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What DeepSeek Means For The Future Of AI | Tech Veterans Weigh In
11 segments available
Two words have caught the Internet by storm. DeepSeek. The Chinese reasoning model r1 is rivaling others at the frontier with an open-source MIT license, methods that some claim may be 45x more efficient, an alleged $5.6m cost, the release of reasoning traces, a follow-on image model, and the fact that all of this was released by a hedge fund China. Many are already referring to this as a Sputnik moment. If that’s true, how should we – whether founder, researcher, policy maker – not just react, but act? Joining us to tease out the signal from the noise are a16z General Partner Martin Casado and a16z board partner, Steven Sinofsky. Both Martin and Steven have been on the frontlines of prior computing cycles, from the switching wars to the fiber buildout, and have witnessed the trajectories of companies like Cisco to AOL to ATT – even Worldcom. So what really drove this DeepSeek frenzy and more importantly what should we take away? Today, we answer that question through the lens of Internet history. Timecodes: 00:00 - DeepSeek's release 04:06 - Teasing signal from noise 09:19 - OS license and reasoning traces 11:22 - Monetizing layers of the stack 18:42 - What’s different this time around? 22:09 - Scaling up vs scaling out 29:24 - Changing benchmarks 31:48 - Building defensibility 35:27 - AI’s Sputnik moment? 41:17 - Impact on frontier companies 43:00 - Participating in the next wave Resources: DeepSeek Has Been Inevitable and Here's Why (History Tells Us): https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/228-deepseek-has-been-inevitable Why DeepSeek Is a Gift to the American People: https://www.thefp.com/p/why-deepseek-is-a-gift-to-the-american Follow Martin on X: https://x.com/martin_casado Follow Steven on X: https://x.com/stevesi Stay Updated: Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/ Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.
Segments Timeline
DeepSeek's release
"the lesson is not Sputnik the lesson is the internet this is another step to basically AGI in your pocket there are always pockets of people innovating worldom and AT&T did not predict the internet wa..."
Teasing signal from noise
"maybe I'll give you the lens of you know Chinese people are smart so so there's one lens is the lens that I hold which is China has great researchers deep seek has actually released a number of soda m..."
OS license and reasoning traces
"significant about it that are worth talking about for example the license is very significant the fact that they decided to release the reasoning steps is very sign significant and so maybe it's worth..."
Monetizing layers of the stack
"either be like to Peg yourself at oh it should just be open but without really defining it which I think is important in this case and I think because of where they came from and that they don't have ..."
What’s different this time around?
"you said something really interesting which is this I'm did which is this has to pan out like the internet and you guys have used examples of different companies the waves the mobile wave Cloud era al..."
Scaling up vs scaling out
"much cash on their balance sheet they've been waiting for a moment to invest in the Next Generation which also contributes to their their willingness to scale up as much as they did so let's talk abou..."
Changing benchmarks
"this progresses to date I feel like the bench marks have always been like which model has the most parameters how's it doing on this coding test that isn't representative necessarily like what device ..."
Building defensibility
"noticed working with these companies where um these these models are actually pretty Magic by themselves right like like if you have a big model and you just expose it people use them right which is v..."
AI’s Sputnik moment?
"Sputnik moment and that can be viewed in the lens of like geopolitics us China but also if you think about Sputnik that wouldn't have been a moment if Kennedy didn't do his moon landing speech if we d..."
Impact on frontier companies
"a crisis moment for open AI or anthropic I think like apps are hard to build I think that like right now the apps they put out are very complex they actually know their users they have very spefic spe..."
Participating in the next wave
"growing world do you have any thoughts just real quick on the fact that this came from like an algorithmic hedge fund like a Quant is that any different to your expectation or does that actually signa..."