[numair]

> The Information reported on Thursday, citing two people with knowledge of the situation.

I miss the old days of journalism, when they might feel inclined to let the reader know that their source for the indirect source is almost entirely funded by the fortune generated by a man who worked slavishly to become a close friend of the boss of one of DeepSeek’s main competitors (Meta).

Feel bad for anyone who gets their news from The Information and doesn’t have this key bit of context.

[gwern]

I don't think it's well known that TI has FB CoIs. I didn't know myself until fairly recently. You can talk to a lot of people about this sort of stuff without anyone pointing it out.

[numair]

Absolutely. I think the FB CoI within American venture capital, where they have fully infested the LP and GP ranks of most funds, is a much bigger and more important story. It really helped me understand that we need to work really hard to keep the rest of the world’s capital markets free and open — a major focus for me these days.

You never know which stories The Information won’t run, or which “negative” articles are actually deflections. Similarly, you never know which amazing startups remain shut out of funding, and a lot of entrepreneurs have no idea about the amount of back channel collusion goes on in creating the funding rounds and “overnight successes” they’re told to idolize.

A random dude on HN such as me shouldn’t be the source of this knowledge. Hope someone takes up the cause, but we live in a time of astounding cowardice.

[sailingparrot]

I missed the old days of HN commenters when they might feel inclined to let the reader know who they are talking about without having to solve a 6 steps enigma.