Kimi's Talent Strategy: Not Just About Money, But Also About Giving Researchers Both Fame and Fortune

According to Vision One AI monitoring, Chinese AI companies are fiercely competing for research talent, with well-funded tech giants poaching talent from startups. The Financial Times reported that the dark side of the moon has retained domestically strong and stable research teams.

Many founding members have known Yang Zhilin since their time at Tsinghua University or Carnegie Mellon University. Long-term collaboration and research have made the team more stable than a temporary recruited star-studded lineup.

After the release of DeepSeek R1, Yang Zhilin believed the company had entered commercialization too early, deciding to refocus resources on model training and open-source the flagship model. As a result, researchers can publish their achievements, receive personal credit, and gain industry recognition.

The dark side of the moon attracts talent with cutting-edge research and then immortalizes researchers' names through open-source. For researchers who value academic papers, technical impact, and personal reputation, this is more attractive than simply joining a tech giant for commercial projects.