TikTok's co-founder to step down as chief executive

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57181225

by throwawaysea • 5 years ago

210 88 5 years ago

bigtones• 5 years ago

Wow, his comments were super honest as to his reasons for stepping down. It's refreshing in such a transition that it's not smothered in corporate speak written by lawyers or HR, or the common go-to of 'spending more time with family'.

samspenc• 5 years ago

"The truth is, I lack some of the skills that make an ideal manager. I'm more interested in analysing organizational and market principles, and leveraging these theories to further reduce management work, rather than actually managing people," Mr Zhang wrote in a message on the company's website. "Similarly, I'm not very social, preferring solitary activities like being online, reading, listening to music, and contemplating what may be possible," he added.

After reading and re-reading his comments, I'm still not 100% sure whether these were his honest feelings or just a different form of "corporate speak." Also interesting he is stepping down during a wave of crackdown on Internet giants in China by the CCP. It could be genuine, but I find it hard to judge.

koolhaas• 5 years ago

Whether or not it’s all true is separate from the fact that this is very much not “corporate speak.” The tone, language, self reflection, and self criticality is so foreign to what you normally see in press releases. There are a few passages in there that feel less sincere, but some of them feel totally new to tech PR at a company of that scale.

Sure, you can pose the hypothetical: but what if he’s lying? That’s a less interesting observation IMO.

powerapple• 5 years ago

I guess if he does not want to be honest, he does not need to write it this way, it is easier just to have someone draft some words for you.

Of course, one of the factor could be what has happened: forced to sell TikTok by US; couldn't sell TikTok because rejected by China; although the massive traffic amounted by apps from his company, they are seen the same way as Facebook as not healthy for society (once you are on tiktok, time really flies by :)); Maybe all of these, we don't know. This is not his first startup, and I hope this is not his last. He definitely don't have a single vision as Zerkerburg does. Let's just take his words for it since he has put efforts into it.

supergirl2• 5 years ago

I think it might be Chinese corporate talk. the politicians also talk like this sometimes. might be related to communism -- attempting to not be condescending to regular people. or maybe it's just Chinese culture that doesn't value empty talk and so he is forced to write something concrete but it doesn't mean this is the truth.

silvestrov• 5 years ago

leveraging these theories to further reduce management work, rather than actually managing people

somehow I think this is what a CEO should be doing, and then letting managers do the people management.

CEO should be strategy, not keeping Karen in accounting dept. happy.

Too many companies just continue doing whatever they have been doing for a long time, without any ability at reconsidering if this still fits the market.

hobofan• 5 years ago

Also interesting he is stepping down during a wave of crackdown on Internet giants in China by the CCP.

Yes, "the best lies are the ones shrouded in truth". The reasons he listed might indeed be reasons why someone else would be a better fit for his positions, but I wouldn't be surprised if the actual trigger for stepping down now is the CCP.

seanmcdirmid2• 5 years ago

It is impossible to tell if someone is being sincere, or just very good at appearing to be sincere.

I doubt the CCP was involved either way. A CEO stepping down with a humble excuse wouldn’t do them much good.

eunos4• 5 years ago

Fiduciary duty to shareholders perhaps. Non generic and too-honest messages might rattle share prices.

thathndude• 5 years ago

Whether or not they were scripted/forced, the comments show a refreshing amount of humility, honest, and lack of narcissism. Thumbs up!

ericls2• 5 years ago

Nothing is honest here.. it’s just becoming a state owned company...

miguelrochefort4• 5 years ago

For those unfamiliar with ByteDance, they’re actually much bigger than you might think, and have become serious competitors to China’s leading tech companies (BATX + H) [1]:

- Baidu

- Alibaba

- Tencent

- Xiaomi

- Huawei

You can see how their offering compare in this Big Tech Spreadsheet [2].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BATX

[2] https://miguelrochefort.com/blog/big-tech

VWWHFSfQ• 5 years ago

I'm guessing there's some internal pressure. He's probably going to get a year off and then a cushy role in the party.

blueblisters• 5 years ago

TikTok will surpass Facebook as the most engaging social media app in the US with fewer DAUs than Facebook. It's already at par [1] according to some data.

ByteDance might become the most valuable company in the world, not just in China.

[1] https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak/status/1394704798591590401?s...

Cthulhu_• 5 years ago

That's a prediction and a half. It would only become the most valuable company if the stock market goes crazy about it, as it stands, one does not become that with just a mobile app / social network.

adventured2• 5 years ago

That's never going to happen. TikTok is already losing engagement in the US. The TikTok problem is that there are only so many cloned dances to do and very short form video is overwhelmingly low value garbage.

Ever look at the TikTok channels for prominent celebrities? The content is horrible. It's embarrassing to look at their channels. It's inherent to the format. The sole thing propping up TikTok in the US - which is already beginning to fade - is the popularity of young people cloning mediocre dance routines. There is only so far for that one trick pony to go, it becomes increasingly boring with time.

Facebook persists as the telephone that every house has, along with its protective moat in Instagram. TikTok has no persistence reason to exist long-term. It's far easier to build the next fad social network than it is to replace something perma entrenched like Facebook. The over 30 crowd is the majority of social media users in the US, they aren't going to abandon Facebook, it's set (exactly the same way Google is in search); young people however will abandon TikTok for the next cool trinket social media app as they get increasingly bored with TikTok and desperate for something new and cool to play with.

yftsui• 5 years ago

Nobody use BAT anymore, Baidu has been a 2nd tier company for at least 5 years and nobody refer it in the acronyms. The top 5 are Alibaba, Tencent, Ant Financial, ByteDance, Meituan or PDD

swyx• 5 years ago

seen any good analyses of what happened at Baidu? how do you screw up being "The Google of China"?

(I know "X of China" is never actually true but work with me)

xvector2• 5 years ago

How would you say ByteDance compares to the other four?

miguelrochefort4• 5 years ago

1. Ant Group is an affiliate of Alibaba.

2. Is Meituan that big?

3. I have never heard of PDD.

4. What about Xiaomi and Huawei?

deadcoder0904• 5 years ago

Where did you get this data from?

miguelrochefort4• 5 years ago

I filled it myself using Google to find projects I wasn’t aware of.

yhoneycomb• 5 years ago

It bothers me that the acronym is two non-words.

I propose X-BATH

abledon• 5 years ago

I'm reading as a Corona reference

BatxH where H = Human, x = multiplier sign

specialist• 5 years ago

I highly recommend http://acquired.fm podcast. They cover these companies and many others.

Being a grey beard, their episode on Tencent and the freemium business model kinda blew my mind.

miguelrochefort4• 5 years ago

Thanks, I just subscribed.

throwaway4good• 5 years ago

You gotta hand it to him. He navigated TikTok successfully through an absolutely crazy period.

ankalaibe• 5 years ago

Pay respect where due

hienyimba• 5 years ago

"The truth is, I lack some of the skills that make an ideal manager. I'm more interested in analysing organizational and market principles, and leveraging these theories to further reduce management work, rather than actually managing people," Mr Zhang wrote in a message on the company's website. "Similarly, I'm not very social, preferring solitary activities like being online, reading, listening to music, and contemplating what may be possible," he added.

This fits the description of a Fierce Nerd as defined by Paul Graham. Little wonder he navigated the company to such great success.

[0]http://paulgraham.com/fn.html

mrkramer3• 5 years ago

Little wonder he navigated the company to such great success.

After Twitter destroyed Vine it was clear something was needed to replace it and TikTok filled that void.

stevewodil2• 5 years ago

Not really. Snapchat and Instagram both introduced video features around the time Vine started declining. Instagram's video support is what killed the Vine userbase as the big creators moved off of Vine.

TikTok didn't fill a void, it's a fantastic video app that did a lot of things right. There was a lot of new video apps after Vine died, none of them were successful.

izgzhen2• 5 years ago

https://www.bytedance.com/en/news/60a526af053cc102d640c061 the letter itself

eunos4• 5 years ago

Quite a possibility he wants to Pivot to biotech industry. https://twitter.com/ruima/status/1395213832411254793

Interestingly, PDD's founder Colin Huang also recently resign from PDD and want to research life science.

intricatedetail• 5 years ago

In my opinion, TikTok is a network of wilful informants and a dataset that can be used to train AI at recognising foreigners so they can be more easily spied on when in China. It can also be used as a basis for race segregation programs and help run concentration camps in China (e.g. spotting "western" behaviour in the population and automatically issuing a ticket to reeducation camp). I think that service should be banned altogether.

golergka• 5 years ago

Would gathering an AI dataset for nationality and race really be such a hard problem without it?

hellomyguys4• 5 years ago

What do you think the CIA does with all the data they get/hack from American companies?

ffggvv• 5 years ago

funny reading the naive comments here that think his statements reflect the real reason he stepped down and not that the CCP forced him to amid a broader crackdown in china on tech companies

guess that’s what happens when you’re in a tech bubble and totally oblivious to world affairs or news

ericls2• 5 years ago

And that’s exactly why China will take over the US.

thombee• 5 years ago

His full statement is here https://www.bytedance.com/en/news/60a526af053cc102d640c061

I really enjoyed reading it!

TikTok's co-founder to step down as chief executive

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