ByteDance employee quits after making 30 million from stock trading: How crazy is this market rally?
- Core Thesis: A rumor about a ByteDance employee achieving financial freedom through stock trading reflects the prevailing sentiment in today's global stock market frenzy, where "investing replaces working" has become a common sentiment, particularly resonating among employees at major tech companies.
- Key Elements:
- A viral story claims a ByteDance employee made 30 million yuan through stock trading, achieving financial freedom and stating that the probability of getting rich through investing is far higher than through internal company promotions.
- ByteDance itself, as a successful model, has an internal valuation ranging from $330 billion to $480 billion, exposing its employees directly to the logic of asset revaluation.
- ByteDance has its own urban legends like the "Beijing trader," with a typical path of turning 80,000 yuan principal into tens of millions through stock trading.
- Global stock markets are in a historic frenzy: A-shares routinely see single-day turnover exceeding 3 trillion yuan; South Korean investors are even cashing out insurance policies to go all-in on semiconductor stocks.
- The AI rally has remained unbroken for three years: Nvidia's market cap surged from $500 billion to over $5 trillion, with AI-related stocks contributing approximately 80% of the S&P 500's total gains for the year.
- The prevailing sentiment is that "work is a side hustle, investing is the main gig," and global stock markets are still in the midst of a frenzied rally expected to last into the first half of 2026.
Original author: Jia Liu, Zhang Sheng Beatz
A post about a "ByteDance employee making 30 million yuan from stock trading" went viral.
According to online speculation, the protagonist is the founder of an early internal ByteDance US stock investment group.
In the rumor, he achieved financial freedom through investing and left two messages on his last day: Working can only sustain your current life; only investing can lead to a better life. The probability of achieving financial freedom through investing is far greater than climbing the corporate ladder to a 4-1 level at ByteDance.
Stories of financial freedom are always this inspiring.
It's said that some ByteDance colleagues couldn't handle it on the spot, immediately taking out loans and going all-in on stocks.
The big tech narrative used to be simple. Join a high-growth company, earn a high cash income, wait for stock options to appreciate, and achieve a wealth leap through promotions and the company's IPO. ByteDance itself is one of the most successful examples of this narrative. Business Insider reported last year that ByteDance valued itself at approximately $330 billion in employee share buybacks, with Fidelity giving an even higher valuation; subsequent secondary market transactions pushed ByteDance's implied valuation to around $480 billion. In other words, from the moment ByteDance employees join, they are not just exposed to "work," but to valuation, options, buybacks, liquidity, and asset revaluation.
So the stock trading guru didn't even want ByteDance's options anymore. He looked down on them.
This isn't ByteDance's first urban legend.
Last year, there was also an ID called "Beijing Trader" originating from ByteDance, known in the community as "God Bei." In stock trader communities and multiple financial article reprints, the common narrative about him is: He entered the market in 2007, initially went through the typical retail investor trial-and-error phase, and later grew a principal of about 80,000 yuan to tens of millions. An article reprinted on NetEase summarized his journey as "from 80,000 to 50 million."
The current stock market environment is truly historic. Not just in the US, but globally. In China's A-shares market, daily trading volumes exceeding 3 trillion yuan on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges have become the norm, something unimaginable during the last bull run. The Korean stock market is even more explosive; Koreans have withdrawn their pension and insurance money to go all-in on SK Hynix.
At the end of November 2022, ChatGPT launched. From that moment on, Wall Street was waiting for the AI bubble to burst.
But three and a half years later, this market trend hasn't just continued; it's accelerating. Nvidia's market cap surged from $500 billion in early 2023 to over $5 trillion, weathering impacts from DeepSeek, the US-Iran conflict, and inflation rebounds. After each correction, it was pushed to new highs by even stronger earnings reports and larger capital expenditures. By 2025, AI-related stocks contributed approximately 80% of the S&P 500's annual gains.
And in the first half of 2026, global stock markets are still in the midst of a frenzied rally.
After all, the sentiment of this generation is: Work increasingly feels like a side hustle; stock trading and investing are the real main gig.
