Zhang Yiming, founder of TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, will be resigning from his role as CEO of the company.
Yiming was honest when revealing why he decided to step down from his role, believing that he lacks “some of the skills” needed to be an “ideal manager” for the Chinese tech giants.
The 38-year-old said in a letter, that was made public, as quoted by Complex saying, “Since the beginning of this year, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to better drive real long-term breakthroughs, which cannot simply rely on steady, but incremental, progress.
“After several months of thinking about this, I came to the conclusion that transitioning out of the role of CEO, with all of the related day-to-day responsibilities, would enable me to have greater impact on longer-term initiatives.”
It was also announced on Wednesday that ByteDance co-founder and head of HR, Liang Rubo, will become the CEO as Yiming transitions to a new position by the end of 2021.
“The truth is, I lack some of the skills that make an ideal manager,” Yiming stated. “I’m more interested in analyzing organizational and market principles, and leveraging these theories to further reduce management work, rather than actually managing people. Similarly, I’m not very social, preferring solitary activities like being online, reading, listening to music, and daydreaming about what may be possible.”