How Tiktok Backed Itself Into A Corner

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You’d deliberation that TikTok would personification a Plan B by now.

It’s now clear nan institution ne'er planned for a book successful which it would suffer to nan Supreme Court. Maybe it couldn’t, fixed that nan Chinese authorities yet has past opportunity connected a sale. Now, TikTok’s leaders are banking connected Donald Trump to prevention them successful a last-ditch effort that will unquestionably recreation pinch strings attached.

Politically, TikTok misplayed its manus astatine each move of this multi-year saga. Executives galore times dismissed nan anticipation of a ban, moreover going truthful acold arsenic to virtually laughter astatine nan idea. They were blindsided by Congress overwhelmingly agreeing connected a ban. Then, they mislaid connected entreaty to nan Supreme Court pinch only a clip adjacent earlier nan norm goes into effect. The only leverage they seemingly personification adjacent is that Trump thinks nan app helped him triumph nan predetermination — affirmative their willingness to fto him extract immoderate lb of soma he wants.

TikTok backed itself into this area technically, too. It spent complete $1 cardinal connected Project Texas to effort and appease concerns astir US accusation making its measurement to China. Amazingly, TikTok started Project Texas earlier nan authorities gave its blessing, which of group ne'er came. US accusation is now walled disconnected successful abstracted infrastructure maintained by Oracle, which will personification to legally extremity moving pinch TikTok arsenic of nan 19th.

Undoing Project Texas now would beryllium “a monolithic effort” involving galore engineers, personification who worked connected it precocious told me. Shutting nan app down, alternatively than simply removing it from US app stores, is TikTok’s only option. It’s unclear really this would effect nan acquisition of utilizing TikTok extracurricular of nan US. It’s an unprecedented situation.

Even still, TikTok is trying to play it cool externally. Blake Chandlee, nan company’s president, told advertisers aft nan Supreme Court’s determination that “we’re optimistic astir uncovering nan champion measurement forward” and to expect “next steps” earlier nan prohibition goes into effect. Employees personification yet to personification different directions internally, I’m told. As I wrote earlier this week, nan temper is grim, moreover among those who worked astatine TikTok during nan first prohibition effort 4 years ago.

Given that nary 1 wins if TikTok goes away, Trump will astir apt still find a measurement to make judge nan app stays moving successful nan US. He’s invited Shou Chew to beryllium connected nan inauguration dais and Elon Musk could beryllium successful play. But there’s nary denying that ByteDance put itself successful this corner. To get retired of it, location will beryllium a worth to pay, and it’s going to costs overmuch than money.

Elsewhere

Tech kisses nan ring: The ocular of tech CEOs astatine Trump’s inauguration connected Monday will beryllium striking. The CEOs of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, OpenAI, and overmuch are descending connected Washington DC this play to buss nan ring. The only awesome CEO to beryllium retired nan proceedings will beryllium Nvidia’s Jensen Hunag, who is retired of nan state connected business. X, Uber, Spotify, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, David Sacks, and overmuch are throwing parties successful DC this weekend.
Meta’s fallout continues: CTO Andrew Bosworth admitted internally that immoderate of nan changes “were beautiful ham-fisted” and are being reconsidered, including nan removal of tampons from men’s restrooms. Mark Zuckerberg did harm power aft it was reported that he blamed Sheryl Sandberg for nan company’s DEI culture. He besides announced that 5 percent of nan institution will beryllium fto spell successful cuts targeting “low-performers.” And nan civilian authorities squad was axed.
Other headlines: Democratic Senators are huffy astatine tech CEOs for donating to Trump… Being deemed “critical AI talent” by your caput whitethorn thief you get a raise astatine Microsoft… Amazon’s RTO instruction is disconnected to a rocky start… SpaceX caught different rocket… Apple is disabling AI summaries of news stories.

Job board

Some recent, noteworthy business changes successful nan tech world:

Jay Parikh, Facebook’s early caput of engineering and nan ex-CEO of Lacework, is now starring a caller Core AI engineering org astatine Microsoft. His org will beryllium successful title of nan “end-to-end Copilot & AI stack for immoderate our first-party and third-party customer,” according to CEO Sayta Nadella.
Alex Dunlap, VP of productivity apps for AWS, is Andy Jassy’s caller ‘shadow’ advisor astatine Amazon. Meanwhile, Ralf Groene reunited pinch Panos Panay to lead creation for nan devices org.
Tom Conrad is nan caller interim CEO of Sonos, replacing Patrick Spence. Read his afloat missive to employees. Chief merchandise serviceman Maxime Bouvat-Merlin is too out.
Bumble laminitis Whitney Wolfe Herd is backmost arsenic CEO.
Global Infrastructure Partners CEO Adebayo Ogunlesi joined OpenAI’s board.
Ex-Unity CRO Jules Shumaker was named Discord’s first main business officer.
The erstwhile caput of Snap’s contented business, David Brinker, joined Character.AI arsenic SVP of partnerships.