AI’s Nuclear Event

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Happy Tuesday, TFP. How many of you are suffering from FOBO? That’s the “Fear of Being Obsolete.” According to Insider, that was the hot buzzword at The World Economic Forum in Davos this year, thanks to the rapid rise of AI and all the job displacement that comes with it. And, now, with China’s DeepSeek upending the industry even more, things may only accelerate. You can read more about that below… at your own peril.

A Chinese AI company called DeepSeek has reached the capabilities of OpenAI, Meta, Google, and Anthropic for a fraction of the cost and computing power — putting those other companies’ call for nearly unlimited funding and resources to compete with China into question.

Why It Hurts: The success of DeepSeek’s models is sending shockwaves across the AI industry and greater financial markets, including a trillion-dollar stock route among top AI companies, a 17% drop in Nvidia’s stock ($589 billion in lost value, the most ever for a company), and a 3.2% drop in the Nasdaq.

Behind the Code: DeepSeek, created by the Liang Wenfeng-led hedge fund High-Flyer Capital Management to optimize its trading, has stunned industry analysts and investors this past week.

The Future: a16z’s Marc Andreessen called DeepSeek’s models “one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs I’ve ever seen,” while Foundry CEO Jared Quincy Davis likened it to “as if someone released a $20 iPhone.” Companies are already announcing that they’ve switched over to DeepSeek to cut down on costs. The adoption is happening despite DeepSeek’s outputs adhering to Beijing’s censorship rules — a lot to unpack there.

All of this is very bad news for Meta. Mark Zuckerberg has positioned Llama to be the world’s most dominant open-source model and is spending boocoo bucks to make that dream a reality. DeepSeek threatens to render that ambition to the same fate as Meta’s metaverse hopes (RIP). Unsurprisingly, The Information reports that Meta has already set up at least four “war rooms” to break down DeepSeek’s models and recreate Llama in its image — a copy of a copy.

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As the dust settles on the fires that ravaged Los Angeles earlier this month, hundreds of architects, designers, and contractors are organizing on Slack to band together on the upcoming rebuilding efforts.

The Grand Design: The total cost of the damage incurred by the fires is estimated to be around $250 billion, with about $30 billion of that insurable. The extent of that damage across the Pacific Palisades and Altadena means that the city’s builders and designers will need to collectively marshal resources to meet the demand.

Between the Messages: A workspace titled “Rebuild LA Architecture” may be the most viral thing happening on Slack.

Final Order: Leshtz told Fast Company that his own firm has already received over 20 inquiries for rebuilding projects, so “there’s going to be more work than anybody can handle.” In a silver lining, the amount of work and the help of knowledgeable sources via “Rebuild LA Architecture” could give some smaller upstart firms the foundation to make a name for themselves… and add even more creativity to the creative capital of the world.

91.4% of you voted Yes in yesterday’s poll: Have you noticed more store closures in recent years?

“I live in Chicago. High crime and rising taxes = store closures. There are more vacant storefronts now than during Covid…”

“Macy’s right down the block from me in DTLA. Makes it seem the economy will never fully recover from the pandemic.”

“Prime locations don’t go vacant for too long, but I’ve noticed elevated turnover. Outside of that, the vacancies are very noticeable.”

“No, we have a lot of stores opening in our area.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join our Poll Of The Day newsletter, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

📺 The Australian kids show Bluey dominated the streaming charts in 2024, with 55.6 billion minutes viewed.

🎙️ The Joe Rogan Experience and Audiochuck’s Crime Junkie are the first podcasts to cross 500 million streams on Spotify.

🎤 Another Spotify record: Bruno Mars becomes the first artist to cross 150 million monthly listeners.

📱 The White House is reportedly brokering a deal to allow Oracle take over TikTok’s US operations, while ByteDance would retain a minority ownership stake.

🩺 LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman is teaming up with Columbia professor Siddhartha Mukherjee to launch AI cancer-research firm Manas AI.

🤖 OpenAI-backed 1X Technologies acquired Norwegian competitor Kind Humanoid.

🛒 Creator commerce startup ShopMy raised a $77.5 million Series B funding round to fuel its growth.

💄 Creator consolidation: Beauty and lifestyle creator management firm Shine Talent Group acquired Spark Talent Group.

📹 Bluesky is getting a dedicated video tab.