Beijing: ByteDance Ltd.’s billionaire founder Zhang Yiming has stepped down as chairman, months after resigning as chief executive officer. TIC Toc The owner who wants to reestablish himself amid China’s crackdown on his Internet industry.
new CEO liang rubo According to a person familiar with the matter, Zhang has been on the five-member board, which also includes representatives from investors Susquehanna International Group and Sequoia Capital China. Zhang, 38, will still be involved in formulating the Chinese tech firm’s long-term strategy, the person said, asking not to discuss private matters.
with representatives ByteDance and Tiktok declined to comment.
The world’s most valuable startup is making a big push into enterprise software after Beijing’s year-long crackdown on the consumer internet and announced this week it was restructuring into six business units. Shozi Chew has stepped down as the social media giant’s chief financial officer to focus on running its hit global product TikTok, as part of a restructuring that ByteDance told employees in a memo on Tuesday.
Bloomberg News reported in April that ByteDance has begun preliminary preparations for a public listing of its home properties. Since then, regulatory changes in China have meant that Zhang’s company had to proceed with caution, before Didi Global Inc.’s initial public offering in New York sparked a backlash in Beijing. ByteDance has repeatedly stated that it is not ready for an IPO.
“Zhang Yiming is making good on his willingness to spend his time focusing on things outside ByteDance’s current business,” said Rui Ma, a former tech banker and investor. Joe is now the founder of the podcast Tech Buzz China. “Reorganization is essential to tidy up and cut the fat, because they were visibly bloated.”
ByteDance became the first Chinese Internet firm to achieve global success with TikTok, the short video platform that counts over 1 billion monthly users worldwide. Bloomberg News reports that it was valued at $140 billion in its 2020 fundraising round and then soared to $500 billion before falling from that peak.
That success, along with domestic hits like TikTok peer Douyin and news aggregator Toutiao, has made the Beijing-based company a target both at home and in the US, where it has escaped forced sales and bans of global apps under Trump. Administration.
In China, ByteDance has come under fire from regulators seeking to rein in its once freewheeling Internet industry. While ByteDance is not the target of any official investigation – unlike peers Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Meituan – the startup was one of more than two dozen firms that the tech industry ministry has been tasked with conducting an internal inspection and first rooting out illegal online activity. had ordered. this year. Its fintech arm has also been slapped with sweeping sanctions imposed on the Ant Group company.
Beijing’s sweeping control over online content will likely affect ByteDance even more. Regulators have slowed approval for new video games to enforce stricter standards for content and safety for children, threatening ByteDance’s booming gaming business, while Xi Jinping’s government also issued a stern warning on online content. issued which does not conform to “civilized,” Marxist norms. . Bloomberg News reports that the company was forced to lay off at least hundreds of employees this year after Beijing imposed the harshest restrictions ever on the after-school tutoring industry.
Meanwhile, Beijing has rolled out new rules for data protection, including a requirement that companies with more than one million users need explicit government approval before going public in other countries. Companies like ByteDance and Didi have to assure regulators that user data will not be compromised.
In the wake of the shutdown, ByteDance is moving away from content and entertainment to better align with Beijing’s priorities. The newly formed Lark unit — named after its Slack-style Work app — will offer office collaboration tools such as video conferencing and contract management. Its cloud arm – the backbone of Douyin and TikTok’s algorithmic recommendations – will become more open to outside enterprise customers. And its education business will focus on vocational training for adults and offer artificial intelligence-powered learning, smart hardware and campus collaboration.
The board change, first reported by Chinese tech outlet Late Post, marks another retreat by Zhang, who has an estimated net worth of $44.5 billion, from the app factory he built nearly a decade ago. Facing the rapid expansion of TikTok as well as hyper-scale growth and a rapidly evolving regulatory environment at home, Tycoon had already been delegating responsibility to trusted partners for months.
In 2020, he hired two executives to run ByteDance’s Chinese operations, hiring Chew to oversee TikTok. According to his May memo announcing the CEO change, Zhang said he had begun discussions to install Liang as his successor in March. He told employees that the day-to-day responsibilities of being at the top meant they didn’t achieve as much as they expected in areas like strategic opportunities and social responsibility.
Other tech founders in China have also stepped back from their creations in recent months. Kuaishou Technology founder Su Hua said last week that he would hand over the role of CEO to fellow co-founder Cheng Yixiao, while JD.com Inc. named a new chairman in September, saying that chairman Richard Liu will focus on long-term strategies. will focus. Pinduoduo Inc. K Colin Huang also stepped down as both CEO and chairman at his e-commerce firm.
new CEO liang rubo According to a person familiar with the matter, Zhang has been on the five-member board, which also includes representatives from investors Susquehanna International Group and Sequoia Capital China. Zhang, 38, will still be involved in formulating the Chinese tech firm’s long-term strategy, the person said, asking not to discuss private matters.
with representatives ByteDance and Tiktok declined to comment.
The world’s most valuable startup is making a big push into enterprise software after Beijing’s year-long crackdown on the consumer internet and announced this week it was restructuring into six business units. Shozi Chew has stepped down as the social media giant’s chief financial officer to focus on running its hit global product TikTok, as part of a restructuring that ByteDance told employees in a memo on Tuesday.
Bloomberg News reported in April that ByteDance has begun preliminary preparations for a public listing of its home properties. Since then, regulatory changes in China have meant that Zhang’s company had to proceed with caution, before Didi Global Inc.’s initial public offering in New York sparked a backlash in Beijing. ByteDance has repeatedly stated that it is not ready for an IPO.
“Zhang Yiming is making good on his willingness to spend his time focusing on things outside ByteDance’s current business,” said Rui Ma, a former tech banker and investor. Joe is now the founder of the podcast Tech Buzz China. “Reorganization is essential to tidy up and cut the fat, because they were visibly bloated.”
ByteDance became the first Chinese Internet firm to achieve global success with TikTok, the short video platform that counts over 1 billion monthly users worldwide. Bloomberg News reports that it was valued at $140 billion in its 2020 fundraising round and then soared to $500 billion before falling from that peak.
That success, along with domestic hits like TikTok peer Douyin and news aggregator Toutiao, has made the Beijing-based company a target both at home and in the US, where it has escaped forced sales and bans of global apps under Trump. Administration.
In China, ByteDance has come under fire from regulators seeking to rein in its once freewheeling Internet industry. While ByteDance is not the target of any official investigation – unlike peers Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Meituan – the startup was one of more than two dozen firms that the tech industry ministry has been tasked with conducting an internal inspection and first rooting out illegal online activity. had ordered. this year. Its fintech arm has also been slapped with sweeping sanctions imposed on the Ant Group company.
Beijing’s sweeping control over online content will likely affect ByteDance even more. Regulators have slowed approval for new video games to enforce stricter standards for content and safety for children, threatening ByteDance’s booming gaming business, while Xi Jinping’s government also issued a stern warning on online content. issued which does not conform to “civilized,” Marxist norms. . Bloomberg News reports that the company was forced to lay off at least hundreds of employees this year after Beijing imposed the harshest restrictions ever on the after-school tutoring industry.
Meanwhile, Beijing has rolled out new rules for data protection, including a requirement that companies with more than one million users need explicit government approval before going public in other countries. Companies like ByteDance and Didi have to assure regulators that user data will not be compromised.
In the wake of the shutdown, ByteDance is moving away from content and entertainment to better align with Beijing’s priorities. The newly formed Lark unit — named after its Slack-style Work app — will offer office collaboration tools such as video conferencing and contract management. Its cloud arm – the backbone of Douyin and TikTok’s algorithmic recommendations – will become more open to outside enterprise customers. And its education business will focus on vocational training for adults and offer artificial intelligence-powered learning, smart hardware and campus collaboration.
The board change, first reported by Chinese tech outlet Late Post, marks another retreat by Zhang, who has an estimated net worth of $44.5 billion, from the app factory he built nearly a decade ago. Facing the rapid expansion of TikTok as well as hyper-scale growth and a rapidly evolving regulatory environment at home, Tycoon had already been delegating responsibility to trusted partners for months.
In 2020, he hired two executives to run ByteDance’s Chinese operations, hiring Chew to oversee TikTok. According to his May memo announcing the CEO change, Zhang said he had begun discussions to install Liang as his successor in March. He told employees that the day-to-day responsibilities of being at the top meant they didn’t achieve as much as they expected in areas like strategic opportunities and social responsibility.
Other tech founders in China have also stepped back from their creations in recent months. Kuaishou Technology founder Su Hua said last week that he would hand over the role of CEO to fellow co-founder Cheng Yixiao, while JD.com Inc. named a new chairman in September, saying that chairman Richard Liu will focus on long-term strategies. will focus. Pinduoduo Inc. K Colin Huang also stepped down as both CEO and chairman at his e-commerce firm.
.