AI Bull Market Reprices Everything, Including the "Male Valuation System" in the Marriage Market

Original｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author｜Wenser (@wenser 2010)

A new form of "hard currency" has recently emerged in South Korea's dating market: SK Hynix employees.

Kang Eun-sun, a manager at the Korean matchmaking agency Gayeon, admitted: "In the past, the matches we arranged for SK Hynix employees were around B+ level, but now they are unconditionally A-grade." Some Hynix employees even anonymously stated: "During blind dates, we usually pretend we work at Samsung Electronics first; we only reveal we're at Hynix if we meet a decent person."

The pecking order in the Korean and even global dating market has quietly been rewritten.

If the most sought-after people in the past were "Samsung people," finance guys, and civil servants, then, after the AI bull market swept the world, those truly revalued by the market have become:

NVIDIA employees;

SK Hynix engineers;

Researchers at OpenAI and Anthropic;

AI team members at DeepSeek and ByteDance.

Primary markets revalue companies, secondary markets reprice stocks, and now the market has started repricing "eligible bachelors."

With this in mind, Odaily Planet Daily has compiled a "Most Sought-After Bachelors List in the AI Era" based on multiple dimensions such as company valuation, employee income, industry status, and wealth potential, for your reading pleasure.

Blazing Hot: NVIDIA & SK Hynix

If there's a "Tier 0" in the current dating market, it almost undoubtedly belongs to NVIDIA and SK Hynix.

The former is the world's biggest "money printer" in the AI world.

As the demand for AI computing power continues to explode, NVIDIA has become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the global AI wave. After the U.S. stock market opened yesterday, NVIDIA's stock price hit a new all-time high; simultaneously, Wells Fargo raised its target price again, maintaining an "overweight" rating.

Capital markets are gradually forming a consensus: in today's era, GPUs are no longer just chips; they are the "oil" of the AI world.

On the other side, what's truly driving the Korean dating market collectively wild is the almost absurd scale of bonuses for SK Hynix employees.

Last year, SK Hynix revised its "Excess Profit Distribution (PS)" system, agreeing to directly allocate 10% of its operating profit into a bonus pool, while also removing the bonus cap.

The result:

With the surge in demand for HBM (High Bandwidth Memory), Hynix employee bonuses have entered the "hundreds of millions of Won era."

Last year, SK Hynix revised the payout method for its "Excess Profit Distribution (PS)," agreeing to allocate 10% of its operating profit to the bonus pool, while also removing the mechanism that capped bonuses relative to annual salary.

The company's operating profit for the 2025 fiscal year reached 47.2 trillion Won. Calculated at 10%, over 30,000 Hynix employees could receive an average bonus of 140 million Won (approximately RMB 650,000).

In the first quarter of this year, the average per-employee bonus already soared to 107 million Won, approximately RMB 500,000. According to further forecasts from international investment bank Macquarie Securities, SK Hynix's operating profit could reach 447 trillion Won by 2027, with an average per-employee bonus of 1.29 billion Won, equivalent to about RMB 6.1 million.

With such generous rewards, Hynix employees are not only extremely sought after in the dating market but are even seriously considering "in-house dating."

An anonymous employee stated: "Mutual attention between unmarried employees has noticeably increased recently. After all, the economic synergy of marrying a colleague is too significant; office romances are now seriously being viewed as a strategic choice."

When bonuses start being calculated in "hundreds of millions of Won," "office romance" suddenly morphs from a major HR headache into a household asset allocation strategy. Moreover, because performance bonuses are highly tied to attendance, many employees are even actively avoiding parental leave. Working couples have even remarked: "With several hundred million Won in bonuses right in front of us, who can afford to take leave?"

SK Hynix employees are no longer just engineers; they are more like AI concept stocks in the Korean marriage market.

Therefore, NVIDIA, boasting the title of "world's most valuable company," and SK Hynix, the "miracle bonus factory," are undisputedly ranked in the top tier of this list, earning the rating "Blazing Hot."

Clip from Korean variety show SNL: "Hynix workwear becomes a luxury store pass"

Hot: Anthropic, OpenAI

If NVIDIA and Hynix represent AI infrastructure, then OpenAI and Anthropic represent the most sought-after "nouveau riche" of the AI era.

Over the past year, the valuations of both companies have inflated wildly. Simultaneously, employee wealth has truly entered a "cashing out" phase.

Last October, OpenAI completed a staggering round of employee stock sales. According to the Wall Street Journal, over 600 current and former employees cashed out a total of $6.6 billion (approximately RMB 48 billion) in this transaction. About 75 of them reached the maximum limit, each receiving $30 million. After completing a $122 billion funding round at an $852 billion valuation this year, OpenAI recently loosened restrictions on employee stock sales. After completing a new funding round in April this year, OpenAI has further relaxed those restrictions.

The situation is similar at Anthropic.

In April this year, Anthropic conducted another employee stock sale at a $350 billion valuation. However, due to significant reluctance from employees to sell, many investors were unable to buy their intended share.

Unlike the "paper options" stories of the previous internet era, this round of AI companies is genuinely beginning to allow employees to liquidate "stock wealth" and secure actual cash.

In other words, the actual wealth level of employees at these AI companies has already far surpassed that of most employees at major traditional internet-era firms.

However, compared to the "stable cash flow money printers" like NVIDIA and Hynix, OpenAI and Anthropic are more like "high-volatility, high-growth assets."

Therefore, we temporarily assign them a "Hot" rating.

Top of the Top: DeepSeek, ByteDance

One of the biggest changes in this bull market is that global internet companies are realizing: the most expensive thing is no longer GPUs, but people, especially AI talent.

In December last year, ByteDance was reported to be planning a massive increase in AI investment. This year, with its AI strategy further upgraded, its related AI spending has reached an astonishing scale of RMB 200 billion.

At the same time, ByteDance's valuation continues to rise. According to the latest market news, ByteDance's valuation has now exceeded $600 billion, $50 billion higher than three months ago.

In April this year, it launched a new round of employee share buybacks. The buyback price for current employees was raised to $229.5, an increase of 14.52% from the previous price; the buyback price for former employees was set at $201.96 per share, an increase of about 11.97% from the previous round. Employees' paper wealth continues to appreciate significantly.

On the other side, DeepSeek is also launching its own "AI talent defense."

With several core team members leaving, DeepSeek's Liang Wenfeng needs equity to retain his core team.

In May, news first emerged that DeepSeek was seeking funding at a $45 billion valuation; subsequently, it was officially announced that DeepSeek was seeking to raise RMB 50 billion.

It's worth noting that, according to reports, of DeepSeek's RMB 50 billion fundraising target, only RMB 30 billion would come from external sources, with the remaining RMB 20 billion to be supplemented by Liang Wenfeng via internal fundraising. As the boss of quantitative fund High-Flyer, Liang Wenfeng undoubtedly has the financial strength, and High-Flyer's RMB 70 billion in assets under management and 58.5% annualized return rate give him plenty of confidence.

Clearly, while OpenAI and Anthropic retain talent with dollars, Chinese AI companies are starting to fight their own AI talent war with RMB.

In today's market, those able to secure a seat at the main AI table are already extremely scarce, high-level players.

Therefore, whether at ByteDance or DeepSeek, employees rate as "Top of the Top" in the dating market.

NPC: Samsung, Tencent

If the previously mentioned companies have already boarded the AI high-speed rail, then Samsung Electronics and Tencent seem more like players trying hard to find an "AI ticket."

Let's start with Samsung.

For decades, being a "Samsung person" was one of the strongest professional auras in Korean society. But in the AI era, Samsung has unexpectedly become one party undergoing market re-evaluation.

Due to missing the initial HBM layout, strategic missteps in technology routes, and product certification issues, Samsung has been suppressed by Hynix in the AI memory competition.

Meanwhile, Samsung employees have also started "looking towards Hynix." Recently, Samsung's national union even planned a large-scale strike, demanding the company increase bonus ratios and remove the bonus cap. If these demands are not met, theSamsung union will initiate a large-scale strike lasting 18 days (starting May 21). JP Morgan estimates this could cause losses of 4 trillion Won and lead to a decline in DRAM and NAND chip production.

Admittedly, it's understandable why SK Hynix employees would "pretend" to be Samsung employees in the dating market scenario mentioned earlier.

Negotiations break down, Samsung's large-scale strike likely inevitable

On the other side, Tencent isn't having an easy time either.

Compared to ByteDance's aggressive AI investment, Tencent appears more cautious. Previously, Tencent President Martin Lau stated that the company invested about RMB 18 billion in new AI products last year, which will double this year. However, the gap compared to ByteDance's hundreds of billions in AI spending remains significant.

At the same time, Tencent faces the problem of slowing growth in its traditional businesses.

On May 13, Tencent released its Q1 2026 financial results: Revenue was RMB 196.458 billion, a year-on-year increase of 9%; Non-IFRS operating profit was RMB 75.63 billion, a year-on-year increase of 9%. Overall, revenue and profit growth slowed to single-digit levels, with AI investment dragging down short-term gross margins. In terms of gaming performance, domestic market game revenue was RMB 45.4 billion, a year-on-year increase of 6%, lagging behind the growth rate of domestic game gross billing.

This is also a key reason why Tencent didn't have the upper hand in the DeepSeek funding round. Previously, media reports indicated that Tencent proposed subscribing for up to 20% of DeepSeek's shares, but DeepSeek was reluctant to give up a large stake and control.

This is also why the market is increasingly discussing: Has Tencent actually secured a genuine "ticket" to the AI era?

After all, what Tencent built in the mobile internet era was the most valuable "Noah's Ark"—WeChat. But the new ticket for the AI era remains unclaimed, and no one knows who will ultimately get it.

Therefore, we temporarily assign Samsung and Tencent employees the rating—"NPC."

Done For: Traditional Finance Guys, Crypto Bros

Finally, compared to employees of the aforementioned AI giants, traditional finance guys and crypto bros are gradually losing their era dividend.

The reason is simple: the most sought-after job in an era often represents the core distribution power of wealth in that era.

In the past few decades, the finance industry represented capital, the internet industry represented traffic, and the crypto world represented overnight riches.

But AI has long begun to redefine everything.

Compared to the AI giant teams with their multi-million dollar bonuses and hundreds of millions in stock cash-outs, traditional finance guys and crypto bros suddenly seem somewhat "out of sync with the times."

Especially in the current era context of the continuous "AI-ification" of U.S. stocks, structural market conditions in A-shares, and the disappearance of new wealth effects in the crypto space, the halo of "financial elites" and "crypto gurus" has faded.

Based on the current dating market conditions and parental judgment criteria, these two groups can only be given a "Done For" rating in the dating scene.

Typical avatar of a traditional finance guy

Current status of crypto bros

Do you think this rating is reasonable? Do you have any other rating references? Feel free to leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments.

P.S. Here is the ranking generator from "Hot" to "Done For": https://tool.dayun.cool/ranking