Why I joined TikTok

I love the app, and what the app promises.

It's fun, it's creative, it's silly. It's a guaranteed laugh.

From a Product perspective, it's immersive, AI-first and truly designed for mobile in way that other platforms are not.

On top of that, the challenge of ad integrity is a problem-worth-solving. Making sure that hundreds of millions of users are safe is both important and incredibly difficult.

The convergence of these four macro-trends in a single role was incredibly alluring. The fact that I had been independently monitoring these trends with the Digital Futures team at Mastercard, strengthened my conviction.

Super-ceding these reasons, however, was the fact that I wanted to get back into the startup game.

To test myself at that hyper-pace. To take a more central role that immediately influenced company direction. Rather than the inevitably advisory role that longer-term innovation teams take.

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This post is part of the TikTok Sequence, a series of short thoughts inspired by my time working with TikTok. The posts focus mostly on the experience of work culture at TikTok and companies like it.