TikTok Co-Founder Quits ByteDance After Edtech Experiment Flop

One of TikTok’s original creators has left its Chinese parent company ByteDance Ltd. after Beijing’s year-long regulatory crackdown scuppered an expansion into gaming and education.

Louis Yang, a co-founder of Musical.ly -- the app acquired by ByteDance that morphed into TikTok -- quit his job at the Beijing-based firm last week, according to a person familiar with the matter. Yang was last in charge of ByteDance’s foray into educational gadgets, which was frustrated by Bejing’s clampdown on online tutoring services and apps last summer, said the person, asking not to be identified discussing private information.

Under his guidance, the company introduced its first hardware product in 2020, a desktop lamp with a built-in touchscreen and voice assistant to help children learn. Sales of the $100 gadget were sluggish and ByteDance has since shut down most of its online education business to comply with Beijing’s tighter regulations on the after-school tutoring industry, laying off hundreds of employees in the process.

ByteDance didn’t respond to a request for comment, while Yang didn’t respond to a LinkedIn message. Chinese tech blog Late Post first reported Yang’s departure.