Who is Shou Zi Chew, boss of TikTok

Will TikTok be banned in the US?

Hint: probably not...

However, something is definitely happening, as Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok, was asked to testify before the US Congress last week.

Who is Shou Zi Chew and why haven't we heard of him before? 🤔

He's a very different type from his Silicon Valley peers. His personality is one of the factors that will prevent the US Congress from banning the short-video app.

Class 1983, he was born and raised in Singapore, of Chinese ancestry like many of his compatriots.

He's always been a high achiever.

At age 12, he managed to get into an elite high-school thanks to his high marks. Not long after, he was put on the officer track of the Singaporean military. He then succeeded in an extreme survival course in Brunei’s jungles, when he had to kill and eat a live quail (not clear whether he actually ate her).

While still being a reservist in the army, he moved to London to study business and went on to work as a banker for Goldman Sachs. After that, he even interned at Facebook, when the company was little more than a promising scale-up.

But the real deal was joining the venture-capital firm DST Global, in the US. He quickly became the go-to person for key investments in China, also thanks to his Mandarin skills.

After investing in Xiaomi Technology, a Chinese smartphone giant, he was asked to join in as CFO and later as director of international business. He stood out for his deep understanding of both Chinese and Western business cultures.

At the time of DST Global, he had the chance to be among the first investors of ByteDance, which later went on to create TikTok.

It is its founder, Zhang Yiming, who personally called Chew to join TikTok as its new CEO in 2021, based in Singapore.

Literally a "hero of two worlds", he's now the connection between the western and Chinese tech industries.

He speaks Mandarin, but he's native in English. He's worked in China, but has a Taiwanese-American wife, met in America. He studied in Britain and worked for Goldman Sachs, the temple of American capitalism.

He now claims that data of American citizens is carefully kept on American and Singaporean soil, shielded from Chinese authorities.

Why would the congress not believe a Goldman alumni?

More importantly, who is brave enough to stop 150mln American citizens from using their favourite app?