TikTok's co-founder to step down as chief executive
1–10 of 94 posts
Re: TikTok's co-founder to step down as chief executive
#2Wow, 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'.
Re: TikTok's co-founder to step down as chief executive
#3Wow, 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'.
> "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.
Re: TikTok's co-founder to step down as chief executive
#4For 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].
Re: TikTok's co-founder to step down as chief executive
#5For 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
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.
Re: TikTok's co-founder to step down as chief executive
#6Wow, 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'.
> "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 cont…
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.
Re: TikTok's co-founder to step down as chief executive
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "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 cont…
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 le…
I used to work at Tiktok. His speech feels consistent to me. Unlike some ceo's like Mark (fb)/Evan (snap) he rarely spoke to general employees. There was no weekly/biweekly q&a to hear from the ceo. You could easily go months with him not doing any company wide talks/emails which did make top level transparency feel bad. Maybe china had more ceo communication, but lacking on US side. The rare times he did speak/email his wording tended to be much more direct and honest than I'd expect from an executive.
Re: TikTok's co-founder to step down as chief executive
#8Wow, 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'.
> "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 cont…
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.
Re: TikTok's co-founder to step down as chief executive
#9For 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
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...
Re: TikTok's co-founder to step down as chief executive
#10You gotta hand it to him. He navigated TikTok successfully through an absolutely crazy period.