ByteDance - Interconnected

RESTRICT First, Ban Later

Since my first post on the RESTRICT Act two weeks ago, the bill has gotten a lot more attention and scrutiny than when it was first announced on March 7. And deservedly so. Its definition of what types of technologies may constitute national security

Topics: ByteDance• Data Regulation•

Are Americans Worried About Chinese Apps?

Not really. Actually, not at all. If you look at the top three free apps on the Apple App Store, they are Temu (by Pinduoduo), CapCut, and TikTok (both by ByteDance). If you happen to be an Android person, the top three free apps

Topics: ByteDance• Oracle• Data Regulation•

Solutions to TikTok's American Credibility Problem

Last week, I wrote a detailed post [https://interconnected.blog/tiktoks-american-credibility-problem/] breaking down TikTok’s immense credibility challenges in America, as revealed by Buzzfeed’s reporting [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-tapes-us-user-data-china-bytedance-access] based on more than 80 leaked internal meeting recordings. In today’

Topics: ByteDance• Oracle• Data Regulation•

TikTok's American Credibility Problem

What happens when audio recordings of 80 internal meetings of a company are leaked to the media? A serious credibility problem. That’s what happened to TikTok last week when the audio of, indeed, more than 80 internal meetings were leaked to Buzzfeed, which

Topics: ByteDance• Facebook•

How Does TikTok Do Global Expansion

Like it or not, TikTok is now a global phenomenon, not just in terms of cultural relevance, but also as a real business success. (As we all have seen with Twitter, you can be very culturally relevant and still struggle as a business.) Based

Topics: Facebook• ByteDance•

Facebook vs TikTok: Will Every Tech Company Become a Political Campaign?

Long before tech, I cut my teeth working on political campaigns fresh out of college. I was a field staffer on Obama’s first presidential campaign, during a time when smartphones were novel, Twitter didn’t exist, Facebook grew mostly just on college campuses,

Topics: ByteDance• Entrepreneurship• TikTok•

Zhang Yiming’s Last Speech

We rarely do translations on Interconnected, because this newsletter is focused on original work and thinking. Today’s post is an exception – an English translation of a Zhang Yiming speech delivered at the ByteDance company annual all-hands meeting in March 2021, and his last

Topics: Cloud Industry• ByteDance•

Is “ByteDance Cloud” A Good Idea?

When I first started writing Interconnected a little over a year ago, two of my favorite analyses that I wrote were why Facebook [https://interconnected.blog/why-is-facebook-not-in-the-cloud-business/] and Dropbox [https://interconnected.blog/should-dropbox-enter-cloud-business-part-1/] don’t offer their own cloud platforms. Given their scale and

Topics: Announcement• ByteDance• Developer•

The New Interconnected; Zhang Yiming's Resignation

This Interconnected post may be the most “disconnected” yet, but I will do my best to connect everything anyway. First of all, I want to share that I started a new role as the senior director for International Expansion strategy at GitHub earlier this

Topics: Didi• ByteDance• Baidu•

February 21, 2021: Didi in Mexico Part II; ByteDance’s Censorship Machine

Hello Interconnected Readers: Didi’s expansion plan in Mexico seems to follow me around (or perhaps I’m the one doing the following). I’ve been spending the last few days in a city north of Mexico City in the Bajio region, Queretaro [https:

Topics: EVs• Self-Driving• Tesla•

December 20, 2020: Rituals

Hello Interconnected Readers: I have been heads down writing and publishing the four-part “Global by Nature” series [https://interconnected.blog/global-by-nature-developers/], so I’ve neglected the Interconnected Weekly issue for many weeks -- breaking a ritual. Thus, the six stories commentary you will find

Topics: Antitrust• Alibaba• Jack Ma•

November 15, 2020: 16 Days

Hello Interconnected Readers: I had a busy week last week that was mostly self-created. While still doing volunteer work at the Reno campaign office (work doesn’t stop when Election Day is over) and continuing my day job as an investor (doing calls with

Topics: Oracle• ByteDance• Regulation•

Era of Regulatory Grift: TikTok-Oracle, NXP-Qualcomm, Arm-Nvidia

The dictionary definition of the word “grift” is as follows: “to acquire money or property illicitly [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grift]”. It may be a strong word, but also more or less encapsulates the regulatory ethos that’s governing cross-border technology businesses these

Topics: ByteDance• Azure• Oracle•

What is TikTok Worth to Whom and Why?

There is no doubt that geopolitics is a major driver of TikTok’s fate in the United States. But if and when it does get sold, it’s still a multi-billion dollar transaction that has to make some business sense. I have written quite

Topics: Open Source• TSMC• ByteDance•

August 30, 2020: Open Source, Zhang Yiming, TSMC, Loongson, XPeng, MediaTek

This issue covers the period between August 24 - 30, 2020 with six news stories – three from English language sources, three from Chinese language sources. Disclaimer: all translated article titles are done by me, not official translations from the media outlets. Before you go

Topics: Blockchain• Azure• ByteDance•

August 23, 2020: Crypto, TikTok, JEDI, Zoom, Pinduoduo, Gitee

This issue covers the period between August 17 - 23, 2020 with six news stories – three from English language sources, three from Chinese language sources. Disclaimer: all translated article titles are done by me, not official translations from the media outlets. Before you go

Topics: TSMC• ByteDance• Apple•

August 16, 2020: TSMC, CFIUS, iQiyi Fraud, ByteDance Ambitions, Apple, Beke

This issue covers the period between August 9 - August 16, 2020 with six news stories – three from English language sources, three from Chinese language sources. Disclaimer: all translated article titles are done by me, not official translations from the media outlets. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “China

Topics: ByteDance• Regulation• Open Source•

A Framework to (Dis)trust and Verify TikTok

Last week, the New York Times tech columnist, Kevin Roose, wrote a well-reasoned piece [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/technology/tiktok-china-ban-model.html] arguing that the U.S. government should not ban TikTok, but use it as an example and opportunity to build

Topics: India• ByteDance•

July 19, 2020: TikTok Data, Huawei in UK, Google in India, SMIC IPO, Softbank ARM, Luckin Coffee

This issue covers the period between July 13 - 19, 2020 with six news stories – three from English language sources, three from Chinese language sources – hand-picked by your humble author to further our exploration of the interconnections between technology, business, investment, and geopolitics. All

Topics: ByteDance• Self Driving• IPO•

July 12, 2020: TikTok, More TikTok, Canada, Elon Musk, Open Source, Blued

Note: This issue of Interconnected Weekly covers the period between July 5-July 12, 2020, with six news stories – three from English language sources, three from Chinese language sources – hand-picked by your humble author to further our exploration of the interconnections between technology, business, investment,

Topics: ByteDance• Open Source• China•

Can ByteDance Build Trust?

As I noted in Interconnected Weekly, [https://interconnected.blog/june-14-2020-interconnected-weekly/] the most interesting news item from last week was the revelation that ByteDance [https://en.pingwest.com/a/6875] is cutting its China-based engineers data access to TikTok and its other international products, reported

Topics: Zoom• ByteDance•

June 14, 2020: ByteDance, Zoom, Semiconductor, AliExpress, Matlab, IPO

Note: This issue of Interconnected Weekly covers the period between June 8-14, 2020, with six news stories – three from English language sources, three from Chinese language sources – hand-picked by your humble author to further our exploration of the interconnections between technology, business, investment, and