ByteDance CEO Urges Staff To Resist Mediocrity After Missing Initial AI Wave

ByteDance's chief urged his staff to resist mediocrity after the company missed the initial wave of generative AI development, becoming the latest Chinese corporate leader to warn employees against falling behind in a fast-changing environment. From a report: In a company-wide meeting on Tuesday, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Liang Rubo told workers to adopt a sense of crisis -- suggesting social video pioneer ByteDance was late to recognize the advent of game-changing technologies such as generative AI. He joins Alibaba Group's Jack Ma and JD.com's Richard Liu in voicing concern about organizational problems in the face of rising competition. "We are not sensitive enough to external changes," Liang said, according to a post on the company's official WeChat account. "During our semi-annual technical review, discussions related to GPT did not emerge until 2023, despite GPT-1 being released in 2018."

Bytedance ML hiring

[ShanghaiBill]

My son is applying for an ML internship, and there are a lot of them at ByteDance.

They are also hiring a lot of full-time ML engineers.

Resist mediocrity?

[hdyoung]

That requires real risk taking, which is really hard when the government punishes standouts so severely. The article mentions Jack Ma, which is telling, because his circumstance is the REAL lesson that Chinese workers will take home: one wrong word, and you can disappear for 8 months, reappear 20 pounds lighter and very contrite, having lost your position, your company, and a big chunk of your money. Yeah, Im sure that TONS of ambitious Chinese workers (who are generally just as good as western ones) are gonna be super enthusiastic about taking risks, amirite?

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

ByteDance has several research centers in America, including in San Francisco, Mountain View, and NYC.

They learned from what happened to Jack Ma, and are spreading the risk.

Re:

[doubledown00]

During the last round China made several publicly traded companies deregister and bring their operations back to China. "Spreading the risk" doesn't mean shit unfortunately as the takeaway from Jack Ma is as long as the company heads live in China you'll do as they say.

Re:

[YetAnotherDrew]

During the last round China made several publicly traded companies deregister and bring their operations back to China.

That thing the US "cannot" do to put the NAFTA genie back in the bottle.

Re:

[doubledown00]

On one level I can't say China is philosophically wrong. They have seen what has happened in the U.S. as our tech companies have run amok with no way to control them. So China decided to grab the bull by the balls before it got too big. The flip side of that is happening now as multi-nationals make their displeasure known and pull capital out of the Chinese stock markets.

I'm guessing there is a happy medium in there somewhere.

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

as long as the company heads live in China you'll do as they say.

ByteDance is incorporated in the Cayman Islands.

The CEO lives in Singapore, not China.

Re:

[doubledown00]

Tiktok is incorporated in the Cayman Islands.
ByteDance is a Beijing based company.

Re:Resist mediocrity?

[sabbede]

The CCP has a "Golden Share" investment in ByteDance (small share but can outvote everyone else), and installed a board member who just happens to be one of their propaganda experts. https://www.reuters.com/market... [reuters.com]

It doesn't matter where the CEO lives or where the company is officially registered, the CCP controls it like it does any media outlet or large company.

Re:

[Tablizer]

> you can disappear for 8 months, reappear 20 pounds lighter...

The Xi Diet works wonders!

Re:

[smooth wombat]

That requires real risk taking, which is really hard when the government punishes standouts so severely.

Or, as the legendary Barney Stinson has remarked, "Because that's who corporate America wants. People who seem like bold risk takers, but never actually do anything. Actually doing things gets you fired [youtube.com]."

If they are smarter,

[Mr. Dollar Ton]

they can point out to him that not jumping the bandwagon of degenerative "ai" is actually one indicator of potentially being above "mediocrity".

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

ByteDance wants eyeballs to monetize.

Swiftgate proved that generative AI is a great way to attract them.

Translation:

[doubledown00]

"Find me some AI products we can steal and incorporate."

management failure

[awwshit]

If your company misses something important is that on the staff or the management?

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

If your company misses something important is that on the staff or the management?

Both.

The employees should come up with ideas.

The management should recognize the good ideas and allocate resources.

Nah, it's a leadership failure.

[sabbede]

It's not an issue for management, but for leadership - AKA, the people now complaining and blaming their employees for their own failure.

If the employees didn't feel free to work on or push for these ideas, that's because the corporate leadership instilled a culture of discouragement. Thus, the fault lies with the leadership, not the employees or middle managers.

Though as I write this it occurs to me that it may also be an issue of national culture. Neither Confucianism nor Communism encourage innov

Re:

[awwshit]

Management/leadership same difference. There should be a technical management/leaders that are setting this kind of direction. Its the CTO job.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a company, it is a CCP propaganda machine.

"Do you not want to not register with us?"

[Tablizer]

Melania: "Be best"

ByteDance: "Be non-mediocre"

Mel's is more compact. She be best.

Re:

[93 Escort Wagon]

Lucy Liu Bot: "Would you like to take a moment to register me?"

Re:

[noshellswill]

Your chance  of being "best" among skilled craftsmen is zero, though your ivory bear-carving or  graphine gyroscope  may indeed be "best-of-class".  Every skilled craftsman produces quality product. Mediocre ?

Re:

[Tablizer]

Be best at raining on parade.