DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng in His Own Words: 64 Quotes from DeepSeek's Investor Call

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DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng in His Own Words: 64 Quotes from DeepSeek's Investor Call

Geopolitechs<br>Jul 23, 2026

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Key takeaways:<br>Vision-driven: No KPIs, no written vision, even "no organization"—it runs on goodwill toward the world and an obsession with AGI. "We're just a bunch of very ordinary people."

Restraint as strategy: API pricing aims only to recover hardware costs in ten months. No fighting for consumer traffic, no chasing enterprise fads. "The more restrained you are, the more likely you'll pull it off."

Open source is the point: Even the strongest model will be open-sourced. Not worried about others competing. "I only worry they won't be able to deploy it."

AGI roadmap: CoT → Agents → continual learning → "singularity" → embodied intelligence. "After continual learning, it can develop the next version itself."

Compute reality: About 20,000 "H-equivalent" GPUs; 12–18 months behind the U.S.; chasing with one‑twentieth the compute. For domestic chips: "The ecosystem is fine; capacity is the bottleneck."

Endgame view: China may match foreign models this year, but "that still isn't AGI." "There are too many base-model companies in China; it will converge."

Vision, motivation, and culture

*"We don't have an organization; we're driven by a vision."*<br>When we started the company, our original intent wasn't "how much money will I make," or "go to the capital markets," or "IPO," or anything like that. That wasn't the intent. The first few dozen people never thought that way. If they did, they wouldn't have joined.

Overall, we're doing this with a lot of goodwill toward the world, and we think it's useful to humanity. It's something beyond money.

About twenty years ago, in management, the person I admired most was Jack Welch, former CEO of GE. Looking back now, most of what he said may no longer be right, but he got one thing right: the most important thing for a company is its vision. Managing a big company isn't about rules and procedures—it's about vision. What is vision? Vision isn't a slogan on the wall. Vision is how you do things, not what you say.

In fact, we don't really have an organization—we're driven by a vision, organized by a vision. That vision isn't even written down. We've never written anything.

We're not especially capable. We don't have more money than others, and it's not that our people are better than everyone else's. We're just a bunch of very ordinary people.

Our company is built on consensus. It's not that I decide everything. I seek consensus. My authority inside the company is built on consensus.

Our management has two lines: one top-down and one bottom-up. Bottom-up means everyone decides what they want to do and just does it. No one manages them. No KPIs. In general, we hope "formal work" doesn't take more than half of an employee's time. The other half is unallocated—they can do whatever they want.

We generally don't work overtime. First, research needs a relaxed environment; if you push too hard, you can't do research. Second, we're very focused, which means we do very few things.

CoT doesn't consume resources. For research, it doesn't burn GPUs—you only need a small number of cards. What you need is ideas. The barrier is low; anyone can try it. But who can actually get something out of it—I don't know if that's talent or what.

Open-source strategy

*"Even our strongest model will be open source, because I don't see what's good about closed source."*<br>Why do we insist on open source? Because the vision itself requires open source. Without that vision, you can't organize people.

Zhipu also open-sources, but their open source isn't the same as ours. Their open source has a "being chased" feeling—they don't see it as the point. For us, it is the point.

AI is big enough that in the end it may take up 10% of human society's GDP. One person can't monopolize it. You have to share it with others, or you won't survive.

I think we will open-source, and our strongest model will probably also be open-sourced, because I don't see what's good about closed source.

Even if you open-source the model and tell people everything, the barrier is still very high. It's still very hard for others to actually use it.

If we only make, say, a 6× profit, open source doesn't really hurt. But if you want a 100× profit, then open source does affect that.

We were open-source from the start. We won't treat you differently just because you're a competitor—that's part of open source. I'm not worried about others deploying our model to compete with us. I want them to be able to deploy it. I only worry they can't—some detail is wrong, results get worse, or costs get high.

Are the open-source models we provide the same as what we deploy ourselves? Yes, they're the same. We won't open-source a weaker model and then use a better one internally. Last year,...