Report: ByteDance Seed Core Lead Zhou Chang Leaves to Start Physical AI Venture
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According to a Z Finance report, ByteDance Seed core lead Zhou Chang has left the company to start a venture in Physical AI, backed by leading USD funds; the specific investors, amount, and valuation were not disclosed. Zhou Chang previously reported to Seed head Wu Yonghui, with responsibilities covering multimodal interaction, world models, visual generation, and robotics, among other areas; the report says the related work may be taken over by an employee from the TikTok team. On October 26, a person close to ByteDance responded that Zhou Chang had not left; as of publication, ByteDance has not responded further.
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The report outlines changes in Zhou Chang's management scope at ByteDance and the background of his successor, offering a window into personnel adjustments in ByteDance Seed's multimodal and robotics directions.
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消息称字节Seed核心负责人周畅离职创业，方向物理AI凤凰网科技下载客户端 独家抢先看2026年10月31日 09:58:04 来自北京市Updated 2026年10月31日 10:03:53
凤凰网科技讯 10月31日，据Z Finance报道，字节跳动Seed核心负责人周畅已离职创业，方向为Physical AI，并获得头部美元基金支持。具体投资方、融资金额及估值暂未披露。
公开信息显示，周畅此前是Seed内管理范围较广的技术负责人之一，向Seed负责人吴永辉汇报，业务曾覆盖多模态交互、世界模型、视觉生成及机器人等方向。Z Finance报道称其离职后，相关工作可能由TikTok团队一位员工接手。
据了解，今年下半年，周畅在字节内部的管理范围有所收缩，更多工作由曾妍承担。曾妍出生于1997年，2021年以校招生身份加入字节，长期从事视频理解与生成研究，是字节内部晋升至4-2职级最快的员工之一。在Seedance 2.0的研发中，曾妍承担了关键工作。据36氪报道，她曾推动训练更大规模的模型，并为此争取算力资源，相关方案最终获得吴永辉和周畅支持。据Z Finance了解，曾妍近期还在扩招语言模型方向的研发人员，预计Scope将进一步扩大。
此前，10 月 26 日，接近字节人士回应称“周畅没有离职”。截至发稿，字节跳动方面暂未对此事再回应。
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