ByteDance responds to rumors of "poaching talent for hundreds of millions of yuan": There are no cases of exceptionally high annual salaries.

CoinFeed reported on April 16th that in response to rumors that ByteDance spent nearly 100 million yuan to poach former DeepSeek researcher Guo Daya, Douyin Vice President Li Liang stated that all Seed team technical personnel recruited by ByteDance have the same salary system, including cash, ByteDance stock options, and Doubao stock options. The options vest fully over four years, and there is no situation where "certain conditions must be met to receive the full amount." Furthermore, ByteDance has not recently recruited any employees with annual salaries approaching 100 million yuan. The future returns of Seed employees' ByteDance and Doubao stock options will fluctuate depending on the option price. If the business develops well, it is possible that some Seed technical personnel could earn hundreds of millions of yuan after four years.