A leaked, four-hour investor call with DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng has been spreading like wildfire on the Chinese internet over the past few days – before links to it started disappearing – and Trivium's Bao Linghao joined the pod to give it a Friday-morning stress test.

His verdict: The transcript seems legit, and it tracks with everything else we know about how the lab operates.

Quick note: This is another one of our shorter, quick-turnaround episodes – where Andrew grabs an analyst for their unfiltered take on something breaking in the news, alongside our regular weekly deep dives.

On this episode, Andrew Polk sits down with Trivium Tech Analyst Bao Linghao (Shanghai) to unpack:

Why DeepSeek's "no KPIs, no organization" culture is likely genuine rather than an investor pitch, and how a market-based valuation helps retain talent
Whether DeepSeek's open-source commitment survives once – or if – it actually leads the frontier, given the pull to cash in once you get there
What Liang's "restraint" framing on pricing really means, and how DeepSeek's infrastructure edge lets it stay cheap without bleeding margin
Why Kimi K3's release upended assumptions about the US-China compute gap, and how "bench-maxxing" has muddied claims about how close Chinese models really are
Whether China's crowded field of base-model labs is finally headed for real consolidation

Give it a listen and let us know what you think.

Ep 75 - DeepSeek Founder Goes Off Script in Leaked Investor Call

The Trivium China Podcast

Ep 75 - DeepSeek Founder Goes Off Script in Leaked Investor Call