TikTok 风波中致中国同事的内部信

Internal Letter to China Colleagues on the TikTok Situation

> By Zhang Yiming · internal letter to ByteDance's China employees · full text as published by Sina Tech · 2020-08-04 · [Original link](https://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2020-08-04/doc-iivhvpwx9161621.shtml)

It's been a long time since I wrote a letter specifically to my China colleagues; the last time was when the epidemic broke out. Today I want to talk with you specifically about the recent situation.

Storm season again

Because of news that the company would sell TikTok's US business, many people have been cursing the company and me on Weibo. I saw on Toutiao Circle (头条圈) someone say they were so angered by Weibo comments in the middle of the night that they cried, someone who argued with people on my behalf until their hands ached, and many colleagues cheering us on. Yesterday I worked overtime until dawn, and before going to sleep I opened Toutiao Circle and saw someone had posted a photo of the Shenzhen Raffles City tower at 5:30 in the morning, with the company's floors still lit.

Recently many colleagues have been working hard together. Zhenyuan, Dingkun and colleagues in the technology departments often work until midnight on architecture upgrades and building the European data center, and colleagues in many departments are on call 24 hours a day, ready to be woken up to work at any moment. These extraordinary days feel like a special journey. [Translator's note: 震原 (Zhenyuan) and 定坤 (Dingkun) are given names only, as in the letter.]

Thank you all

I want to specifically thank my China colleagues. I've always felt this in my heart, but this is the first time I've said it.

To be honest, as the company has globalized, quite a few China colleagues have sacrificed a lot: since 2016 frequently traveling and being posted abroad, or working in China while overcoming time differences and language problems, and often with a lot of emergency work. I've always pushed everyone to step out of their comfort zone, embrace change, and stressed that the next eighteen months are very important. [Translator's note: the source writes 16年 for 2016, and 18年 for 2018 below.]

Later, because more and more roles were localized, for example TikTok's marketing and operations functions (many from the musical.ly team based in Shanghai), and content moderation for non-China businesses and other functions moved fully out of China from the end of 2018, many colleagues who were doing perfectly well were reassigned. R&D colleagues' work was also affected by adjustments to data access policy.

Fortunately the company grew fast, and everyone has developed very well in their new roles. There are complaints on Toutiao Circle from time to time, but overall everyone has truly managed to have a broad vision and a small ego (格局大、ego小).

A global company

As a company founded by Chinese people, why do we so often stress internally that we're a global company, and that everyone should have a Mars perspective at work? Because our colleagues come from all over the world, with different cultural backgrounds, facing different arenas of public opinion. And everyone has informational limits and more easily starts from their own point of view, and especially at a time of intensifying geopolitics and deglobalization, problems often arise.

Without a Mars perspective, at work you can easily unintentionally offend the cultures and values of different countries, or impose your own habitual standards on colleagues from different cultural backgrounds; there are very many examples of this. This is also one reason we added "diversity and inclusion" (多元兼容) to ByteStyle (字节范).

Cultural conflict is a problem most Chinese companies don't encounter. Many Chinese companies' international business is mainly selling physical products, so keeping teams mainly Chinese is enough for the business to be efficient. But a large platform like ours, connecting different cultures, must be run and managed by teams in each country. We respect local culture in every country, so we can attract talent from different countries to join ByteDance; after 2-3 years of twists and turns, we've built a very good employer brand in many countries. I think this too is an expression of a broad vision and a small ego.

Opinion on social media

I actually understand very well that people have high expectations of a company founded by Chinese people that is going global, but without full and accurate information, and with public resentment of many actions of the current US government, it's easy for them to criticize us especially harshly.

It's just that most people have the focus of this incident wrong. The focus is not at all CFIUS forcing the sale of TikTok's US business to an American company on the grounds that the musical.ly acquisition endangers national security (although this is unreasonable, it is still within legal procedure, and as a company we must obey the law and have no choice), but that is not the other side's aim, and is even something the other side doesn't want to see; its real aim is a total ban and more...

Complicated matters are not suitable for discussion in public at certain times. Just as in the past there were many times when we couldn't explain in detail in response to criticism of the company, and after going through it together everyone came to trust the management team more. As for public opinion, we have to be able to accept being misunderstood for a while. I hope everyone also won't mind short-term praise or blame, and will patiently do the right things well. This too is a broad vision and a small ego.

The challenge of anti-China sentiment

Over the past two years, and especially recently, anti-China sentiment has risen markedly in many countries.

For example, in April our India company donated protective supplies to Indian medical workers. After the China-India conflict heated up in June, the Indian Minister of Women and Child Development, who had worked hard to help us transport and complete the donation, was heavily attacked by netizens on social media.

And in the US and some other countries, some politicians' all-out attacks on China and Chinese companies have, at least in the short term, created a certain atmosphere, to the point that even people with a more comprehensive perspective and fair views can't say fair things publicly. So we also need to especially understand the situation of our non-China employees, and expect more difficulties in the future.

Even so, we should still view the challenges and pressure in front of us from the standpoint of long-term development: keep pursuing a good product experience, building a good team culture, being transparent and open, and pursuing high standards in protecting user interests and corporate social responsibility. I believe this will not only win users but also earn credit for Chinese companies.

Occasionally people say the company asks more of the China team. I think that's indeed the case at the moment, and I especially thank everyone for working hard together.

Yiming

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