TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew Got His Start In Tech At Facebook—now His App Is Its Biggest Competitor

© CNBC TikTok CEO Xu Ji-chew testifies before House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing

Before launching the world's most popular social media app, TikTok CEO Shaw Zichu took on one of its biggest rivals.

Chew, 40, has been running TikTok since 2021, and it became the world's most downloaded app with 672 million downloads last year, according to Statista's analysis of iOS and Google Play data.

The success of the app, owned by Beijing-based technology giant ByteDance, has alarmed US officials who believe it could be a security flaw. On Thursday, Congress and President Biden sat down before Congress to defend TikTok against spying allegations.

"We are committed to a lot of transparency with our users about what we collect," Chew told the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "I don't think we collect more than most of the industry."

Until March 2023, TikTok collected user-provided account information, including user-generated content, messages, purchase information, and communication preferences, in accordance with the company's privacy policy.

The platform automatically collects location data, metadata and cookies for advertising purposes in accordance with the privacy policies of companies such as Meta and Snapchat.

Chew has some experience in this area. Born in Singapore, he graduated from University College London in 2006 with a BA in Economics. He went on to earn an MBA from Harvard University, and during his internship at Facebook, he told the Harvard Business School's 2020 alumni website.

Then in the summer of 2009, Facebook was growing. The following year, Google took over as the most popular site in the country, accounting for 8.9 percent of all US visits between January and November 2010, according to Reuters.

According to Meta's Q4 2022 earnings presentation, Facebook has 2.9 billion active users today. TikTok may never go back. Five years after its inception, it announced it would reach one billion monthly users by 2021, and it's likely to keep growing ever since.

The video platform's rapid growth appears to be disrupting Facebook's plans. Zuckerberg told Strategy last year.

According to an unclassified internal memo obtained by The Verge, Facebook even changed its algorithms last year to compete directly with TikTok, emphasizing short video content and changing the way it suggests new posts to users.

On Thursday, Chu spoke to Congress about Facebook and other social media rivals, saying that TikTok "tried to learn from the companies that came before us" and that lawmakers' security concerns should apply to the industry.

The issues of security, privacy and potential content manipulation on TikTok are not unique to us. Similar problems apply to other companies as well,” he said. "We believe there is a need for clear and transparent rules that apply broadly to all technology companies. Ownership is not the key to solving these problems."

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