30 Questions You Should Ask About DeepSeek.

Let’s start with a question that might sting a little…When did we all become so bad at thinking and focus solely on being panicked?

AI industry in panic after China’s DeepSeek overtakes ChatGPT and Meta— The Independent

or

Chinese AI threat triggers $1 trillion market crash— The Telegraph

or

DeepSeek tech wipeout erases more than $1 trillion in market cap as AI panic grips Wall Street— Business Insider

Have you had enough of these?

People sell/act first, think later (or never).

Algorithms amplify fear, headlines scream about China’s AI leap, and everyone’s left scrambling to separate reality from runaway hype.

Here’s how one shockwave enhances the next:

1. Initial Shock: DeepSeek R1's launch on January 20 shocked the tech community with this bold and provoking comparison between R1 vs. OpenAI o1.

2. It started on Reddit, X ... on January 23. Then, news outlets quickly picked up the headlines on January 25, and every content creator spread fear and uncertainty.

3. Finally, when the market opens… traders and investors start selling off tech stocks. Nvidia sank 17% in one day on Monday, nearly 600B in market value.

4. High-frequency trading algorithms detect the sudden surge in sell orders and automatically initiate more sell orders, creating a cascading effect.

5. As stock prices plummet, more investors are compelled to sell to avoid further losses, creating a self-sustaining cycle of panic selling.

It is much easier to hit “sell” or repost how DeepSeek makes Sam Altman panic than to ask, Wait—what exactly are we panicked about?

This isn’t about dismissing concerns.

I simply refuse to drown in the noise.

As always, my article won’t spoon-feed you with my conclusion. Instead, I will walk you through my thought process while interrogating you with guided questions in clear categorization. You get to pick what is most critical to you.

Very simple, three parts:

1. We’ll start with everything you need to know about the epicenter (Who?).

2. The technology and cost (How and Why is DeepSeek R1 different from OpenAI o1?).

3. Map the shockwaves (With critical questions on each aspect).

Finally, a Survival Toolkit that sums up the red flags to spot via a mindmap template for you to download and expand your own thoughts at your own pace.

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Epicenter, High-Flyer Capital, DeepSeek, Liang Wenfeng.

It began in a Shanghai high-rise in 2021.

Liang Wenfeng, was a hedge fund manager who made a billion-dollar bet that would alter AI history.

As his team at High-Flyer Capital developed trading algorithms, Liang quietly ordered staff to acquire every available Nvidia A100 GPU in Asia. It is estimated he hoarded 10,000 chips through shell companies for faster stock predictions. At least, that was the plan in 2021.

Then, in 2022, the Biden administration restricted the export of advanced computing chips.

The Pivot

2023, Chinese regulators cracking down on quant funds. Liang stunned investors by redirecting 90% of their assets into an AI startup. Skeptics walked out; true believers stayed to build DeepSeek.

Trial by Fire

Rumor says… the early prototypes leaked in 2024 through a junior engineer's GitHub account. But of course, this stays as a rumor. What we do know, DeepSeek has polished open-source models that undercut rivals. Here’s their Github.

Breakthrough

The rise of DeepSeek has been nothing short of a disruptive underdog story. Think of it as “Temu of AI.”

In May 2024, DeepSeek shook up the industry by releasing DeepSeek V2 as an open-source model, sparking a full-scale price war… at least in China.

On December 26, 2024, they did it again. With DeepSeek V3, the prices are even lower, redefining industry expectations: $0.14 per million tokens.

Shock and Awe

On January 20, 2025, R1 was released. The news on everyone’s feed— R1 architecture delivers OpenAI o1 level reasoning at 1/10th the compute cost. By Monday, January 27, 2025, triggers a $1T tech stock selloff (17% drop in Nvidia + 5.6% sector-wide decline) as investors question Nvidia's AI infrastructure dominance.

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Technology

A basic understanding of why DeepSeek R1 is so special is the foundation for you and me to ask critical questions…