Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom. Photo credit: JD Lasica on Flickr, under Creative Commons license

Following the resignation of TikTok’s former chief executive last month, the Chinese social media company is pursuing the appointment of a new chief executive, with Instagram co-founder and former chief executive Kevin Systrom considered as a viable candidate, according to a report [paywall] from the New York Times. According to the Times, TikTok and its parent company ByteDance Technologies have approached new potential candidates for the chief executive role, among them Kevin Systrom, who’s best known for co-founding Instagram in 2010, selling it to Facebook for $1 billion in 2012, and overseeing the app’s growth to over half-a-billion users before abruptly stepping down in September of 2018, reportedly due to conflicts with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 

A scenario where TikTok is led by Systrom would mark an interesting one, possibly pitching him in rivalry against his former boss Mark Zuckerberg. In the light of TikTok’s success, Facebook has pushed to roll out a seemingly copycat feature on the Instagram app called Reels, which caters to the sharing of short videos of up to 15 seconds in length. In the past, Facebook pulled a similar move on popular social app Snapchat by copying its flagship “Stories” feature onto both the Instagram app and Facebook itself. Also, before formally acquiring Instagram in 2012, Facebook released a now-defunct clone of the app named Facebook Camera. Overall, Facebook has a well-known history of clashing with competitors, but not with one of its former top lieutenants. 

In the grand scheme of things, Systrom seems like a very well-suited candidate to lead TikTok thanks to his experience leading a previous app of similar scale. He might, however, be discouraged by the company’s recent political woes, which is what led to the resignation of its former chief executive Kevin Mayer after less than four months on the job. Mayer, a former Disney top brass, took up the CEO job at TikTok in May but stepped down in August, as the ByteDance-owned social media app fought political and regulatory battles in the US emanating from its Chinese ties. It’s such that TikTok is currently in the middle of a deal to sell its US operations to an American entity, with software company Oracle standing as a leading acquisition candidate. 

As noted, Kevin Systrom for now is merely a candidate for the TikTok CEO job, with no formal talks yet confirmed. 

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