The Economist.
If you've ever wondered what it's like being both a content creator
and a junior year marketing student...
Close to 3 billion people around the world have scrolled through TikTok or its Chinese equivalent, Douyin.
That's more than a third of humanity.
But those apps are just the most visible face of something much bigger.
In less than 15 years, their Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance, has built a formidable tech empire.
Its more than 20 apps spanning news, e-commerce, language learning, and short-form video
have made it China's most valuable startup
and the only Chinese tech company to have truly cracked markets abroad.
ByteDance wants to be everything, everywhere, all at once.
And for a while, it looked like it just might pull it off.
But now, competitors at home are circling,
and abroad, regulators are asking tough questions about data, security, and social impact.
I'm Sarah Wu, The Economist's China correspondent based in Beijing.
And this week, I'm joined from Shanghai by our China business and finance editor, Don Weinland,
to ask: how did ByteDance manage to crack both the Chinese and Western internet,
and can its dominance continue?
This is Drum Tower from The Economist.
Hi, Don!