CHAPTER 6
Bounce Back from Disruption

Turn every setback into a comeback.

—Kobe Bryant

The fortune of New Oriental Education & Technology Group, once China’s largest private tutoring service provider, changed overnight on July 24, 2021. On that day, the Chinese government’s sweeping crackdown on for-profit after-school tutoring services sparked massive layoffs and share selloffs of tutoring companies. New Oriental also let go sixty thousand employees, with the company’s market value shrinking 90 percent, some $28 billion, that year.1 For its founder, Michael Yu, it was probably the biggest crisis that the company faced over the past thirty years.

Started as a provider of English tutoring in 1993, New Oriental had experienced rapid expansion ...

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