One of my great regrets is that Microsoft never bought Twitter. The microblogging cancer on our culture would be dead already.  Remember the time Microsoft squandered billions to buy companies like Nokia and Skype. And yet even in the middle of a pandemic lockdown, Zoom is beating out Skype. And forget about Nokia. 

To be fair, Microsoft spent billions to buy LinkedIn and it’s still around. But you can’t kill a zombie anyway. 

Microsoft also likes randomly buying trending things to boost its stock value. Like Minecraft. Or, in this case, TikTok. 

How does TikTok integrate with Microsoft’s core products? Answer, it doesn’t. But it also doesn’t matter. It’s why Microsoft is proposing to spend billions on an app which is only relevant because it’s currently hot among teens. A few years from now it won’t be and if Microsoft buys it, it will then quietly fold it up and report a billion dollar loss.

But I also don’t see why an American company should be allowed to throw billions to a Chinese company either.

TikTok is a security threat. But it won’t be around 5 years from now. The real issue with TikTok and Zoom is that China is able to compete with and beat Silicon Valley at its own game. That has scarier implications for our economy and our national security than an app that harvests information from its teen users.