TikTok CEO was previously a trainee at Facebook and an executive at Xiaomi

Few can imagine that, as they watch TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew speak before the US Congress on Thursday (23). The 40-year-old executive worked as an intern at Facebook in 2009.. Now, 14 years later, he runs a platform that is “a stone next to” Mark Zuckerberg.

Chew made his way to the United States shortly after moving from his native Singapore to London to study Economics at the traditional UCL (University College London). There, he graduated from the University of Michigan in Electrical Power and interned at the Goldman Sachs business bank. and also at Facebook, before completing his MBA at Harvard Business School.

Fluent in Mandarin Chinese and English, Chew spent six years as chief financial officer at Xiaomi until he joined Chinese giant Byte Dance, where he soon took over the management of the TikTok app, replacing the American Kevin Mayer. The most downloaded application in the world today, According to market research firm Statista.

Rival or spy?

Logically, the success of the Chinese app began to bother many powerful people in the West; The opposition has intensified since March last year, when TikTok began collecting information from its users such as messages, purchase information, preference and location. – Just like other companies like Snapchat and Facebook do.

This was enough to sound the ideological alarm in Washington, which accused the app of passing information to the Chinese government. Under intense fire from members of Congress and a Ban threat from President Joe BidenChew went to defend himself before the House of Representatives Commerce and Energy Committee.

In response to these concerns about security, privacy, and data manipulation, the TikTok CEO told members of Congress that “they are not exclusive to us. The same issues apply to other companies.”