I'm in the county town, and you say I'm a big shot?

Chapter 809 Everything is in order, Douyin goes global.

The meeting lasted for three hours and covered various issues faced by the newly launched Douyin, its future development direction, and the debugging progress of TikTok, the overseas version of Douyin, which is still in secret preparation.

The meeting did not end until 1 p.m.

This important discussion, known as the "2.27 Meeting" in ByteDance's development history, directly laid the strategic foundation for Douyin's overseas expansion and has milestone significance.

However, the meeting did not truly end.

Everyone simply ordered takeout at the company for lunch and quickly finished their meal. Afterwards, Fang Qingye asked Zhang Yimin to convene a small meeting with the core team.

ByteDance's core team is small, consisting of Zhang Yimin, Liang Rubo, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Li Mo, Chief Human Resources Officer Chen Wen, Chief Legal Officer Qin Hailan, Chief Financial Officer Wang Yu, and Chief Marketing Officer Jiang Minjun.

"Yi Min, call Chen Weian over too," Fang Qingye added.

"Ok."

Zhang Yimin knew very well why Fang Qingye had summoned Chen Weian. Now that Zhou Kaiwen had suddenly resigned, Douyin urgently needed a capable leader to take over its overseas expansion. Chen Weian was the one who initially proposed the idea of ​​regional centralization, which aligned with Fang Qingye's vision, so naturally he would be given an important responsibility.

Zhang Yimin also greatly appreciated Chen Weian's work ability; otherwise, he wouldn't have promoted him from the Southeast region to headquarters.

Everyone arrived quickly. In the small conference room, Fang Qingye got straight to the point: "I've invited everyone here because there are a few important matters that need to be clarified."

After saying that, Fang Qingye looked at Chen Weian and said, "Minister Chen, Zhou Kaiwen has resigned. You will take over his position as the company's deputy COO and head of the international business department, and be fully responsible for Douyin's overseas expansion."

Chen Weian was not surprised by this and immediately responded, "Understood, I will do my best to implement your strategic plan."

At this moment, Zhang Yimin took over the conversation, adding in a calm tone, "Wei'an, overseas business is the company's top priority for the next three years. Chairman Fang and I both believe you are the most suitable candidate. You can report directly to me regarding resource allocation and team building, and I will fully support you."

Fang Qingye nodded in agreement and continued, "The first thing is about acquiring Musical.ly—this is not something I did on a whim. Everyone has witnessed Musical.ly's penetration and user base in the US market, and acquiring it will help us quickly open up the US market."

“Chairman Fang, according to the information I’ve received, Facebook had contacted the Musical.ly team, but Zuckerberg subsequently abandoned the acquisition,” Chen Weian interjected.

Zuckerberg did not directly state the reasons for abandoning Musical.ly, but some online analyses suggest that when evaluating Musical.ly, Facebook believed its growth had slowed and its influence was mainly concentrated among teenagers, failing to reach a broader user base.

"In addition, there are potential geopolitical risks. Some analysts say that Facebook is concerned about Musical.ly's Chinese background. Although Facebook was eager to enter the Chinese market at the time, it also foresaw that having an app originating from China might raise so-called 'national security' concerns in the future, so it gave up."

"Hehe, it seems Zuckerberg is quite clever too," Fang Qingye laughed.

"In addition, according to rumors, Kuaishou is also in contact with the Musical.ly team with the intention of acquiring them," Chen Weian added.

quick worker!

This is a formidable rival to TikTok.

Zhang Yimin asked seriously, "Wei'an, is the information reliable?"

Chen Weian hesitated for a moment before answering, "I only heard about it while chatting with a friend, so I can't confirm the accuracy of the source."

Zhang Yimin's expression was serious, and he leaned forward slightly: "Wei'an, this news needs to be verified immediately. If Kuaishou really participates in the bidding, our acquisition strategy will need to be adjusted."

After saying that, he turned to Fang Qingye and said, "Chairman Fang, I think we should immediately set up a special task force, which I will personally lead, to assess as soon as possible all kinds of risks that may be encountered in the acquisition, especially the competition from Kuaishou. We must ensure that nothing goes wrong."

It's actually true!
Because that's how history has always been!

Kuaishou did initially contact the Musical.ly team, but was forced to abandon the deal due to their high asking price, allowing ByteDance to snatch the deal and quickly open up the North American market.

It's said that Kuaishou's founder and CEO, Su Hua, later expressed deep regret about this period of history. Fang Qingye, before her rebirth, had browsed this news online and then laughed:
“Yi Min is right. There’s no smoke without fire. This possibility does exist… This also precisely illustrates the strategic value of Musical.ly. We absolutely cannot let it fall into Kuaishou’s hands! Acquiring Musical.ly must be our top priority right now!” At this point, Fang Qingye looked at Chen Weian: “Yi Min will take the lead on this matter, the Strategic Investment Department will be in charge, and everyone must cooperate.”

"Understood, Chairman Fang."

"Regarding the construction of the regional center, Yi Min and Ru Bo, your organizations can continue to discuss and deliberate, but there's one point I must emphasize." Fang Qingye's tone turned serious:

"It's the recommendation algorithm, which is ByteDance's core technology and the company's top secret. The core code must remain in China! Future overseas operation centers will only have the right to use it!"

At this point, Fang Qingye looked at Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Li Mo: "Li Mo, as Chief Technology Officer, you must shoulder this responsibility!"

Li Mo is 35 years old this year. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University, specializing in machine learning. His doctoral dissertation, "Dynamic Modeling of User Interests Based on Deep Attention Networks," won the Best Paper Award at SIGKDD.

From 2012 to 2014, Li Mo served as a core R&D engineer on Netflix's recommendation algorithm team, leading the development of a video recommendation model based on time-series behavior, which increased the viewing time of core users by 9%.

Li Mo later became a senior research scientist at Google DeepMind, where he pioneered the application of reinforcement learning in content distribution. His findings became one of the theoretical foundations of AlphaGo Zero.
He declined an offer to become the chief scientist at OpenAI and joined ByteDance in early 2016. He first served as the chief algorithm engineer in the company's "Intelligent Recommendation Lab," where he built the core architecture of ByteDance's second-generation recommendation system, which increased user retention rate by 40%.

Seeing how capable this person was, Zhang Yimin simply resigned from his concurrent position as Chief Technology Officer and handed it over to Li Mo, giving him full responsibility for the company's core technologies.

Li Mo wore black-rimmed glasses, a plaid shirt, and jeans—a typical engineering student's outfit—but his flowing long hair added a touch of romance befitting a liberal arts student.

He habitually tossed his long hair, which was partially obscuring his eyes, without saying a word, and raised his hand to make an "OK" gesture.

"And..." Fang Qingye was about to continue when Li Mo spoke up first: "Chairman Fang, you mean to build a content network architecture that adapts to decentralization, right? I understand, I will assemble a dedicated team to conduct research and development."

what!
Communicating with smart people is highly efficient!
Fang Qingye nodded: "The goal is to enable data and applications to migrate flexibly between different nodes around the world, breaking down the barriers of 'data sovereignty'!"

Li Mo made an "OK" sign again, then suddenly looked at the silent CFO Wang Yu and spread his hands: "Send the money!"

"I knew you were going to ask me for money." Wang Yu said helplessly, "Li Mo, ever since you became the Chief Technology Officer, the R&D department has been a money-devouring beast! This year's budget has doubled compared to last year! Fine, fine, I just finished begging for money last year, and now I'm begging for money again this year!"

"Wang Yu, don't worry, this time the financing is probably huge, I'll go begging with you!" Zhang Yimin joked.

Everyone laughed.

As everyone knows, what Wang Yu referred to as "begging for alms" was actually fundraising. Last year, he just completed a $10 billion Series C funding round, and judging by his current spending spree, the next round of fundraising is probably imminent.

Fang Qingye smiled too.

In ByteDance's financing process, he participated more in the angel round and the Series A round, but Wang Yu was mainly responsible for the subsequent rounds - including the Series C round last year.

He felt that his junior colleague was even more capable of fundraising than his senior colleague Wang Chenyang of Ele.me.

Of course, it could also be because he paid too much attention to Ele.me and was unable to completely let go of the financing aspect.

"And there are two more female executives." Fang Qingye looked at Chief Human Resources Officer Chen Wen and Chief Legal Officer Qin Hailan: "I don't need to say much about your work, especially legal counsel Qin Hailan. I don't want the company to be embroiled in lawsuits in the future, going to one courthouse after another!"

Fang Qingye's tone was relaxed, but as the chief legal officer, Qin Hailan could certainly hear the warning in her voice.

She immediately said, "Chairman Fang, don't worry, we will start studying the laws of different regions right now to safeguard the construction of our regional centers!"

"We also need to study the local culture and customs!" Fang Qingye added.

After finishing the business, Fang Qingye said, "According to the arrangements of our Jinghai Municipal Government, I will be going to Tianhan City in Qin Province tomorrow to conduct a poverty alleviation inspection. Let's see what methods ByteDance can use for poverty alleviation?"

(End of this chapter)