Liang Wenfeng, founder of DeepSeek, built a $60 billion artificial intelligence company in three years by rejecting KPIs and overtime culture within his team of approximately 160 employees. DeepSeek, founded in July 2023 in Hangzhou, reached 173 million downloads since the launch of its R1 model in January 2025, positioning itself as a direct competitor to ChatGPT through an open-source approach and significantly lower training costs. The laboratory closed or entered advanced stages of a funding round exceeding $7.4 billion, with state-linked investors. The R1 model announcement sent shockwaves through markets: traditional stocks with AI exposure declined while DeepSeek-inspired meme tokens on Solana surged in a speculative frenzy. This rise questions the relevance of billions spent by established AI players and suggests their competitive advantage may be more fragile than their valuations indicate.
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