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ByteDance’s founder Zhang Yiming to step down as CEO, the third Chinese tech billionaire to throw in the towel in their prime
- After founding the company in 2011, founder Zhang Yiming takes a step back from his day-to-day responsibilities
- Liang Rubo, co-founder and current head of human resources, will take over the CEO position by the end of the year
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Zhang Yiming, one of China’s wealthiest entrepreneurs, said he is ready to throw in the towel after nearly a decade running the world’s largest unicorn ByteDance Technology, becoming the latest among the country’s technology founders to step down in their prime.
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Zhang will relinquish his role as chief executive of Beijing-based ByteDance, giving up his day-to-day responsibilities to “be more impactful on longer-term initiatives,” according to an internal memo posted on the company’s website. Zhang, who turned 38 last month, has a net worth of US$35.6 billion, according to Forbes.
“The truth is, I lack some of the skills that make an ideal manager,” he said. “I’m more interested in analysing organisational and market principles, and leveraging these theories to further reduce management work, rather than actually managing people.”
“[W]hen companies mature and expand, many fall into the trap of the CEO becoming overly central – listening to presentations, handling approvals and making decisions reactively,” Zhang added. “This leads to an over-reliance on existing ideas already in the company, and results in knowledge structures being slow to iterate.”
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He also said that the busy job of chief executive restricted him from following his passions, especially the latest technical developments.
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