In May 2021, you're made COO. You report to the CEO who's based in Singapore. Different companies are different. Instagram ran independently until it didn't Till Mark Zuckerberg decided to get involved. TikTok is actually incorporated in California and operated outside of China. Over 60% of bike dances owned by Western investment firms with most of the rest being owned by founders and employees. They could do anything at any moment. Xi Jinping's government crackdown on tech companies in China very heavily. Alibaba's Jack Ma, a very vibrant person has suddenly been rendered silent. And if they allowed US companies or other global companies into China the same way, perhaps they have less of a hard time about this
Kara loves air fryer TikToks. But she only dares to scroll through them on a burner phone, as she tells TikTok’s Chief Operating Officer, Vanessa Pappas.
As the social media platform has gone gangbusters – accumulating over a billion monthly users globally – concerns have emerged about TikTok’s ownership structure and roots in China. The U.S. government has questions about what data the app is amassing, whether that data can be accessed by the Chinese Communist Party and if the platform is a tool for espionage or foreign interference and propaganda. Kara has those questions too. And she asks Pappas all of them.
Before the interview, Kara and Nayeema talk about the newsmakers of the day. They scan through the Elon Musk text messages released in the Twitter-Musk proceedings and explore what the texts reveal about Silicon Valley’s powerful elite – including Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. They also discuss recent layoffs at Meta – and how Mark Zuckerberg will navigate the company’s recent struggles without his former right-hand exec, Sheryl Sandberg.
You can find Kara and Nayeema on Twitter @karaswisher and @nayeema.
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