DeepSeek raises $7 billion at $50 billion valuation

My favorite liang wenfeng story is that when he was in college, a buddy offered him a cofounder position in his drone startup. He turned him down to focus on academics. The drone startup became DJI.

You would assume making such a decision would be the defining career moment of someone’s career. That they would regret it forever. But not this guy 😅

If Wenfeng continues to be completely obscure after this and having his net worth surge to like $30 B, I don't know anymore. Based but also please stop and give another interview

The academics he was focussed on waa applying AI to financial markets. In 2008.

Those efforts became High Flyer, which eventually gave birth to Deepseek (imho per $ invested, greatest AI lab on earth)

Campbell continues to LARP We do not have knowledge of High-Flyer's private fund performance

@cryptopunk7213 Liang Wenfeng:

owns 90% of a $50B AI company personally writing a $3B check into his own round built it inside a hedge fund

Sam Altman is out here doing press tours. Liang Wenfeng is writing nine figure checks into his own company. different energy entirely.

DeepSeek actual founder Liang Wenfeng owns 90% of startup and funding 43% of the round ($3B). His quant fund High-Flyer had big 2025 (+58%, AUM of $10B+). Wenfeng's hero is Jim Simons and he wrote foreword to China's bio of Simons.

My notes on bio here: https://www.readtrung.com/p/jim-simons-and-the-making-of-renaissance

@cryptopunk7213 90% ownership at $50B val and he's still the one writing the biggest check lmao. liang wenfeng is genuinely a different breed

@cryptopunk7213 Honestly, DeepSeek V4 Pro is fucking great. Also, the paper blew my mind so I made an interactive infographic:

https://www.jakecuth.com/work/deepseek-v4-lab/

@cryptopunk7213 Liang is underestimated in the west and shouldn't be.

@TrungTPhan So funny.

Your AI agents don't have enough to do, do they?

@abcampbell ok, maybe. So we have like 1.5-2B left to explain. Borrowing $2 B against your stake in a profitable fund is a trivial operation that doesn't require government conspiracy.

@cryptopunk7213 Real footage of interview with Liang Wenfeng.

When asked about why Deepseek keeps releasing their sh1t for free and ruin Sama and Amodei’s IPO plans.

He replied cooly, while polishing his enormous, solid brass balls: “Deepseek is free. Because I’m rich!” 💥🤯🤯🤯😆

@teortaxesTex last time we talked about this you blocked me for pointing out you agreed they borrowed money for GPUs

@cryptopunk7213 China has Deepseek, Kimi US has OpenAI, Anthropic What the rest of world has???

@kukreja_abhinav Liang Wenfeng is a senior to the founder of DJI.

OpenAI and Anthropic spent years teaching the market how to monetize AI.

DeepSeek watched from the sidelines, copied the playbook in 6 months, and skipped straight to scale.

the funniest part is people still think this race is about “innovation”

it’s becoming a capital war with chatbots attached to it.

@teortaxesTex i'm just doing math bro, you could try it

he's got max $1bn liquid from the fund, aka he must be borrowing against his illiquid GP stake, which is all I'm saying.

@beffjezos imagine if Dario could lever his shares to buy half the next round…

are there any examples in the west of this happening?

@abcampbell I agreed that this is plausible and I have no idea where he got the money, or how much. But you're a grifter with an agenda, who publishes insane AI copeslop about Chyna collapse, so obviously you have no credibility, nor knowledge of Liang's private fund's performance.