Works of Tiger Sniffing Mobile Information Group
Author | Huang Qingchun
Title Map | Visual China
There was Huang Zheng in the front and Zhang Yiming in the back. Both Internet upstart CEOs “retired” and made headlines.
On May 20th, Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, issued an internal letter to all employees, announcing that he would step down as CEO and announcing that Bytedance co-founder Liang Rubo will take over as the new CEO—its limelight soon overwhelmed the circle of friends. The news that Chen Sicheng and Tong Liya divorced.
The picture shows Zhang Yiming (left) and Liang Rubo (right)
At the same time, Tianyan Check shows that Zhang Yiming has recently withdrawn from the key personnel of Tianjin Byte Beat Technology Co., Ltd. and no longer serves as an executive director; Zhang Yiming also worked from Tibet Source Code Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership), Tibet Source The shareholders of Shang Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership) withdrew and ceased to serve as the legal representative of Beijing Youzhuju Network Technology Co., Ltd.
As for the “receiver” Liang Rubo, public information shows that he is a college classmate of Zhang Yiming, and the two co-founded Bytedance in 2012. Since then, Liang Rubo has been the head of Bytedance product research and development, responsible for a number of important early products and businesses, including Toutiao, Toutiao, advertising system and user growth system, etc., especially the Feishu and efficiency engineering that Liang Rubo is responsible for greatly promoted ByteDance’s organizational construction and talent development.
At present, Liang Rubo has more than ten byte-based company employment information, including Beijing Weibo Vision Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Guangzhuwai Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai Yingmai Culture Communication Co., Ltd., etc., all of which are legally appointed by Liang Rubo Representative and executive director. In addition, Liang Rubo worked in Beijing Feishu Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Wenxing Online Technology Co., Ltd., and Chengdu Buyishuehuke.More than a dozen byte companies such as Technology Co., Ltd. have historical employment information, and most of them are legal representatives.
It is worth mentioning that recently, Zhang Lidong and Liang Rubo have also withdrawn from dozens of byte companies’ legal representatives and key personnel, involving Shenzhen Lianmeng Technology Co., Ltd., Tianjin Keystone Technology Co., Ltd., and Beijing Chaoxiguang Nian Information Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Feishu Technology Co., Ltd., and the successors include Zhang Nan, Li Fei, Chen Tao, Xia Xuhong, Yan Shou, etc.
From the adjustment of the company’s organizational structure at the time of resignation to the change of shareholders’ equity, Zhang Yiming’s resignation as the CEO of ByteDance can hardly not be reminiscent of the previous scenario of Huang Zheng retiring from Pinduoduo.
Actually, resignation is also a matter of knowledge-if you retire well, the company and yourself will rise to the next level; if you retire badly, you will not only have to “secondly enter the palace” to save the field, but it will also easily cause personnel turmoil.
Before this, no matter Huang Zheng or Zhang Yiming, the companies behind them had a strong personal brand. For example, Zhang Yiming created the byte empire in one hand—no matter today’s headlines, connotation paragraphs, Douyin, and volcanoes, they are deeply human, and the design is too sophisticated. It is not an exaggeration to say that they are the most successful product forms under the control of algorithms. But this also caused Zhang Yiming’s words and deeds to be easily magnified and over-interpreted, causing controversy.
From this perspective, Huang Zheng and Zhang Yiming now choose to erase the personal touch of the company, and successively hide behind the business scene, which is more conducive to the future management and development of the company.
Just like Yu Minhong’s words, “Life is not a sprint but an endless run.” When a run has no end, it doesn’t matter who runs fast. The key is How long can you run.
Moreover, in the past year, the number of Bytedance’s global employees has increased from 60,000 to 100,000. Liang Rubo may be more suitable than Zhang Yiming to steer the next development of Bytedance.
Zhang Yiming’s impression to the outside world has always been an “atypical” science man with a strong sense of delayed gratification and extreme self-discipline (no derogation, science man rarely does not play games). For example, Liang Rubo mentioned in an interview, “He doesn’t play cards, games, or watch discs, and he has given himself the title of “moral champion”.”
Looking at Liang Rubo, it was very long in the pastTime is responsible for improving the company’s daily management and promoting the organizational construction and talent development of Bytedance. As Zhang Yiming said in the letter of all staff:
“Rubo is the co-founder of the company, and ByteDance is the second company I founded with him. He has successively assumed the head of product development, Feishu and efficiency engineering in ByteDance. The person in charge, the person in charge of human resources and management of the group, etc. Since the establishment of the company, he has assisted me in many things from purchasing and installing servers, taking over half of the system I wrote, important recruitment, corporate system and management system construction.”
In addition to these considerations, talking about the reasons for leaving office, Zhang Yiming said, “Although the company’s business is developing well, I hope that the company will continue to have greater innovation and breakthroughs and become more creative and meaningful. Therefore, Decided to put aside the company’s daily management, focus on long-term important issues such as long-term strategy, corporate culture and social responsibility, and plan to focus on learning knowledge, systematic thinking, researching new things, hands-on trials and experience, and creating more possibilities for the company over a ten-year period. “
In response to this, Liang Rubo also responded to Bytedance’s internal emails, saying: Now for the company’s longer-term development, Yiming needs to withdraw from daily management and focus on the work that is not urgent but important to the company’s development. It is more likely, so I will take over him as CEO. This is a huge challenge for me and a lot of pressure. In the past few years, the company’s business development momentum has been good, and an excellent team has been formed. I am confident that through everyone’s cooperative efforts, we can continue to make breakthroughs and reach new heights. “
It is understood that ByteDance is exploring new public welfare projects such as educational public welfare, brain diseases, and the digitization of ancient books. Zhang Yiming said, “I also have some investment personally. I have more ideas and hope to participate more deeply.”
In Zhang Yiming’s view, the external environment facing technology companies is changing: the impact of virtual reality, life sciences, and scientific computing on human life has gradually emerged, and the impact of technology on society is increasing. These factors determine ByteDance “needs to break through the inertia of the business to explore, and continue to learn how companies can better assume social responsibilities.”
From Chen Tianqiao to Duan Yongping, from Huang Zheng to Zhang Yiming, they all devoted themselves toResearch career. In a sense, it might not be a good thing.
However, even if Zhang Yiming stepped down as the CEO of ByteDance, he still serves as the legal representative and executive of several ByteDance companies, including Beijing ByteDance Network Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Word Jump Network Technology Co., Ltd., and Beijing Stone Bytedance Technology Co., Ltd., Tianjin Bytedance Management Consulting Co., Ltd., etc., and most companies in which Liang Rubo is a legal person are also indirectly or directly wholly-owned by Bytedance Co., Ltd.
In other words, Zhang Yiming is still the actual controller of the hundreds of companies behind the Byte Empire.
Appendix “Zhang Yiming’s Internal Letter” Full Text:
In the past few months, many students have asked me why I haven’t updated the bimonthly OKR since this year. To be honest, I feel quite dissatisfied with the three annual OKRs last year on exploring new long-term strategies, researching organization and management, and improving social responsibility. So from the New Year holiday, I was thinking about bimonthly, one-year, and longer-term OKRs, how to extend more than just a linear extension. I have a different idea. I decided to step down as the CEO, put aside daily management work, and as the founder of the company, focus on long-term important things such as long-term strategy, corporate culture, and social responsibility.
We are fortunate to seize the opportunity of the development of the times, based on machine learning technology to innovate and practice on the mobile terminal and video, and have achieved some results. After graduating to the beginning of the establishment of Byte, I taught myself a lot of things and thought about many questions, such as how to distribute information more effectively, how to combine products and technologies, and how to treat the company as a product to improve. These thoughts are helpful to the establishment and development of Bytedance, and the entrepreneurial experience enriches and verifies the thoughts. Although the company’s business is developing well now, but in the future, can we not stay here for a longer time, can we not only grow bigger, but also become more creative and meaningful, and fulfill the mission of “stimulating creation and enriching life” .
Continuous in-depth thinking and bold imagination are the basis for the realization of innovative results. But people are more likely to pay attention to changes in business models and brand channels, and rarely notice that technological changes are already in the making. Only a few people can perceive the future and create trends. Now that the electric vehicle industry is in full swing, most people may not remember that Tesla was founded 18 years ago, using laptop batteries as a prototype.
Many people know that the Mac’s package management tool is HomeBrew, but fewer people know that in the 1970s, geeks showed and discussed Apple I and other personal computer principles in the HomeBrew Club.type. The impact of virtual reality, life sciences, and scientific computing on human life has all dawned. These require us to break through the inertia of our business to explore. At the same time, the impact of technology on society is increasing. We must continue to learn how companies can better assume social responsibilities.
At the 7th anniversary annual meeting, I shared with you a sentence from “Alice in Wonderland”-“Sometimes before breakfast, I already believe that six seemingly impossible things will happen”. I like to think about things that may exist in theory but have not yet happened in reality. My signature file has always liked to be in a daze. What I mean by being in a daze is not just being empty, but thinking about some very boundless ideas that are rarely discussed. But in busy work, it is more and more that many things have happened in reality, but I don’t know. I feel that in the past few years, I’ve been “eating my laurels” to a large extent. For example, before 17 years, I could still keep an eye on the new developments in machine learning technology. I haven’t studied much in the past three years. I have collected it on Toutiao and Watermelon. Many professional videos and articles, but intermittent reading, the progress is very slow, and it is difficult to keep up with the progress in technical seminars.
Three years ago, I shared with some entrepreneurs. The core is that the CEO should avoid a general negative scale effect-when the business and organization become more complex and larger, the CEO who is the central node is easy to fall into Passive: Listening to a lot of reports and summaries every day, making a lot of approvals and decisions, which easily leads to internal perspectives and slow updates of the knowledge structure. So in the past six months, I have gradually formed this idea, made an adjustment to my own state, got rid of the job of the CEO, and was able to concentrate on learning knowledge, systematic thinking, researching new things, hands-on trials and experiences, and creating for the company in a ten-year period. More possibilities. At the same time, the company has made some progress in social responsibility and public welfare. Among them, new projects such as educational public welfare, brain diseases, and the digitization of ancient books are also being explored. I personally have some investment. I have more ideas and hope to participate more deeply. .
At the same time, there are still many important things that the company needs to do better. I hope that there are more suitable people than me to improve daily management and ensure the healthy development of the company. I am not a mature manager in the traditional sense, and I am not very good at socializing. I prefer to study organization and market principles to reduce management. I like to surf the Internet, read books, listen to songs, and be in a daze. In March, I discussed this idea on a small scale, and proposed to let Rube take over the job of CEO. Everyone understood and supported me very much and agreed to my proposal.
Ru Bo is the co-founder of the company, and Bytedance is the second company I founded with him. In ByteDance, he has successively assumed the head of product development, the head of Feishu and efficiency engineering, and the head of human resources and management of the group. Since the establishment of the company, from purchasing and installing servers, I took over half of the department that I wroteHe assisted me in many things, such as important recruitment, corporate system and management system construction. In the next six months, the two of us will work together to ensure that the handover is completed by the end of the year. Please support the work of the new CEO Ru Bo!
On a trip a few years ago, I posted a circle of friends and said: Part of the meaning of travel is the switching of time and space. It is easier to treat the subject as an object to examine yourself and life itself. After stepping down as CEO, apart from focusing on long-term issues such as long-term strategy, corporate culture, and social responsibility, I can also more easily observe the company from an external perspective. In the company’s 2012 business plan, I told the team that I hope that everyone will treat the process of starting a business as a trip to appreciate the scenery. I hope everyone will support my “travel” in this trip.
Yi Ming
#I am Huang Qingchun, the leader of the Tiger Sniffing Mobile Information Group. I have been following various fields such as entertainment and social networking, games, video, and sports. WeChat: 724051399, news clues can also be emailed to huangqingchun@huxiu.com.