ByteDance: TikTok and the Trials of Going Viral

In 2020, TikTok became the most valuable start-up ever. The short-form, video-sharing social media platform emerged as the crown jewel of the Chinese technology firm ByteDance, realizing 850 million monthly users and an estimated worth of $180 billion. However, a crusade against Chinese technology companies launched by the United States’ Trump administration threatened to jeopardize ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming’s creation. How could Zhang assuage foreign government’s concerns about TikTok’s data security practices without also running afoul of the Chinese government’s desire to keep China’s most successful technologies under wraps? This case follows Zhang’s entrepreneurial journey, from creative ambition to being caught up in the U.S.-China tech war.