What has DeepSeek disrupted actually? No, It isn't about OpenAI
And it is definitely NOT about open source LLMs
One open source LLM from China and
Nvidia lost $600Bn in market cap (more than 2x as much as any US company has ever lost in a single day)
Microsoft dropped 2.1 per cent
Oracle is down 13.8%
Meta, Google - everybody is scrambling
As Marc Andressen puts it - this is the Sputnik moment for AI.
But what exactly has DeepSeek disrupted?
No, it isn't (just) the OpenAI business or Meta's holier-than-thou Llama open source (which is playing a catchup and isn’t still production ready for high value tasks).
The real disruption lies in the valuation game Silicon Valley has been playing.
Over the past year, Silicon Valley bros have been playing a very deep, frothy game. Tune into any podcast or YouTube interview from the last 12 months, and you’ll hear the same buzzwords:
- AI will,AI could,
AI should
AI would
Translation: Nothing now, but everything later. It’s a great story for stockholders (blue-sky visions and all), but it’s pure BS for everyone else..
DeepSeek has shattered the illusion that valuations can soar without delivering corresponding value—a playbook Silicon Valley (and nearly every tech ecosystem, including India) has relied on for the past 15 years.
A playbook Silicon Valley and pretty much every tech ecosystem (including India) has been relying on for the last 15 years - build narrative, throw in numbers, buy media space and keep raising at lofty valuations.
Conspiracy Theory: What’s the point, anyways?
Now, Silicon Valley has a conspiracy theory: they believe DeepSeek China is lying. They claim it’s impossible to build a reasoning model like DeepSeek with just $5 million.
Maybe they’re right. Maybe not.
But here’s the real question: why does it matter? What’s undeniable is that DeepSeek wasn’t built with $100 million—and that alone exposes the inflated valuations and grandiose claims of OpenAI and others.
What Silicon Valley is really hiding is its own guilt and insecurity. The gap between valuation and value has been laid bare by its so-called innovators.
The era of empty claims and narrative-building is over.
For years, Silicon Valley was in sales mode, peddling tools for the AI golden age.
But with DeepSeek, the time for talk is over.
The time to build starts NOW.