Explaining the Background and Direction of the Update to Employees
Hong Min-taek, Chief Product Officer (CPO) of Kakao, who oversaw the recent overhaul that included introducing a social networking service (SNS)-style feed to the KakaoTalk Friends tab, posted a lengthy internal announcement to employees explaining the background of the update. Kakao announced the previous day that it would revert the first screen of the KakaoTalk Friends tab back to the original friends list.
According to the IT industry on September 30, CPO Hong posted an announcement to Kakao employees on September 29, the same day it was announced that the friends list would be restored as the first screen of the KakaoTalk Friends tab. The announcement reportedly included explanations about the background and process behind the recent KakaoTalk update.
Hong Min-taek, Chief Product Officer (CPO) of Kakao, is delivering the keynote speech at the If Kakao 2025 Conference held on the 23rd at the Kakao AI Campus in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. Photo by Kakao
CPO Hong explained that the main reasons and direction for this large-scale overhaul were to "expand the social network" and "strengthen the messenger service." He also described the decision to restore the friends list as the first screen of KakaoTalk, citing user feedback on the grid-style feed in the Friends tab. CPO Hong told employees, "Regardless of the numbers, minimizing user inconvenience is our top priority, and we will do our best to achieve this."
The announcement also clarified that the company is not reducing the messenger functionality. In addition, although user inconvenience has persisted, he noted that key indicators such as app downloads and traffic have remained steady.
CPO Hong currently oversees the development and improvement of services such as KakaoTalk and KakaoMap at Kakao.
After this update, an expos? post appeared on Blind, a closed community for office workers, claiming that CPO Hong was responsible for the controversy surrounding the Friends tab. The post, published by a verified Kakao employee, alleged that CPO Hong pushed through the update despite opposition from developers and other staff. However, the veracity of this claim has not been confirmed.
Some in the industry have also criticized CPO Hong’s leadership style as being incompatible with Kakao’s organizational culture. Previously the CEO of Toss Bank, CPO Hong replaced the team’s work tool from Kakao’s internal messenger "Kakao Work" to Salesforce’s collaboration tool "Slack." Slack is widely used for work purposes across all Toss affiliates. It is also reported that he adopted the Toss-style announcement system at Kakao.
Meanwhile, Kakao plans to implement improvements to the Friends tab in the fourth quarter, taking development timelines into account. The current feed-style posts will be accessible through a separate "News" menu.
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