Zhang Yiming: ByteDance "refuses to distill" and does not exchange output for rankings on lists.

On August 6th, according to sources within ByteDance, the rapid development of open-source models by domestic competitors this year has brought greater pressure to the company. In a recent internal meeting, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming stated that when developing models, one must adhere to a long-term approach and embrace delayed gratification, rather than relying on others' outputs for temporary ranking boosts. It is understood that Zhang Yiming rarely speaks at Seed team meetings, but on this occasion, he clearly expressed that ByteDance "should be willing to sacrifice some short-term gains for long-term goals." Internally, ByteDance strictly prohibits the distillation of open-source models and has reinforced relevant restrictions through methods such as API detection. Zhang Yiming believes that distillation undermines genuine long-term technological breakthroughs.