.
Arm China is the Chinese arm of Arm Ltd., the $40 billion company behind the processors
that power the smartphone that you’re watching this video on as you commit time theft at
your job.
Arm China’s CEO is this guy named Allen Wu, not to be confused with Allan Wu, host
of the Chinese version of The Amazing Race, or with “Allen Woohoo” which is what I
say to cheer up people named Allen.
But the board of Arm China, which consists of Japan’s Softbank—who also owns Arm
Ltd.—and a group of Chinese investors, no longer wants Allen Wu to be CEO, because he
did some kind of corporate malfeasance whatever that I don’t have time to explain.
But in order to fire Allen Wu, Arm China would need to stamp the document removing him from
his position with the company chop.
But you’ll never guess who has the company chop.
Actually, you probably can guess, it’s pretty obvious from the build-up: it’s Allen Wu.
And Allen Wu has no intention of losing his job over something as silly as getting fired.
All of which is to say that a multi-billion dollar tech company has, for nearly two years
now, been unable to fire its rogue CEO because he physically has a stamp that he refuses
to give back.
Now, if a company seal gets lost or stolen, companies have two options.
One is to request a new seal from the local Public Security Bureau, which is in charge
of registering seals.
The trouble is, to request a new seal, you’d need to stamp that request with the existing
seal, which Allen Wu has.
The good news is, there is another option: if the seal is missing, the document can be
signed by the company’s designated legal representative.
The bad news is… that legal representative is Allen Wu.
Of course, Arm could change who their legal representative is… but the document you’d
need to file to make that change would need to be stamped with… well, you get the idea.
The other option is to petition the People’s Court to have the stamp forcibly returned.
The trouble is, the petition you’d have to file with the court has to be stamped with…
you know what, I’m not walking through this again.
Working around this system is both complicated and extraordinarily slow, which is why despite
pending lawsuits by investors, nearly two years after the firing, Allen Wu is still
CEO of Arm China.
Just ask his LinkedIn page.
Now you may be wondering, “well…
why doesn’t this happen all the time?”
Well, it turns out that there are steps companies can take to protect themselves.
One option—and this is pretty complicated, so no wonder the board didn’t think of it—is
to get the stamp before you fire the CEO.
Another approach some businesses take is to never give the CEO control of the stamp in
the first place, and instead keep it with a neutral third party, like a law firm or
an employee that acts like a notary public.
The third option is to forcibly take the stamp, but Wu is rumored to carry it on his person
at all times, and he’s constantly surrounded by bodyguards.
And the fourth option, which seems to be the one most companies take, is not to hire a
CEO who would hold their own company hostage in the first place.
This insane story has had major consequences—Wu’s refusal to leave is a big reason why a $40
billion deal for Nvidia to buy Arm fell through earlier this year.
And recently, Wu has attempted to declare Arm China as an independent, Chinese-owned
company separate from its parent company Arm Ltd, in what one reporter called “The Tech
Heist of the Century,” just narrowly edging out Bright Side’s topic selections.
Speaking of heists, Half as Interesting filmed an entire real-world crime game show.
It’s called Half as Interesting’s Crime Spree, and it’s being called “a ground-breaking
once-in-a-generation show created by and starring flawless geniuses,” by me in this ad read.
I travel around the country breaking laws as my writers try to track me down, and if
that pitch sounds dumb, trust me: the actual series is much dumber.
It’s available only on Nebula, where you can also get access to the Half As Interesting
Bricks Special, ad-free and extended HAI videos, bonus HAI videos with all the jokes we cut,
plus other awesome exclusive content from other creators not named me.
If you spend way too much time scrolling through but never actually using streaming sites,
then Nebula is absolutely for you because it’s more content from the creators you
already watch and love.
The best way to get Nebula is through the Nebula-CuriosityStream bundle, available for
under $15 for the whole year, which also gets you access to CuriosityStream, the incredible
documentary streaming service where you can watch Wendover Productions’ first feature
length documentary, The Colorado Problem: A River in the Red.
To get that bundle deal, click the button on screen or go to curiositystream.com/HAI.