Kevin Xu on Chinese open source: how China stumbled into open weights, from Linux floppies to DeepSeek
kevinsxu · x · 2026-09-30
On the Currency of Power podcast, Kevin Xu (founder of Interconnected Capital, ex-GitHub international strategy) unpacks why open-weight models are the most important trend in AI. Key threads: DeepSeek R1's MIT license, Qwen/Kimi/MiniMax open releases, and a messier history than "deliberate Beijing strategy" — Linux arriving via floppies in the mid-90s, Alibaba adopting open source to escape IBM/Oracle licence fees, and an uneasy state truce (GitHub was once blocked for a day). Also covered: why open weights aren't open source, who pays for the AI build-out, and how free Chinese models push competition to layers where China has an edge.
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