Shou Zi Chew: The Man Behind TikTok's Global Success

From Investor to CEO

On March 23, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew attended a congressional hearing, where he faced a barrage of questions from lawmakers for five hours on issues such as TikTok's control, content review, platform algorithms, and youth protection.

This was a critical battle for TikTok's survival, and the toughest battle in Shou Zi Chew's career since he took on the role of TikTok CEO in addition to being CFO of ByteDance in late April 2021.

Of course, Shou Zi Chew also became the focus of global attention. Today, I would like to introduce Shou Zi Chew.

He Invested in a Batch of Internet Giants

Born in 1983 in Singapore, Shou Zi Chew joined the army at 18 and retired with the rank of captain two years later. At 23, he graduated from the prestigious UCL and immediately joined the top investment bank Goldman Sachs. Two years later, he resigned to pursue an MBA at Harvard Business School. He later joined DST Global as a partner in China, and then moved from Singapore to Beijing to start his VC career.

Today, DST is renowned, but when Shou Zi Chew accepted DST CEO Milner's invitation, this universe-level fund was not eye-catching. However, he decisively chose to join DST. Many friends were curious about his courage.

"If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat. Just get on." In later interviews, Shou Zi Chew explained this way. This famous quote from Facebook's COO deeply influenced his career choices.

At that time, as the core force of DST in China, the young Shou Zi Chew acted swiftly. He spent a year in Beijing getting to know the main partners of more than 20 top financial consulting firms in China and visited various tech companies, big and small.

A well-known case is that, under Shou Zi Chew's arrangement, DST boss Milner met with Liu Qiangdong for the first time in December 2010 and reached an agreement for DST to invest $500 million in exchange for 8.8% of JD.com. With this relationship, DST gradually penetrated the Chinese Internet circle and later successfully invested in Alibaba.

Shou Zi Chew's life motto is: "You have to work hard for everything." During his five years at DST, Shou Zi Chew reaped a lot. As the person in charge of DST in China, under Shou Zi Chew's leadership, DST completed investments in Internet companies such as Xiaomi, JD.com, Alibaba, and ByteDance. With these projects, Shou Zi Chew also gained a good reputation in the VC circle.

It's worth mentioning that in 2013, he met another person who would influence his life trajectory - Zhang Yiming. At that time, Zhang Yiming was hitting a wall with Toutiao. After a detailed understanding, Shou Zi Chew unhesitatingly accepted him and represented DST in an exclusive investment of tens of millions of dollars in Toutiao's Series B financing.

He Left His Comfort Zone

In July 2015, Shou Zi Chew made an important transition when he joined Xiaomi as CFO. At the time, Lei Jun praised Shou Zi Chew, saying, "Shou Zi was a successful investor before, with unique vision and professional financial skills. He discovered the value of Xiaomi early on and led DST's investment."

In the three years before joining Xiaomi, Xiaomi invested in more than 200 companies, many of which involved Shou Zi Chew.

In 2018, Xiaomi began preparing for an IPO, and Shou Zi Chew took on this heavy responsibility, handling an IPO for the first time. For this, he excitedly shared a picture on Weibo（like Twitter） that read, "In the next year, even sleeping is a waste of time."

Later, Xiaomi successfully became the first company with "different rights for the same shares" to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It was also the largest IPO on the Hong Kong stock market at the time, and Shou Zi Chew played an indispensable role. Through the IPO, Shou Zi Chew's position in Xiaomi was further elevated. In November 2019, Shou Zi Chew became the president of Xiaomi's international department, and the following year, Shou Zi Chew became Xiaomi's youngest group partner. Lei Jun did not hide his appreciation for Shou Zi Chew, granting him 100 million stock options, valid for 10 years, in the hope of retaining Shou Zi Chew.

If the story ended here, Shou Zi Chew would already be a winner in life. He became a well-known investor at 30, led a large IPO at 35, and every step of his hard work brought him rich rewards. However, as he always warned himself, at 38, Shou Zi Chew once again "left his comfort zone" and made another important choice.

He Pursued Challenges

In March 2021, Shou Zi Chew resigned from Xiaomi and joined ByteDance as CFO. At the time, ByteDance's internal appointment letter mentioned, "Shou Zi Chew is very familiar with our business, team, and culture. He knew us when he was working at DST and promoted DST to invest in ByteDance at a very early stage."

However, Zhang Yiming had higher expectations for Shou Zi Chew. Just one month after Shou Zi Chew became CFO, he also began to serve as TikTok CEO.

Zhang Yiming said in an internal letter: "Shou Zi Chew is very familiar with our company and industry. He has been working in the tech field for more than ten years and invested in ByteDance at a very early stage when he was at DST. As TikTok CEO, Shou Zi Chew will mainly be responsible for corporate governance and long-term business planning."

At that time, TikTok had about 50 million daily active users in the United States, and the U.S. market also became TikTok's main source of income. As TikTok's influence in the U.S. market grew, it also attracted the attention of the U.S. government.

For TikTok, the regulatory issues it faces in the United States mainly come from two aspects. One is the issue of user data collection and the acquisition of Musical.ly; the other is the accusation by U.S. regulatory agencies that TikTok poses a security risk to the United States. Around these accusations, TikTok and the Trump administration engaged in a nearly two-year game. TikTok's development was hindered, but it never stopped.

It was against this backdrop that Shou Zi Chew began to take charge of TikTok. In fact, TikTok has encountered many challenges, big and small, in its development process, but they have basically been resolved one by one. But in the U.S. market, the risks TikTok faces come from geopolitics, which is far beyond the scope of business. How to break the game, TikTok has no trace to follow.

Before the hearing, Shou Zi Chew and his team ran around Washington, hoping to alleviate lawmakers' concerns about TikTok before the hearing. He also posted a video on TikTok, calling on users to speak up for the platform. This video received over 860,000 likes and nearly 90,000 comments within 36 hours of its release. Despite this, TikTok still finds it difficult to control its own destiny.