Wenfeng Liang

Wenfeng Liang is the founder of DeepSeek and founder of High-Flyer Quant, a Chinese quantitative investment firm he built into one of the "quant four kings" with a本土 (domestic) team rather than the typical US or European hedge fund pedigree . He studied artificial intelligence at Zhejiang University, where he became convinced that AI would transform the world — a conviction he held as early as 2008, when it was still considered an eccentric belief . After graduating, he avoided the typical path of joining a major tech company as a programmer, instead spending time in a cheap rental in Chengzhou experimenting across various industries before eventually切入 (cutting into) finance and establishing High-Flyer .

In a rare 2023 interview with 暗涌Waves, his first public one after more than a decade of entrepreneurship, Liang described High-Flyer's unconventional culture: no KPIs, no fixed tasks, and a preference for hiring inexperienced but capable candidates over seasoned veterans — a principle he applied to core technical roles filled largely by recent graduates or those with only a year or two of experience . This approach, he argued, was key to how High-Flyer became "the only large private fund that can operate primarily through direct sales" despite starting with salespeople who had no industry background . The same philosophy carried into DeepSeek, where he believed "innovation often generates itself, it's not deliberately arranged, and certainly not taught" .

Liang's name gained broader public attention after DeepSeek's breakout success, including his writing a preface for the Chinese edition of *The Man Who Solved the Market* about Jim Simons — a book many read precisely because of his involvement . He has been described as having an introverted personality similar to other young Hangzhou founders like Wang Xingxing of Unitree, and in early 2025 was spotted at a private dinner with fellow entrepreneurs including Feng Ji of Game Science and Han Bicheng of BrainCo, after which the group signed a shared blackboard now displayed in Rokid founder Misa Zhu's meeting room .