Joshua Bixby is CEO of cloud company Fastly, whose stock took a plunge last month due to a big drop in demand from its biggest client, ByteDance — owner of the popular video app TikTok.
Bixby also notes that the dispute highlights the challenges faced by companies like Fastly, which don't require even the largest customers to sign contracts — leaving them free to cut usage or leave entirely at any time.The battle over TikTok's future in the US was an unexpected glitch in the popular app's explosive rise.
The Fastly situation shows how the rapid rise of social media apps like TikTok has clashed with changing attitudes toward data and privacy. Bixby says their experience underscores the need for cloud companies to be even more nimble in a rapidly changing tech landscape. complaining that the company has received "no substantive feedback" on its proposals for resolving data privace concerns.Fastly's stock plummeted in late October after Bixby told analysts on an earnings call that TikTok, which accounted for 11% of Fastly's revenue in the first three quarters of the year, "removed a majority of their US and non-US traffic from our platform by the end of the quarter.