[FLUX-YOU]

>35-Year-Old Unknown

First of all, that's rude.

Second, if they have a $75b valuation and no profit plan, that's not likely a good sign. I doubt China's P2P and venture capital markets are related, but I'd bet they gave a high valuation just to grab headlines. Also, it'll eventually get censored like everything else in China, so 'doing better than Baidu' is probably temporary.

[jasode]

>First of all, that's rude.

Real question: Is there some social etiquette rule that says describing a person to a news audience as "unknown" is being rude? Honestly, I've never heard of that.

If I created a billion dollar company and Bloomberg called me "an unknown", I'd consider it a massive compliment. It means that I was able to grow the company totally under the radar without any distracting interview requests from TechCrunch, TheVerge, Gizmodo, etc.

[gutnor]

I guess the problem is the combination of "35-year-old" with "unknown".

Seems the 35yo bit is irrelevant to the story, that's neither old nor young: you can have a significant career by that point and you are a long way from retiring. So I can understand some people from the Valley would think this is just another case of ageism.

A bit like saying "A Black Woman left me her seat in the bus" can be suspicious even though it is factual.

[nebulous1]

Apparently he was 29 anyway, so I'm not sure what the point of the 35 is.

And to be honest Chinese billionaires not being well known in the west isn't that surprising to me, particularly when their business ventures are heavily China-facing.

[johnchristopher]

FWIW I have always been under the impression that "first of all that's rude" is mostly used as a funny meme, a recurring harmless little joke (to put emphasis on what comes next in the speech).

[FLUX-YOU]

Bit of a joke at first, but became more serious when people started to frame it as a compliment. I wouldn't blame anyone for missing humor on here.

Ultimately, it's a difference of opinion and social influences. It got an article click anyway, so mission accomplished for Bloomberg.

[fredsanford]

But... Was he a known-unknown or an unknown-unknown?

[isoskeles]

Every other founder is virtually unknown before they become known. Is he unknown because he lives in China and didn't attend Stanford? What does it mean that he is Unknown?

[coldtea]

>Every other founder is virtually unknown before they become known

Not really. Tesla's founder was well known, for example (as a founder and exiter of another company). Ditto for the founder of NeXT.

And "unknown" here also means not born with a silver spoon, no heir, no previous positions eg. as CEO/CTO somewhere, no major tech connections, etc.

[miyhhbftdx]

> Tesla's founder was well known, for example (as a founder and exiter of another company).

Tesla's original founders are indeed "unknown."

[jamiegreen]

Maybe they intended to write

>Virtually Every other founder is unknown before they become known

.. :)

[NonEUCitizen]

should've asked instead: "...because he lives in China and didn't attend Tsinghua?"

[j45]

In this context, unknown could be pretty easily with calling someone a nobody.

A nobody, compared to who? A status quo? Innovation is about outliers getting things done.

Whereas a success like this would normally be celebrated to the moon and back. Why not here? Is this individual's success outside a self-congratulatory echo-chamber?

With media it's worth asking questions about the use of words, because they wordsmith for a living.

[moomin]

My real question is: do they really mean unknown or just “unknown to us”. Guy could be quite well recognised in China for all I know. There’s a lot of implicit parochialism that works its way into news stories.

[ijpoijpoihpiuoh]

"Unknown" is not an insult. It's not rude. It just means that he was not prominent before this company. It's actually somewhat of a compliment, because you generally expect gradual rises in fame and performance, not meteoric ones. So to say "unknown X does great thing Y" is more complimentary to X than saying "X does great thing Y".

[mistrial9]

whose definition of 'prominent' ? many, many assumptions there

[coldtea]

You could say that for any word. The common people's definition of prominent. In the sense that he wasn't that known in the tech world and not a household item in the business industry either.

[ijpoijpoihpiuoh]

I am simply observing the general meaning of unknown in the context of statements like this in the English language. I suspected that the person I was replying to might be unaware of this meaning based on their reaction, and was trying to clarify. I really don't think there are many assumptions here. This is by far the most common interpretation of unknown in sentences like this.

[cirgue]

I agree, I think this says more about the VC market in China than it does about Bytedance.

[apo]

I'd wear "Unknown" as a badge of honor.

[amelius]

Especially with all the trading of personal information these days.

Being unknown to even Google is a huge accomplishment for a 35-yo.

[sbr464]

I was going to say the same.

[bagacrap]

And technically he was 29 when he started it.

[mongodude]

Honestly, we the lesser mortals do not know what goes behind the closed doors when cheques like $1.5 billion are written.

People said the same thing when Microsoft valued Facebook at $15 billion. Now, in the hindsight, it seems so funny that people frowned upon those valuations.

Power of having many consumers engaged on your platform is too much in digital age.

[module0000]

With a $75b valuation, the state-actors coming for their protection money might expect quite a lot of it.

[duxup]

Or state-actors arrive on behalf of their competitors to put an end to it...

[ospider]

Actually, the profit plan has been going very well and straight forward - ADs.

[coldtea]

>Second, if they have a $75b valuation and no profit plan, that's not likely a good sign.

For whom? Because the founder will walk out a billionaire, or at least multi-millionaire, whatever happens...

[idrios]

Right? "Sorry this is only my first multi-billion dollar startup. I guess I need to start a second to merit having a name in your headline."

[desireco42]

Absolutely agree. When Kevin Rose came out of the blue with Digg, they didn't call him 'Unknown'. It is just how media in the US (and rest of the world is trying to copy them mostly) tries to grab attention.

Also, it is unknown to them, but Bytedance has been around for quite some time and covered in the US. Also, it is not like they are not making money. So many things are wrong with how they cover this.

[thomaslangston]

Kevin Rose was a TV host at the time Digg launched. He might not have been well known, but he wasn't unknown.

[desireco42]

TV host of show that only geeks watched. :)

[tobltobs]

A bit off topic, but isn't you nickname FLUX-YOU a bit rude? Apart from that you are screaming does it sound quite similar to f%&$ you. And to flux means something like "flowing of fluid from the body, such as diarrhea".