On the evening of June 23, Bytedance released an anti-corruption report stating that the former head of Bytedance’s Seed large language model, Qiaomu, along with a related HRBP, have been dismissed.
According to the report, a former employee of Seed had an intimate relationship with a former HRBP who supported their team, creating a prohibited conflict of interest scenario such as hierarchical relationships, sharing a common immediate superior, or one being the HRBP of the other. Both individuals not only failed to report the conflict of interest as required but also made false statements multiple times during the investigation, severely violating the company’s regulations.
Bytedance has since dismissed the two individuals and imposed penalties by withholding their entire year-end bonuses.
Internal sources at Bytedance confirmed the authenticity of this information to Caixin.
According to Red Star Capital Bureau, Seed is the name of the large model team at Bytedance. On March 27, a report regarding the head of Bytedance’s Seed large language model team, Qiaomu, circulated on social media.
The report alleged that Qiaomu committed infidelity within his marriage and had an intimate relationship with HRBP Cheng from the same team.
On the morning of March 28, several internal sources revealed that Qiaomu and Cheng’s Feishu accounts showed a status of being temporarily suspended, with some insiders indicating that this may suggest an internal investigation had been initiated by the company.