TikTok Parent Company CEO Resigns Because He’d Rather Be Daydreaming, Listening to Music

ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming is stepping down from his position as CEO.

The shift was announced Wednesday, with the founder of the TikTok parent company explaining that he has come to discover he lacks “some of the skills” required to be an “ideal manager” for the tech giant.

“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,” Yiming said in an internal letter that was later made public. “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.”

ByteDance co-founder and current head of human resources, Liang Rubo, will become the new CEO while Yiming will transition to a new role by the end of this year.

“The truth is, I lack some of the skills that make an ideal manager,” Yiming said. “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.”