TikTok’s Zhang Yiming

You watch TikTok video lately. Or never or not yet? Anyway it is okay to use it. Watch Tiktok tiktok has make him very wealthy. 

ByteDance’s founder started out as an ordinary tech engineer who made the wildly successful apps TikTok and Jinri Toutiao. He’s now worth US$16.2 billion, 2019. Meet the secretive, 35-year-old billionaire behind TikTok who made over $12 billion in 2018.

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Hiw TikTok’s Zhang Yiming become one of China’s richest men?

ByteDance’s founder started out as an ordinary tech engineer who made the wildly successful apps TikTok and Jinri Toutiao.

 Yiming’s name is derived from a Chinese proverb that translates to surprising everyone with a first attempt.

However, the tech entrepreneur’s path has not been an overnight success.

During his time at university, Zhang switched his major from microelectronics to software engineering. However, he did meet his wife at Nankai University. The couple have yet to add children to the mix.

Feeling stifled by corporate rules, he left a lucrative career at Microsoft to join a start-up called Fanfou, which did not take off. His

journey has been one of extreme ups and downs.

Zhang was born in 1983 in China's Fujian province.  Zhang's parents worked as civil servants. 

“In 2005, I graduated from Nankai University and joined a company called Kuxun. I was one of first employees. And I was an ordinary engineer at the beginning, but in the second year, I was in charge of about 40 to 50 people responsible for back-end technology and other tasks related to products,” he said in a speech to employees at a Toutiao boot camp.

His name Yiming ( 一名) is base  on a Chinese proverb about "surprising everyone with a first attempt." 

He married his college sweetheart. The couple does not have any children. 

Z is the founder of ByteDance, the parent company of Jinri Toutiao and TikTok. 

Zhang attributes his quick ascent to a work ethic that transcended the boundaries of his responsibilities. Z's first job out college was at a digital travel booking startup called Kuxun.

"I was one of first employees. And I was an ordinary engineer at the beginning, but in the second year, I was in charge of about 40 to 50 people responsible for back-end technology and other tasks related to products," Zhang told ByteDance employees.

Zhang credits that job for teaching him sales skills that he later used to grow ByteDance.

"I remember that at the end of 2007, I went to meet the client with the sales director," "This experience let me know what sales are good sales. When I established Toutiao and recruited staff, these examples helped me a lot."

Zhang also worked at Microsoft before founding ByteDance. Z founded TikTok' parent company in year 2012. 

“At that time, I was responsible for the technology, but when the product had problems, and I would actively participate in the discussion of product plan. A lot of people say this is not what I should be doing. But I want to say: your sense of responsibility and your desire to do things well, will drive you to do more things and to gain experience,” he said.

An engineer at the time, Zhang’s experience and involvement in the business sector eventually proved useful in his own ventures.

The headquarters of Beijing Bytedance Technology Co Ltd, locatedi Beijing, China.

The company is now worth $75 billion, making it the most valuable privately held company in the world.

The company owns several social networking apps that operate within China. The company released a WeChat rival called FlipChat, and a video-messaging app called Duoshan in 2019. 

Zhang and ByteDance's first product was a news aggregator app called Toutiao. “I remember that at the end of 2007, I went to meet the client with the sales director. This experience let me know what sales are good sales. When I established Toutiao and recruited staff, these examples helped me a lot,” he recalled.

It’s paid off handsomely. Today, the 36-year-old is among the richest in China with an estimated US$16.2 billion net worth.

Zhang wanted to create a news platform whose results were powered by artificial intelligence, separate from China's search engine Baidu. We push information, not by queries, by news recommendations," Zhang said in 2017.

Despite its focus on news, Zhang told Lulu Yilun Chen and Mark Bergen in 2017 that ByteDance does not have any journalists on its staff like many other social networks.

"The most important thing is that we are not a news business."  "We are more like a search business or a social media platform. We are doing very innovative work. We are not a copycat of a U.S. company, both in product and technology."

Zhang launched ByteDance's most successful app — TikTok — under the name 'Douyin' in September 2016. He derives most of his success from founding ByteDance, a Beijing-based technology company with several success stories under its belt.

The company is mainly known for Jinri Toutiao, a news aggregation platform, and TikTok, a popular short form video sharing platform. In June, a company executive stated that the company had hit more than one billion active users across its apps earlier this year.

“Since I became an entrepreneur, I have been exposed to more and more people and experiences. When I was an engineer, my thought patterns were pretty limited. But now I must develop a product, which makes it necessary for me to understand our users and what they experience,” said Zhang.

He now makes it a point to participate on the platform and ropes in his employees too.

TikTok is now the No. 1 non-gaming iOS app in the U.S,  in September 2019. TikTok is one of the most popular social networks among American teens and has been downloaded more than 1 billion times.

TikTok still goes by the name 'Douyin' in China.

Zhang makes his own TikToks — and requires his senior employees to as well.

“For a very long time, I was merely watching TikTok videos without making any of them myself, because it’s a product mainly for young people,” said Zhang.

“But later on we made it compulsory for all management team members to make their own TikTok videos, and they must win a certain number of 'likes'. Otherwise, they have to do push-ups. It was a big step for me." 

Z's leadership style is "soft-spoken yet charismatic, logical yet passionate, younkg yet wise. TikTok's reach makes Zhang's life "much more interesting."

 TikTok has seen a meteoric rise.

“We have a group chat in which we see videos made by users from outside China every day, from countries like Brazil and Vietnam. It makes you realise that the world is a very big place, and it expands your horizons. It makes our life much more interesting,” said Zhang.

He knows there is much to be done as he expands globally to match his ambitions.

“We must work harder, we must also be more perfectionist. Just like there was an international division of labour in the industrial age, in today’s information age there’s also an international division of labour. 

Chinese entrepreneurs must also improve their own capabilities as they go global,” he said.

“Google is a company without borders. I hope Toutiao will be as borderless as Google. Personally, I hope to do things that are interesting and meaningful to society.”

His ambitions have not faltered in any way. In fact, Zhang is still finding new ground to break.

ByteDance recently confirmed that it is going to

diversify

its portfolio from software to hardware with the launch of its own smartphone. The resulting product is rumoured to be seeing the light of day as early as the end of the year 2019.

 ByteDance's app TikTok, known locally as Douyin, at the International Artificial Products Expo in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China October 18, 2019.

Zhang wants the app to continue to grow abroad, saying that he hopes his ByteDance will be "as borderless as Google," 

 We must work harder, we must also be more perfectionist," Zhang said, Just like there was an international division of labour in the industrial age, in today's information age there's also an international division of labour. Chinese entrepreneurs must also improve their own capabilities as they go global," he said.

However, TikTok's growing influence in the US has raised questions from US regulators.

His other notable hit TikTok differentiates itself from your ordinary destination for short-form mobile video. On its site, it describes itself as “raw, real and without boundaries, It’s from the gut, ‘come as you are’ storytelling told in 15 seconds”.

According to market research firm Sensor Tower, the app hit one billion downloads worldwide in February. Known as Douyin in China

TikTok’s global popularity and influence has helped him to see beyond China. 

TikTokagreed in February to pay a $5.7 million fine to the Federal Trade Commission over allegations the app illegally collected personal information from children under age 13 without parental consent, in violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, reported.

The billionaire attributes his success to his work ethic.

Zhang learned the value of pursuing excellence while still in his first job at Kuxun, he told ByteDance employees. At that  time, I was responsible for the technology, but when the product had problems, and I would actively participate in the discussion of the product plan," Zhang said,  "A lot of people say this is not what I should be doing. But I want to say: your sense of responsibility and your desire to do things well, will drive you to do more things and to gain experience."

Zhang's fortune is growing rapidly: He made over $12 billion in 2018 alone.