The Abstract Mind Behind TikTok
A look in the mind of the man behind the fastest-growing social network in the world
“Everyone is beautiful”
“Human is creative by nature”
“Everything is temporary”
These are a few of Alex Zhu’s self proclaimed philosophies listed on his linkedin profile.
A little background
Zhu is the designer and co-founder of musical.ly which is now part of TikTok, a trendy video social network for creatives, largely used by Gen Z.
It was founded in 2014 with Zhu’s longtime friend, Luyu Yang; and in November 2017, a massive Chinese company called ByteDance acquired Musical.ly for $1 billion.
To him — and to millions of TikTok users — the app is a haven for creativity, earnest self-expression, and silly dance videos. Which relates closely to Alex Zhu’s artsy and philosophical personality, best reflected by his past writing. See, Alex Zhu isn’t much of a public figure.
Who is Alex Zhu?
Zhu is Chinese and attended Zhejiang University, one of the most prestigious institutions in China. He studied civil engineering and worked in product design following his graduation.
Musical.ly wasn’t his first venture though, he worked at several companies and had failed at futurist education ventures. It wasn’t till his idea for musical.ly when success hit.
As he tells it, the idea for Musical.ly came to him as an epiphany. On a train from San Francisco to Mountain View, Calif., where Zhu noticed the teenagers around him listening to music, taking selfies and passing their phones around. He thought, why not combine all that into a single app?
The billion dollar idea
After Musical.ly merged with TikTok, Zhu was positioned as senior vice president. He soon left ByteDance to take some time off to reportedly “rest, go clubbing in Shanghai and listen to jazz.” He kept a low profile and stayed out of the media.
Recently TikTok’s parent reached an extensive $75 billion evaluation, and Zhu rejoined the company becoming the chief of TikTok.
When asked about his failed ventures with education, and success in the entertainment industry instead, Zhu said this:
“We tried to fight human nature. People are more interested in entertainment than education.”
Philosophy
Has his philosophies stay committed to his social media platform?
Everyone is beautiful. Zhu appears to be set on making sure TikTok is a platform for everyone 13+ and even 40 year olds like himself. Everyone is unique and should be able to share how unique they are with everyone else, making them beautiful themselves.
Human is creative by nature. Zhu knows his original app was meant for dancing and lip syncing. And it has far progressed past that point. Zhu appears to take this with open arms, embracing the creative in people to story tell, make relatable content, and in general be creative with everything entailing music, filters, and videos that can be made.
TikTok has no problems entertaining teens and even Zhu himself who claims to watch TikTok for hours. He even believes TikTok can be used for education purposes in the future. Is it possible he can erect his original investment in education into an entertainment app? such as the likes of Youtube.
Everything is temporary. Is this a foreshadowment of his company? Will the controversy prove too much. Will regulators file complaints? Will this app just be another Vine, doomed to shut down. Or is it just a realization in life that people move on, and maybe TikTok will move with or without them.
The controversy
Alex Zhu has made it pretty obvious what his philosophy is, but has his company become to big? And how involved is he within the controversy?
In 2017 his app was acquired by ByteDance a Chinese company. Yet he remains in a lead role within the companies operations.
His company has been accused of exploiting the data of underage children, making money off of kids in app purcahses, censoring based off the desire of the Chinese government, and other user data exploitation related topics.
In an interview, Zhu claimed, “No, TikTok does not censor videos that displease China, he said. And no, it does not share user data with China, or even with its Beijing-based parent company.”
It is evident Zhu doesn’t want politics to be involved in a creative platform, saying, “From a philosophical point of view, I think every city needs public squares where people can debate and argue. But at the same time, we shouldn’t force the whole city to become a public square.”
In Zhu’s doctrine he references sincerity.
Doctrine of the Mean: self-watchfulness, leniency and sincerity
We’ll have to keep an eye out, but for now Zhu appears to be on his way to becoming a social media founder legend. Will his philosophy hold true to his platform and work? He appears to have a vision in his mind, and be very user oriented. Now we wait for further execution.
I’ve been Ross Dillon. You’ve been an amazing reader.
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