Annie Tsai

Good. Me either. Let us never speak of this again.

Okay actually, let’s for maybe 90 seconds entertain why Mnuchin would be interested in TikTok after the US House of Representatives passed H.R. 7521, 352-65 in a bipartisan vote. It’s a meaty bill that would force the divestation of TikTok from Bytedance Ltd. in 165 days or make it illegal for app stores to enable downloads or for US companies to host any of their data or services. 

On the surface, he seems to be attracted to high risk-high return deals. Just last week, Mnuchin’s private equity firm Liberty Strategic Capital (which raised $2.5B in capital a few years ago) effectively bailed out New York Community Bank by leading their $1B equity raise after an 80%+ stock plummet. The PE firm also has a 7.9% position of Class A voting shares in Lionsgate. The firm has only made 7 investments since its founding in 2021, with the rest of them being Satellogic, whose mission is to “democratize access to space-based services by dramatically reducing the barriers to obtain real-time satellite data”, as well as three security (cyber, application, code, endpoint detection and response) companies. Going back to classic 1980’s private equity principals, a company in crisis can be used to create leverage elsewhere. Money. Content. Distribution. Security. Just top it off with one of the world’s richest datasets of Gen Z  behavioral data and it’s a pretty great stack.

But, who knows if this will pass the Senate. Maybe not anytime soon since we are the country who birthed the right to social media in the first place. In the meantime, our ears should be perked. As an old friend and career journalist keeps reminding me, “always follow the money.” 

For the record, TikTok isn’t allowed in our house. Our kids don’t engage with it and the apps aren’t on any of our devices. I dabbled here and there in 2019 and early 2020 and was thrilled at how much more the app’s usability made sense to me than Snapchat ever will, but other than that, was a hard no. Besides, anything really good always makes their way to the other social platforms anyway. 

That’s not to say that TikTok hasn’t been a beacon of hope for millions of Americans, giving them a new career path that simply hasn’t existed before these technologies existed – the social media influencer. While the average salary of a TikTok influencer is reportedly in the $120k range per NeoReach’s 2023 Creator Earnings and Insights Industry Report, the likes of Charli D’Amelio – who has 151.9 million followers on TikTok – supposedly earned $17.5m in 2023 from a mix of direct platform revenue and brand partnerships. Sure, the first time I ever heard of Charli D’Amelio was when she competed on (and won) Dancing With the Stars, but there’s a reason for that. 

So with the creator economy now being worth over $21 billion in 2023 and social media influencers now putting their actual job descriptions down on LinkedIn as “UGC Creator” (User Generated Content Creator), why, you ask, would I deprive my children the glory of the bottomless pit of hot takes, life changing excel tips, and really rather adorable fuzzy miniature cows? 

There is a fine line between enjoying the added benefit and convenience of life being curated for you in just the way you imagined and being socially conditioned. Actually, it’s not really a fine line at all. It’s how marketing and advertising in this country and the rest of the free world have worked for decades upon decades. (insert evil laugh)

But really, it’s because of the data. 

After spending the past 25 or so years working in tech and seeing the gobsmacking amounts of data that consumers actually create, I simply do not want my data anywhere near the influence from a non-democratic nation. As of August 2021, the Chinese government has a 1% stake in TikTok parent company Bytedance Ltd. and holds a board seat. I mean, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin own 6.1% and 5.7% of Alphabet respectively to put it into perspective. Say what you will. It’s a super fun, easy to use, addictive to the 9’s, generally reads minds pretty well sort of app. But… imma gonna take a pass, thanks.