Now its founder, 38-year-old Zhang Yiming, is among the world’s richest people – a distinction that lately has carried increased risks in China. “Zhang is someone who’s known for thinking long-term and not easily dissuaded by short-term setbacks,” said Ma Rui, partner at venture-capital firm Synaptic Ventures.
Born 1 april 1983(longyan,fujian,china)
Alma mater Nankai university
Occupation Internet entrepreneur,philanthropist
Years active 2006-present
Known for Founding and leading BYTE DANCE,creating tik tok
Title Founder,chairman and CEO of Bytedance
Why did Zhang Yiming create TikTok?
Yiming wanted to create platforms whose results were powered by artificial intelligence, separate from the Chinese Search Engine, Baidu. Looking at the popularity of apps like Snapchat, Zhang Yiming started to develop an app where users could create short lip-sync, comedy, and talent videos.
Do TikTokers make money?
According to them, a TikToker can earn between $200 and $20,000 for a branded video. The earnings depend on the number of TikTok followers you have and your engagement rate, meaning how often users interact with your account and like and leave comments on your short videos.
Why is TikTok dangerous?
Danger #2: Data mining, selling, and storage
The first concern many users (and parents of young users) have about TikTok is the way data is stored and potentially shared.. “All of these platforms, at least in part, are monetizing your data. That’s what they do. And the more data they have, the more money they can make.
What is Zhang Yiming famous for?
Zhang Yiming born 1 April 1983 in Longyan, Fujian) is a Chinese billionaire internet entrepreneur. He founded ByteDance in 2012 and developed the news aggregator Toutiao and the video sharing platform TikTok formerly known as Musical.ly.
Origin story
The Spark
In 2011, Zhang Yiming observed that many users were migrating from computers to smartphones. During this time, Snapchat had started gaining popularity among the teenage crowd across many countries. Yiming wanted to create platforms whose results were powered by artificial intelligence, separate from the Chinese Search Engine, Baidu. The first product in line with this vision was a news platform called Toutiao. Looking at the popularity of apps like Snapchat, Zhang Yiming started to develop an app where users could create short lip-sync, comedy, and talent videos. To engage the young audience, he integrated AI to recommend similar content to the users based on their preferences and searches.
The Launch
The app was developed in 200 days. Named as Douyin, the app was first launched in China in September 2016. Within a year, it had 100 million users, with more than one billion videos viewed every day. Seeing a great response for Douyin, the process to build the app for the global market began.
Going Global
In 2017, TikTok was born. It was launched in the international markets – majorly Asia and the U.S. Interestingly, TikTok is not available in China and its data is stored outside of China.
The Success
Within 2 months of TikTok’s launch, ByteDance spent $1 billion to purchase Musical.ly, a startup based in Shanghai. This was done to leverage the digital platform’s young user base. In August 2018, TikTok merged with Musical.ly to create a larger video community, with existing accounts and data consolidated into one app, keeping the title, TikTok.
Quote
“Stay hungry, stay young. What is “Stay hungry, stay young”? “Stay hungry” refers to curiosity and the thirst for knowledge and ambition. But why “stay young”? I think young people have a lot of advantages: they don’t have rules and regulations; they don’t have too much ego to maintain; and they often break the rules; they work hard; and they don’t compromise; and they are not sophisticated. Ten years on, some young people still have these wonderful qualities. I think that’s “staying young.” – Zhang Yiming
Honors and recognition
Zhang was named in the 2013 China 30 Under 30 list by Forbes.
In 2018, he was included in Fortune magazine‘s 40 Under 40 list.
Zhang was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2019.