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points by Art9681 4 days ago | 0 comments

DeepSeek hasn't proven anything except what they say. You're inherently trusting a company's statements over others. When an independent third party corroborates the numbers then we know for sure. Until then, every company is just selling a story for investors and users.

[–] killingtime74 4 days ago

DeepSeek has released their weights so multiple companies can tell you if they're profitable, whereas the ones with closed weights, you will never know, even if they go public, they dont have to publish the actual margin.

[–] epolanski 4 days ago

I'm not aware of Chinese law, but I suspect that lying to the public or investors carries risks.

[–] Gareth321 4 days ago

As a now former Chinese investor, the numbers reported in China are almost entirely fictional. They are whatever the local prefect or senior leaders wants them to be. Right now they seek to imply to the West that they are competitive, so the numbers reported reflect that. Almost no Chinese company permits independent audit of any of their finances.

It’s a rabbit hole but if you have some time it’s fascinating to look into the sentiment of investing in China vs the rest of the world. Because the numbers are so unreliable, investing is considered about the same as gambling in China. You’re more likely to lose a lot of money than win, and there is no way to accurately predict strong from weak companies based on their reported financials. Occasionally senior leaders will sentence the leader of very large failed company to death to attempt to maintain confidence, but it’s not working. This is one of the reasons for the housing bubble. There just aren’t stable investing opportunities in China.

[–] pixelstack 4 days ago

> As a now former Chinese investor, the numbers reported in China are almost entirely fictional.

where they not? Pick any corporate in the world and you will find bunch of made up numbers just to make stock value go up

[–] Gareth321 3 days ago

Most publicly listed companies in the West require independent audits. Those audits are published for everyone to read. The listed company and the auditors are all tightly regulated, and while fraud can happen, it's relatively rare.

I think you're making the mistake of thinking that because fraud occasionally happens in the West, it's on anywhere close to the same scale as China. If Chinese companies were capable of passing independent audits, they'd all be publishing independent audits. That would be a massive confidence booster in China and internationally, and stock prices would rise significantly. They don't, because they wouldn't pass.

[–] Danox 3 days ago

Fictional to who? After the Evergrande Group or Jack Ma I would imagine not to the Chinese government anymore outside China maybe a little.

[–] ares623 4 days ago

The people running AI companies are famous for being risk averse

[–] crossroadsguy 4 days ago

While I disagree with PC's insinuation, but in China there's just one thing that carries legal/fatal/etc risk for a large company and lying to public or investors isn't that.

[–] Danox 3 days ago

After China Evergrande Group misleading the Chinese government would be life altering.