Zhou Shouzi stood in the wild

Image source: @VisualChina

Text|Zero-state LT

On the morning of March 24, local time, Hall 2123 of the US Capitol was full.

On the other side of the ocean, it was late at night in Beijing, and hundreds of millions of insiders couldn't sleep all night and watched the live broadcast.

This is a high-profile hearing, and as early as a month ago, the news of TikTok CEO Zhou Shou's attendance at the hearing attracted a lot of attention. As CEO of TikTok, Zhou Shouzi rarely appears in public. Before joining ByteDance, he had rich experience in Internet industry financing at Goldman Sachs and DST, and then became famous by trading Xiaomi's listing.

At the more than five-hour hearing, U.S. lawmakers from both parties posed extremely sharp questions on a series of issues, including but not limited to TikTok's data security, child protection and relations with China.

However, there was not much time left for Zhou Shouzi to explain and answer, and except for a rare six-minute statement in the opening hearing, Zhou Shouzi was forcefully interrupted without speaking, and was often forced to answer with "YES" or "NO".

A "high-profile" hearing has once again made TikTok's fate confusing

At least "let him talk"

On the eve of the hearing, Zhou Shouzi posted a short video on TikTok.

Different from the suit and serious expression at the hearing, Zhou Shouzi in life is particularly lively.

In this short video, he wears a sweatshirt jacket and jeans and emphasizes the importance of TikTok to American users in a high-pitched tone. "Later this week, I will testify before Congress about everything we're doing to protect Americans from using the app." So far, this short video has received more than 160,000 likes.

However, it is a pity that Zhou Shouzi was not able to finish what he wanted to say at the hearing, let alone impress American politicians.

Zhou Shouzi's performance at the hearing reminded many people of Zuckerberg, who attended the hearing before, and Akio Toyoda. Compared with the latter two, Zhou's influence may be slightly small, but this does not hinder TikTok's influence in the United States and even the world. More importantly, compared with Zuckerberg's shirking of responsibility and concealing the truth, Toyoda Akio whispered and tearfully repented, and Zhou Shouzi's performance can be said to be remarkable, calm enough, and not humble.

Zhou demonstrates his professionalism in TikTok's business and markets, while expressing his respect and understanding of U.S. legal and social values. He not only insisted on his confidence and determination in the legal operation and development prospects of TikTok, but also expressed his willingness to communicate and cooperate with the US government and all sectors of society.

In his statement before the questioning, Chow introduced his personal Singapore identity and American experience, trying to impress people and bring them closer. He also introduced TikTok, which has more than 1 billion monthly active users worldwide and 150 million monthly active users in the United States. It has nearly 7,000 employees in the United States.

Still, Zhou Shouzi had a very difficult time at the hearing.

The hearing gave the United States a rare show of unity between the two parties, and the New York Times reported that a Republican lawmaker told Zhou that the CEO inspired political unity not seen in three or four years.

Faced with the cross-examination of 50 lawmakers, Chow's answers were frequently interrupted. Despite this, Zhou Shouzi responded to many questions.

For example, regarding data security, Zhou Shouzi repeatedly mentioned the "Texas Project" in his answer. This is a project that began in 2021, and it is planned that all data storage of US users will be moved to Oracle's data center in Texas, and its operations will be effectively regulated through a complex set of companies to reassure the US government.

But the lawmakers present clearly didn't buy it. A congressman from the Texas Republican Party shouted directly to him: "Please change the name, 'Texas' is not a suitable name, we stand for freedom and transparency, we don't want your project." ”

Zhou Shouzi's performance cannot be said to be perfect, but it is also sincere and clear enough. But it was also clear that he had failed to change the attitude of U.S. lawmakers. Shortly after the hearing, Zhou Shouzi issued an internal letter within ByteDance to explain the hearing.

In the letter, he admitted that the five-hour hearing was "challenging" and "did not leave much room to clarify the facts." At the same time, Zhou stressed in the letter that TikTok should reaffirm its commitments, such as protecting the safety of young people, ensuring access to data, and upholding freedom of expression.

The toughest time from Xiaomi to TikTok comes

Zhou Shouzi, born in 1983, is the same age as Zhang Yiming and has just entered the year of no confusion.

Before this hearing, Zhou Shouzi's reputation in the circle was already not small. Born in Singapore, he studied at the University of London and Harvard Business School, and worked as an investment banking analyst at Goldman Sachs, a well-known investment institution.

But what made Mr. Zhou shine was his experience at DST, Russia's largest venture capital fund. During his time at DST, Zhou Shouzi participated in the financing of a number of Chinese Internet companies such as Xiaomi, JD.com, and Alibaba.

What really made him famous was undoubtedly the listing of Xiaomi. After completing Xiaomi's listing task, he rotated as the president of Xiaomi's international department in November 2019 and led Xiaomi to achieve remarkable results in overseas markets.

In 2020, Zhou Shouzi became Xiaomi's youngest partner, and Lei Jun granted him a 100 million equity option with a validity period of 10 years, and anyone can see that Lei Jun wants to keep Zhou Shouzi. But Zhou Shouzi needed a broader stage, and in March 2021, he left Xiaomi to join ByteDance. Some grapevine sources also said that Ma Huateng once tried to win Zhou Shouzi to Tencent, regardless of whether it is true or not, the outside world's recognition of Zhou's ability to receive capital cannot be questioned.

This attendance at the hearing made the forty-year-old CEO the focus of the world's attention, and the deepest impression left on the outside world was elegant and "handsome". In fact, during the Xiaomi period, Zhou Shouzi was ridiculed as the "second handsome" after Lei Jun.

It can be said that Zhou Shouzi is a real "rich and handsome" trader, he has rich experience in investment banking and VC, has a deep knowledge and understanding of the capital market and TMT industry, and also has the practical ability to successfully lead companies to go public and expand overseas markets.

In fact, Zhou Shouzi and Byte had been married as early as 2013. Under his leadership, DST participated in ByteDance's Series B financing. At that time, ByteDance had only been established for less than a year and had not attracted much attention from the outside world.

I have to say that Zhou Shouzi's vision is still quite good. As DST's head of the Chinese market, he found that the news aggregation app called "Toutiao" attracted tens of millions of users in just over a year. This attracted great interest to him, and he established contact with Zhang Yiming and had many meetings and exchanges. In the end, DST invested in Toutiao for $100 million, becoming one of its largest outside shareholders.

In 2015, after Zhou Shouzi joined Xiaomi, he connected the two companies to promote in-depth cooperation in content, advertising, e-commerce and other aspects.

Lei Jun once said: "Zhou Shouzi is one of the most outstanding investors he has ever met. ”

"Many people underestimate the importance of hard work. ”

As early as the Goldman Sachs period, the intensity of Zhou's work was very large, and it was common to leave work at one or two o'clock in the morning, and it was not uncommon to stay up all night. For example, during the DST period, Zhou spent a year getting to know partners from more than 20 top financial consulting firms in China, including Bao Fan, the founder of China Renaissance Capital, who introduced JD.com to Zhou and arranged a meeting between DST and Liu Qiangdong.

On January 13, 2018, when preparing for Xiaomi's listing, Zhou Shouzi also posted a Weibo, "I especially like a picture of our interior. There is a sentence in the picture below, "In the coming year, even sleeping is a waste of time."

Some people ridiculed that Ma Yun took the CFO as a successor to train on a rotational basis, and the result was Daniel Zhang success; Lei Jun also used the CFO as a successor to rotate for training, and as a result, Zhou Shouzi ran away.

In the early days of joining ByteDance, Zhou's position was still CFO. But just two months later, the CFO moved to TikTok. Some media wrote in the article, "Zhou Shouzi filled in when ByteDance needed him the most."

But after nearly two years as CEO of TikTok, TikTok's crisis has not been resolved, but it has become more difficult.

Zhou, as well as TikTok, are going through the toughest times.

TikTok is at stake in the United States

TikTok's crisis began in 2019.

In October of that year, Republican U.S. Senator Marco Rubio asked CFIUS to investigate the TikTok acquisition Musical.ly on the grounds that the deal could "threaten homeland security." Since then, in order to solve this problem, ByteDance has hired a large number of lobbyists to communicate with the US Congress and lawmakers, but the results have not been satisfactory.

In 2020, Trump had tried to ban TikTok from the Apple and Google app stores unless it was sold to a U.S. buyer, but ultimately failed. In September of that year, TikTok proposed the "Texas Plan", that is, Oracle stores and audits TikTok's US data to protect user privacy, which is also a project that Zhou Shouzi mentioned many times in this hearing.

Before leaving the White House, Trump issued an executive order on TikTok. But soon, the time came to 2021, and Biden lifted Trump's previous ban after taking office. That doesn't mean TikTok is in a safe haven, though. An industry insider said that Biden's approach is more lethal than Trump's somewhat "outrageous" operations.

Unlike Trump, Biden has served in the US government system for more than 50 years and is more accustomed to achieving his goals reasonably and legally. At the same time as the Trump executive order was withdrawn, Biden ordered the Commerce Department to lead a comprehensive review of "relevant" applications.

Since 2023, TikTok's crisis in the United States has intensified: on February 27, the US White House asked the federal government to uninstall TikTok; On March 1, the U.S. House Foreign Relations Committee voted 24 to 16 to introduce the Data Act (DATAAct). According to Caixin, the bill proposes to give the US president the power to ban foreign apps, including TikTok, and can sanction companies related to TikTok or other Chinese apps.

In addition, the U.S. Senate introduced the RESTRICT Act, which authorizes the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to review and prohibit certain transactions between U.S. persons and foreign adversaries, with a focus on information and communications technology (ICT) that pose a risk to U.S. national security. Although the bill did not name TikTok, it was clearly one of the companies considered when it was drafted.

The above two bills have yet to be voted on by the Senate and House of Representatives of the US Congress. Still, the series of events means that the new round of U.S. sanctions against TikTok are more fierce than ever. And the "courtesy" that Zhou Shouzi encountered at the hearing also showed that TikTok's crisis is far from being solved in one meeting.

In fact, no matter how Zhou Shouzi performed at the hearing, the ending of the story may have been written in the bill long ago.

The crisis of TikTok does not stop there, nearly a month later, on March 10, the Belgian government, the European Commission, and the British cabinet have successively launched measures to ban TikTok on government equipment.

"In any case, the recipient's performance and effort at the hearing is good enough." One ByteDance employee praised.

But the U.S. government's ban on TikTok is on the line, and TikTok has some time to maneuver before it is finalized.

Zero State LT analyzed in the previous article "TikTok "No" CEO | Going Global Feature" that as the CEO of TikTok on the surface, Zhou Shouzi's most important responsibility may not be to do a good job in products, but to maneuver between China and the West to do a good job in TikTok's "defense". After this hearing, there is still a lot of work left for Zhou, but time seems to be running out.

As China's most successful Internet product going global, TikTok is facing the biggest crisis in history. As a bystander, I can only give my sincerest blessings.