TikTok Moves to Silicon Valley and is Starting to Poach Facebook Employees
Short video app TikTok has opened an office in close proximity to Facebook’s headquarters in Silicon Valley and has begun poaching Facebook employees, CNBC reported citing multiple sources familiar with the matter.
The new TikTok office was previously occupied by Facebook’s messaging app What’sApp, mere miles from Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters, making it logistically convenient for employees in the area to transfer to the fast-growing social media firm.
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The ByteDance subsidiary is interested in hiring experienced employees from competitors who have the ability to fix issues that arise with high-growth technology, one person told CNBC. TikTok has taken a particular liking to former employees of Facebook. More than two dozen of its new hires (out of its current workforce of more than 500) are former Facebook employees either hired or poached since last year.
The appeal to leave Facebook for TikTok stems from a desire to work at a popular social media company as it goes through an extreme growth phase, two former Facebook employees who are now at TikTok told CNBC. While TikTok can’t compete with Facebook perks such as free food throughout the day, it has been known to offer salaries that are up to 20% higher.
Apart from Facebook, TikTok has also poached people from other tech companies such as Apple, Youtube, Snap, Hulu and Amazon, according to CNBC’s sources.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said that his company will compete against TikTok by beating it in countries where it has yet to gain traction.
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“TikTok … is really the first consumer internet product built by one of the Chinese tech giants that is doing quite well around the world. It’s starting to do well in the U.S., especially with young folks,” Zuckerberg said.
