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

210 points by throwawaysea 5y ago

bigtones 5y 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 5y 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.
  - powerapple 5y 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.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      The court rejected Trump’s executive orders so they didn’t have to sell TikTok. I don’t think any of Trump’s executive orders concerning commerce in China were not rejected by the court.
  - koolhaas 5y 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.
    - Mehdi2277 5y ago
      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.
  - supergirl 5y 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.
    - rfoo 5y ago
      Chinese politician talk is as empty as you may see elsewhere, just in a different way (wording being more "communism" and harder to decipher)
      - joebob42 5y ago
        And perhaps just harder to decipher for us because it's a different flavor of bull then we are used to, and has been passed through a translation layer
    - beaunative 5y ago
      Corporate talk means to use pretentious and socially acceptable excuses to conceal the uncomfortable truth. There is no such thing as concrete corporate talk.
    - emptyfile 5y ago
      I'm guessing in America the word "Chinese" will become a swear word soon.
      - supergirl 5y ago
        what I said is not exactly critical. so I think you already associated Chinese with bad, that's your problem
  - silvestrov 5y 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.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - DickingAround 5y ago
      Every job in management is managing people, IMHO. That CEO is watching after VPs who are themselves people with typical people issues. It's people all the way up. :)
    - rchaud 5y ago
      Strategy involves keeping the team happy. Modern CEOs may have technical backgrounds, but once they become CEO, they are generalists, whether they like it or not. The problems that they personally have to solve are people-related, be it employees, customers, shareholders or regulators.
  - hobofan 5y 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.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y 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.
    - adventured 5y ago
      > A CEO stepping down with a humble excuse wouldn’t do them much good. Of course it would, it makes it look like everything is calm, orderly, and that their economic system isn't under siege by the state. The CCP - as with all authoritarian systems and to the degree of the authoritarianism - is at all times obsessed with faking appearances. (insert inevitable diversionary replies: "but America") Colin Huang desperately fled control of Pinduoduo, terrified of Xi's targeting of the next Jack Ma types. He started giving away his shares specifically to avoid getting that bullseye painted on him, to avoid potentially becoming the richest person in China. It makes perfect sense that Zhang Yiming would be in the same boat as every other prominent figure that is scared they're next. ByteDance is even more influential and important than Pinduoduo though, which makes it clear there was no other scenario to be had with ByteDance other than to 'step down.' This process will not just continue, it's going to have to accelerate; authoritarian systems - a dictatorship in this case - either must liberalize, collapse or persistently tighten the screws on any perceived risks and opposition to maintain control. It's obvious which scenario is occurring.
- Craighead 5y ago
  You're lying to yourself if you think HR didnt make or approve this statement.
- eunos 5y ago
  Fiduciary duty to shareholders perhaps. Non generic and too-honest messages might rattle share prices.
- thathndude 5y ago
  Whether or not they were scripted/forced, the comments show a refreshing amount of humility, honest, and lack of narcissism. Thumbs up!
- ericls 5y ago
  Nothing is honest here.. it’s just becoming a state owned company...
miguelrochefort 5y 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 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BATX [2] https://miguelrochefort.com/blog/big-tech https://miguelrochefort.com/blog/big-tech
- VWWHFSfQ 5y 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 5y 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=20 https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak/status/1394704798591590401?s...
  - Cthulhu_ 5y 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.
    - xvector 5y ago
      Still, it will be an incredibly valuable company, especially as the Chinese middle class comes into wealth.
      - gogopuppygogo 5y ago
        China seems to be aging faster than the middle class can get wealthy. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/01/chinas-aging-population-is-bigger-problem-than-one-child-policy-economists.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/01/chinas-aging-population-is-b...
throwaway4good 5y ago
You gotta hand it to him. He navigated TikTok successfully through an absolutely crazy period.
- ankalaibe 5y ago
  Pay respect where due
hienyimba 5y 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 http://paulgraham.com/fn.html
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mrkramer 5y 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.
  - stevewodil 5y 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.
    - aiisjustanif 5y ago
      We don’t have hard numbers obviously but a lot of people did miss Vine. Snapchat and Instagram didn’t come close to replacing it’s coolness and connected factor. Not to mention Vine was amazing for black culture. If you think the others replaced Vine then you probably aren’t a heavy social media user. Everyone knows Snapchat is for “rogue” content. Like your random sketchy night out in college that you only send temporarily (the close friend feature on Instagram and DMs never replaced this fully). Instagram is much more for funny content that is longer form or static (this goes serious static content and memes), some short form content (since it has grown with reels), and for clout. The gram has always been for clout first and foremost. I’m not posting my pictures of my new whip on Snapchat or Facebook. Vine was the platform for the great short form collaboration that is equally silly, informative and cool. TikTok is having the exact same effect, but has a feed, comment section, and related video functionality that makes it even better.
izgzhen 5y ago
https://www.bytedance.com/en/news/60a526af053cc102d640c061 https://www.bytedance.com/en/news/60a526af053cc102d640c061 the letter itself
eunos 5y ago
Quite a possibility he wants to Pivot to biotech industry. https://twitter.com/ruima/status/1395213832411254793 https://twitter.com/ruima/status/1395213832411254793 Interestingly, PDD's founder Colin Huang also recently resign from PDD and want to research life science.
intricatedetail 5y 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 5y ago
  Would gathering an AI dataset for nationality and race really be such a hard problem without it?
- hellomyguys 5y ago
  What do you think the CIA does with all the data they get/hack from American companies?
ffggvv 5y 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
- ericls 5y ago
  And that’s exactly why China will take over the US.
  - noofen 5y ago
    I welcome our new Chinese overlords [1]. China is buying the white-man token on the dip, ignoring Western "diversity" premiums. [1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-jobs-breakingviews/breakingviews-china-inc-will-recycle-used-white-guys-idUSKBN28V23T https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-jobs-breakingvi...
williesleg 5y ago
Great, another loser sent to make cheap appliances in re-education camp.
thombee 5y ago
His full statement is here https://www.bytedance.com/en/news/60a526af053cc102d640c061 https://www.bytedance.com/en/news/60a526af053cc102d640c061 I really enjoyed reading it!

210 points by throwawaysea 5y 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 5y 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.
- powerapple 5y 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.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    The court rejected Trump’s executive orders so they didn’t have to sell TikTok. I don’t think any of Trump’s executive orders concerning commerce in China were not rejected by the court.
- koolhaas 5y 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.
  - Mehdi2277 5y ago
    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.
- supergirl 5y 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.
  - rfoo 5y ago
    Chinese politician talk is as empty as you may see elsewhere, just in a different way (wording being more "communism" and harder to decipher)
    - joebob42 5y ago
      And perhaps just harder to decipher for us because it's a different flavor of bull then we are used to, and has been passed through a translation layer
  - beaunative 5y ago
    Corporate talk means to use pretentious and socially acceptable excuses to conceal the uncomfortable truth. There is no such thing as concrete corporate talk.
  - emptyfile 5y ago
    I'm guessing in America the word "Chinese" will become a swear word soon.
    - supergirl 5y ago
      what I said is not exactly critical. so I think you already associated Chinese with bad, that's your problem
- silvestrov 5y 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.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - DickingAround 5y ago
    Every job in management is managing people, IMHO. That CEO is watching after VPs who are themselves people with typical people issues. It's people all the way up. :)
  - rchaud 5y ago
    Strategy involves keeping the team happy. Modern CEOs may have technical backgrounds, but once they become CEO, they are generalists, whether they like it or not. The problems that they personally have to solve are people-related, be it employees, customers, shareholders or regulators.
- hobofan 5y 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.
- seanmcdirmid 5y 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.
  - adventured 5y ago
    > A CEO stepping down with a humble excuse wouldn’t do them much good. Of course it would, it makes it look like everything is calm, orderly, and that their economic system isn't under siege by the state. The CCP - as with all authoritarian systems and to the degree of the authoritarianism - is at all times obsessed with faking appearances. (insert inevitable diversionary replies: "but America") Colin Huang desperately fled control of Pinduoduo, terrified of Xi's targeting of the next Jack Ma types. He started giving away his shares specifically to avoid getting that bullseye painted on him, to avoid potentially becoming the richest person in China. It makes perfect sense that Zhang Yiming would be in the same boat as every other prominent figure that is scared they're next. ByteDance is even more influential and important than Pinduoduo though, which makes it clear there was no other scenario to be had with ByteDance other than to 'step down.' This process will not just continue, it's going to have to accelerate; authoritarian systems - a dictatorship in this case - either must liberalize, collapse or persistently tighten the screws on any perceived risks and opposition to maintain control. It's obvious which scenario is occurring.
Craighead 5y ago
You're lying to yourself if you think HR didnt make or approve this statement.
eunos 5y ago
Fiduciary duty to shareholders perhaps. Non generic and too-honest messages might rattle share prices.
thathndude 5y ago
Whether or not they were scripted/forced, the comments show a refreshing amount of humility, honest, and lack of narcissism. Thumbs up!
ericls 5y ago
Nothing is honest here.. it’s just becoming a state owned company...

miguelrochefort 5y 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 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BATX [2] https://miguelrochefort.com/blog/big-tech https://miguelrochefort.com/blog/big-tech

VWWHFSfQ 5y 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 5y 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=20 https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak/status/1394704798591590401?s...
- Cthulhu_ 5y 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.
  - xvector 5y ago
    Still, it will be an incredibly valuable company, especially as the Chinese middle class comes into wealth.
    - gogopuppygogo 5y ago
      China seems to be aging faster than the middle class can get wealthy. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/01/chinas-aging-population-is-bigger-problem-than-one-child-policy-economists.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/01/chinas-aging-population-is-b...

throwaway4good 5y ago

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

ankalaibe 5y ago
Pay respect where due

hienyimba 5y 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 http://paulgraham.com/fn.html

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mrkramer 5y 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.
- stevewodil 5y 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.
  - aiisjustanif 5y ago
    We don’t have hard numbers obviously but a lot of people did miss Vine. Snapchat and Instagram didn’t come close to replacing it’s coolness and connected factor. Not to mention Vine was amazing for black culture. If you think the others replaced Vine then you probably aren’t a heavy social media user. Everyone knows Snapchat is for “rogue” content. Like your random sketchy night out in college that you only send temporarily (the close friend feature on Instagram and DMs never replaced this fully). Instagram is much more for funny content that is longer form or static (this goes serious static content and memes), some short form content (since it has grown with reels), and for clout. The gram has always been for clout first and foremost. I’m not posting my pictures of my new whip on Snapchat or Facebook. Vine was the platform for the great short form collaboration that is equally silly, informative and cool. TikTok is having the exact same effect, but has a feed, comment section, and related video functionality that makes it even better.

izgzhen 5y ago

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

eunos 5y ago

Quite a possibility he wants to Pivot to biotech industry. https://twitter.com/ruima/status/1395213832411254793 https://twitter.com/ruima/status/1395213832411254793 Interestingly, PDD's founder Colin Huang also recently resign from PDD and want to research life science.

intricatedetail 5y 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 5y ago
Would gathering an AI dataset for nationality and race really be such a hard problem without it?
hellomyguys 5y ago
What do you think the CIA does with all the data they get/hack from American companies?

ffggvv 5y 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

ericls 5y ago
And that’s exactly why China will take over the US.
- noofen 5y ago
  I welcome our new Chinese overlords [1]. China is buying the white-man token on the dip, ignoring Western "diversity" premiums. [1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-jobs-breakingviews/breakingviews-china-inc-will-recycle-used-white-guys-idUSKBN28V23T https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-jobs-breakingvi...

williesleg 5y ago

Great, another loser sent to make cheap appliances in re-education camp.

thombee 5y ago

His full statement is here https://www.bytedance.com/en/news/60a526af053cc102d640c061 https://www.bytedance.com/en/news/60a526af053cc102d640c061 I really enjoyed reading it!