@AYi_AInotes: Why did Liang Wenfeng make DeepSeek happen? The answer is actually in a Weibo post he made in 2011. Liang Wenfeng's early Weibo posts being dug up has been trending both domestically and abroad recently, and the whole internet is playing with the 'Little Prince of Code' meme. After looking around, it feels like no one has explained the most critical layer: Why Liang Wenfeng? Why is DeepSeek in...

Why did Liang Wenfeng manage to build DeepSeek? The answer is actually right there in a Weibo post he published back in 2011.

Liang Wenfeng’s early Weibo posts being dug up has been a hot topic both on Chinese and international social media lately — everyone’s having fun with the “Little Prince of Code” meme. But looking around, nobody seems to have articulated the most critical layer: Why Liang Wenfeng? Why did DeepSeek manage to carve out a path to survival in the global AI race?

The answer is hidden in that 2011 Weibo post.

He drove a Fiat alone, deep into the uninhabited zone of Ali, Tibet — 400 kilometers in, and got stranded for a full week.

In the end, he walked out alive. The car stayed on the grassland forever.

After posting that, he never shared another self-driving travel update.

A lot of people treat it as a funny story — just some cringey youthful episode from a now-famous guy.

But look closely at the behavioral pattern:

He dared to enter the uninhabited zone alone. He dared to accept the risk of losing both the car and his life. He was trapped for a week and walked out alive. And then —

No bragging. No complaining. He just turned the page and never mentioned it again.

This wasn’t some ordinary young person’s road trip. This was a born risk-seeker, actively testing where his limits were.

Ten years later, he built DeepSeek — and the logic is identical.

Everyone thought large language models were a giants’ game, and that any startup entering the arena would just die.

He took the money he’d earned from High-Flyer Quant and plunged headfirst into this technological no-man’s-land. No fundraising. No picking sides. No playing by Silicon Valley’s playbook.

How much money was burned in the process, how many pitfalls were hit — the outside world barely heard a peep.

Then V3 and R1 dropped, and the whole world was stunned.

The young man who left his car on the grassland and walked out on his own — and the founder who crushed training costs and forced the world to reassess China’s large-model capabilities — they’re the same person.

His Weibo following list is also quite telling. It’s all quantitative trading, hedge funds, and Zhejiang University clubs.

In other words, while other young people were chasing celebrities and posting inspirational quotes, he was studying how to use math and probability to make money in the markets.

From starting a business with 80,000 RMB, to High-Flyer’s tens of billions in scale, to DeepSeek breaking into the global top tier — that thread has never been cut.

Some netizens joke, “Good thing he made it out, or the whole timeline would have changed” — it’s a joke, but it’s also true.

When it comes to building large models, the thing there’s no shortage of is smart people. The thing that’s truly scarce is —

Someone who dares to enter the uninhabited zone, dares to leave the car behind, and can still walk out on their own two feet.

Smart is a gift. Daring to charge forward is a choice. And being able to walk out alive — that’s the real skill, isn’t it?

AYi (@AYi_AInotes): After going through the Weibo posts Liang Wenfeng wrote at 26, I realized DeepSeek’s success has almost nothing to do with its technical approach.

When Liang Wenfeng was 26, he drove a Fiat alone into the uninhabited zone of Ali, Tibet.

400 kilometers in, stranded for a week, he walked out. The car stayed there forever.

12 years later, he built DeepSeek. If you’ve read this story, none of it is surprising.