The result is that Bytedance has had more success outside of China than any previous Chinese internet company, including Baidu and Tencent.
结果是,与百度和腾讯等之前几家中国互联网公司相比,字节跳动在中国境外获得了更多的成功。
The TikTok app and its Chinese version have been installed more than a billion times.
Tiktok应用及其中文版的安装次数已经超过10亿次。
(It has no relation to TicToc, Bloomberg LP's breaking news network.)
(它与彭博社旗下新闻网络Tictoc没有任何关系。)
Late last year, executives told investors that they expect $18 billion in revenue this year and $29 billion in 2020, according to people familiar with its finances who aren't authorized to discuss the company publicly.
据知情人士透露,去年年底,公司高管向投资者表示,他们预计今年营收将达180亿美元,2020年的收入将达到290亿美元,但这些人士无权公开讨论该公司的资金事宜。
Bytedance will "become a global player," says Hans Tung, managing partner of GGV Capital, one of the company's backers.
字节跳动的支持者之一,纪源资本(GGV Capital)的执行合伙人童士豪(Hans Tung)表示,该公司将“成为一家全球性公司”。
"It's just a matter of when."
“这只是个时间问题。”
BYTEDANCE'S Beijing headquarters, a former aerospace museum with 50-foot glass skylights, is a celebration of the company's frantic pace.
字节跳动的北京总部,曾是一个拥有50英尺玻璃天窗的航空博物馆,它可以看做是对公司快速发展的一种庆贺了。
On a January afternoon, a video in the cafeteria asked workers to share New Year's resolutions and regrets.
一月份的一个下午,在自助餐厅播放的一段视频中,请求员工分享各自的新年决心和心存的遗憾。
Most seemed to involve workaholism.
大多数人提及的都与沉迷工作有关。
"To my ex, I'm sorry I was too busy at work," one employee said.
“对我的前任来说,我感到很抱歉,我太忙于工作了,”一位员工说。
"I'm sorry to my kids that I'm never home," another message lamented.
另一个人哀叹道:“我对自己的孩子们感到抱歉,我从来没回过家。”
The corporate culture is intense even by the standards of Chinese startups.
即使按照中国初创企业的标准来看,该公司的企业文化也弥散着紧张激烈的氛围。
Employee performance goals are published internally via a mobile app the company created called Lark and are reviewed every other month.
员工绩效目标通过公司创建的名为云雀的移动应用在内部发布,每隔一个月审查一次。
In an interview, Bytedance's senior vice president for corporate development, Liu Zhen,
在一次采访中,字节跳动的公司发展高级副总裁刘震提到,
mentions that founder and Chief Executive Officer Zhang Yiming likes to travel to the West when the Beijing office shuts down during Chinese holidays.
创始人兼首席执行官张一鸣每逢中国节假日北京办事处关闭时,就喜欢到西方国家去旅行。
"So he can keep working," she explains. Zhang declined interview requests.
“这样他就可以继续工作了,”她解释到。张没有接受采访请求。
Now 36, he started Bytedance in 2012, in an apartment near Beijing's Tsinghua University.
现年36岁的张一鸣,于2012年在北京清华大学附近的一间公寓里创立了字节跳动。
One of its first apps, Neihan Duanzi ("implied jokes"), used AI to tailor a selection of memes to individual users' tastes.
公司研发的第一批应用中,有一款叫内涵段子(意思是“隐含的笑话”),使用人工智能根据个人用户的嗜好量身定制一系列模因。
The effect was irreverent—think of Reddit, but a little bit grosser and more personal—and the app attracted tens of millions of users.
其效果有些荒诞,想想社交新闻网站红迪网(Reddit)就明白了,但还带着点粗俗,也更个性化。这款应用吸引了数千万用户。
Bytedance used the same approach to develop a news app, Jinri Toutiao ("today's headlines"), which became China's largest news site, with more than 700 million users.
字节跳动使用同样的方法开发了一款新闻应用今日头条(意思是“今天的头条新闻”),它成为了中国最大的新闻网站,拥有7亿多用户。
The success prompted acquisition offers from Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent, all of which Zhang declined.
这一成功促使百度、阿里巴巴和腾讯都提出收购要约,但都被张一鸣拒绝了。