Wah, DeepSeek’s CEO Just Validated My Entire Product Philosophy

Overnight, my entire network—from VC friends to fellow tech bros—all went totally siao sharing the notes from DeepSeek CEO Liang Wenfeng’s 4-hour investor meeting. Everyone was treating it like some kind of tech pilgrimage, forwarding it non-stop in WhatsApp and Telegram groups.

I took the time to read through the whole thing, and honestly? It’s damn solid. I’ve summarized the most quoted parts below, and let me tell you, his final point hit me right in the feels because it perfectly validates how I’ve always approached building products.

On AI Replacing Us and the Big Boys' Race

First off, Liang made a very practical point: AI isn’t going to just replace employees. Humans can learn continuously in the background, but for AI to do the same task, you have to feed it the entire context every single time. It’s almost impossible. For a normal person, what they really need isn’t just a computer; they need actual human labor.

He also talked about the LLM race. People saying Anthropic has overtaken OpenAI? He thinks it's just a temporary phase. Moving forward, OpenAI and Google will probably just take turns leapfrogging each other. As for the domestic scene in China, where so many companies are chionging to build the exact same foundation models, he believes the market will definitely consolidate over time. Just need a bit of patience to let the dust settle.

Work Culture and the Open-Source Endgame

This part I really respect. He mentioned they generally don’t do OT (overtime). Why? Because research requires a relaxed environment. They are hyper-focused. A lot of their products are actually imperfect, but they don’t just simply patch them up for the sake of it—it’s a culture of restraint.

And his view on open source is so big-picture. AI is huge; it might eventually take up 10% of human GDP. If you try to be kiasu and monopolize all the benefits for yourself, history will just abandon you. It’s an objective law. Plus, selling APIs isn't even that attractive to them. Just put a few guys to maintain it, don't even need customer service, and the users will naturally come.

The Ultimate Truth: Build For Yourself First

But the absolute kicker—the quote that made me want to stand up and clap—was his vision for their next-generation models.

He said he hopes their next model can directly help their own development. Simply put, the primary goal of their model isn't just "to make it easy for everyone else to use", but "to make it damn good for ourselves to use". He believes this is the fastest path to AGI.

Swee lah! This is exactly what I have been saying since day one! My core product philosophy has always been this: if you want to build a great product, you must be your own superuser first.

If you are building an app, a modular platform, or an AI feature, and you don’t even use it yourself daily, how can you expect the market to love it? Whenever I look at app architecture or product design, I always insist that it must solve my own pain points first. You have to eat your own dog food. When you build something that actually makes your own life or work 10x better—when the product is so good you genuinely rely on it—the commercialization, the retention metrics, and the users will naturally follow.

DeepSeek gets it. The real shortcut to building a world-class product isn't chasing what you think others want; it's building what you yourself desperately need.