According to CoinMeta, Zhang Yiming stated in a recent internal meeting that ByteDance “refuses distillation” in the competition of large models, and does not use others’ outputs to gain short-term rankings. He emphasized that when developing models, one must adhere to long-termism and delay immediate gratification, and be willing to sacrifice some short-term profits for long-term goals. ByteDance has strict prohibitions against distilling open-source models internally, and strengthens related restrictions through methods such as API detection. Zhang Yiming believes that distillation can interfere with genuine long-term technological breakthroughs.