Former Musical.ly President on Where TikTok Is Going Next

In the early days of Musical.ly, leadership had frequent debates about whether to base the app on social relationships or on an “interest graph,” making it entertainment-focused, said Alex Hofmann, former North America president of Musical.ly, in an interview.

Hofmann, who left Musical.ly a few months after ByteDance acquired the company in late 2017 (and merged it into another app you’ve probably heard of: TikTok), said that while products with “a social graph” usually retain users better because they want to check out what friends are doing, ultimately the company went the entertainment route.