On October 10, it was reported by Red Star News that Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, made his first public appearance in recent years and appeared in Shanghai Xuhui Zhichun Innovation Center. According to the news of Zhichun Innovation Center today, on October 9, Shanghai Xuhui Zhichun Innovation Center, co sponsored by Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance, and Professor Yu Yong, founder of ACM class of Shanghai Jiaotong University, officially opened. As a private non-profit organization, the center plans to recruit young people interested in pan computer and artificial intelligence, starting as preparatory researchers.
Zhang Yiming mentioned in his on-site speech that he has long been concerned about talent recruitment and training, and has noticed that many talents' potential has not been fully tapped. He used the phenomenon of overfit in machine learning models as an analogy, where some people may have professional knowledge and proficient skills, but they may not be able to handle innovative tasks. The Innovation Center aims to cultivate talents with active thinking, enthusiasm, and resilience. The core is independent thinking and emphasis on practice, focusing on long-term and global perspectives, learning through exploration, maintaining a calm mind, relaxing confidence, and embracing uncertainty.
According to securities firm China, Zhang Yiming has kept a low profile and rarely made public appearances since he stepped down as CEO of ByteDance in 2021.
On May 20, 2021, Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, issued an internal letter to all members, announcing his resignation as CEO, and Liang Rubo, the co-founder, took over as the new CEO.
Turning to the reasons for leaving office, Zhang Yiming said that since the start of his business, ByteDance has been lucky to seize the opportunity of the development of the times. Based on machine learning technology, he has made some achievements in innovation and practice on mobile terminals and videos. Although the company's business is developing well, we hope that the company can continue to have greater innovation breakthroughs, become more creative and meaningful. Therefore, Zhang Yiming decided to put aside the daily management of the company and focus on long-term important issues such as long-term strategic vision, corporate culture, and social responsibility. He plans to "relatively focus on learning knowledge, systematic thinking, researching new things, hands-on experimentation, and experience, for a period of ten years, to create more possibilities for the company".
