What comes next for TikTok? That's a big question of the day.

Dear Djibosa is digging into the app's secret sauce for today's Tech Check D.

Hey Leslie, so that's secret sauce and at the heart of this battle is TikTok's algorithm.

It completely overhauled social media,

captivated GenZ, and it continues to keep them engaged

better than copycat apps like YouTube's shorts

and Instagram's Reels.

There you see, TikTok only second to Netflix here.

It comes down to that source code,

developed in China at Parent Company,

Bite Dance that serves users personalized content,

discovery, and this very rapid feedback loop

that determines what video is popular and can push it to more users in

almost real time. This is also the biggest hurdle in a sale if that does eventually materialize and by

the way that's a big if tic-talk calling the bill unconstitutional this morning in a

statement but even if China could still withhold that source code through its export control list.

And Tik-Tok without the algorithm is a very, very different and maybe less valuable.

Almost definitely less valuable proposition.

Interested buyers like Steve Manushin has said that he would rebuild the app if there's

no technology transfer.

One VC I spoke to said Mark Zuckerberg would laugh at that idea.

You don't think he's hired thousands of the world's best data scientists

...