Rapid advances in rival open‑source models this year have increased pressure on ByteDance. At a recent internal Seed team meeting founder Zhang Yiming urged a long‑term approach to model development, saying the firm will refuse distillation—not using others' outputs to chase temporary ranking gains—and should be willing to sacrifice some short‑term returns for long‑term goals. ByteDance has banned distillation of open‑source models internally and tightened controls, including API detection, to e

Rapid advances in rival open‑source models this year have increased pressure on ByteDance. At a recent internal Seed team meeting founder Zhang Yiming urged a long‑term approach to model development, saying the firm will refuse distillation—not using others' outputs to chase temporary ranking gains—and should be willing to sacrifice some short‑term returns for long‑term goals. ByteDance has banned distillation of open‑source models internally and tightened controls, including API detection, to enforce the restriction; Zhang said distillation would interfere with genuine long‑term technical breakthroughs.