hey I'm Geor jaosa with the tech check take and this is our latest long form interview with perplexity CEO Arvin SAS he's been one of the earliest and the quickest adopters of deep seek integrating the open source model while ensuring American data remain secure and stripping away the censorship baked into the original model that led President Trump's aiar David saaks to promote deep seek on X now as perplexity makes a bid for Tik Tok serenas says he can do the same hosts a social media app in America Make It Uncensored and secure in our discussion
he argues that perplexity is uniquely positioned to recreate the algorithm by leaning on its Core Business of AI search feels like there's a misunderstanding because you know the whole deep seek breakthrough Saga whatever you want to call it has been sort of there's the Chinese side of it right and then there's the actual like Innovation which you've talked a lot about um explain for those that like may not understand how when you implemented into perplexity you're separating it from China yeah so first of all uh yeah Bill Amman also didn't quite get it and had
to like explain this so deep seek is is is a name that's used for multiple things so it's the app the model the model is called Deep seek R1 uh the app is called Deep seek and the R1 is a model that's like like you interact with on the Deep seek app except when you use that model on that app you you you get sensored outputs um and also uh that model is hosted in China so anytime you use the Deep seek app your input or your your user request on your chat goes to China
um and you cannot control that on the other hand uh you another company can download the Deep seek R1 weights uh from the internet because it's open source so you can download those weights and you can host it as and you can bring it up on a server rack hosted in the US or Europe and um when you use the other app like like say perplexity and interact with the deeps model on that app none of your data goes to China so hopefully you feel good about it and number two uh we we we removed
the censorship in that model so you can go and talk to this model about uh Taiwan you can ask who owns Taiwan like or like what are the debates about its origins of ownership or like give me 10 points that both praise and criticize the Chinese Communist party or tinan Square like can ask all these incidents and it's just going to like um give you like pretty un uncensored answers which the Deep seek app will not because that is an app that is run by a Chinese company and they have to comply to the rules
set by the Chinese Communist party uh we can uh give you access to these models and the experience that uh is in line with the American ideals of free speech and Liberty it's such a key Point yet deep seek has been number one on the app store for over a week right and I mean yes it's driven it's driven by like the daily downloads obviously and look it it's definitely going to keep being number one for a while okay so that's not going to change immediately but then once people understand that like the model is
a propaganda machine yeah for the Communist Party they're going to like move on to other apps that do the same thing much better right and we we hope and you've implemented it so you hope per plexity I mean we both the current and former Administration has spent so much time talking about Tik Tok right I made the argument that an AI app deep seek is so much more dangerous to be sending information back to China than a social media app and yet you don't hear what you're saying which is such an important point I mean
why aren't we getting of this why isn't the administration saying stop downloading deep SE access it through a third party where it's not going to be censored where we're not sending your data back to China I hope they do I mean um the aisr David tax like he did uh repost my tweet about it and saying like this is a good way to use deep seek for an American product and yeah I mean I hope I hope like that you know the the administration wakes up to it and like informs users that like like hey
like um look this is a great model and we really cage competition but don't go you know use it on this app it's it's it's it's not it's not good for you like your your you know you don't want China to know so much about you um so that's that's one thing and the second thing I would say is Tik Tok kind of helped deep seek a lot in ways that you you don't we don't realize and that's also why it's important that an American company runs Tik Tok um a lot of deep seeks growth
came through t talk like people creating these videos about deep seek um and like like and then obviously it has insane distribution so people go to the App Store and install the app so um it's essential that if we had Tik Tok running through an American company we could at least inform the users through Tik Tok that hey like look make sure to like use an app that's hosted in America not in China so um I think the same thing we we did with deep seek we want to do it with Tik Tok and that's
actually why we submitted a bit to uh merge with Tik Tok us and run it on American data centers with with an algorithm that's more true to the American ideals of Liberty and Free Speech one of the issues though with the idea of having American company or individuals on Tik Tok is that China doesn't want to let it go doesn't want the algorithm especially to come over here yeah we're going to rebuild the algorithm so AI companies can do that uh tradition like like a bunch of private Equity firms accumulating Capital to uh buy the
Tik Tok asset cannot build the algorithm right uh they have to license it and when they rebuild it it's still going to have it's still going to have the biases that the original algorithm had so um an AI company can do it faster I'm not saying it's an easy task but um it's better understood and so um there are only few AI companies that can do that and like like and and and number of non-big tech or like not allied with big Tech AI companies that can do that is actually just one which is us
why has it been so hard for meta they've been trying to recreate the algorithm through reals and I I would say they've created it like you think they've recreated it I think I think I think real is a good product like I mean I don't like using it as a see uh but but you prefer Tik Tok and I think many people do sure so look I I'm not saying I I don't think met has um there there are some things on Tik Tok that are just so much better uh that I as a user
think Instagram has not caught up with which is um a lot of people do local searches on Tik Tok like if you want to know what's going on in a restaurant right now or like if you want to go to a hike at like 8:00 a.m. somewhere uh on Tik Tok you can actually see other people posting uh videos about the exact hike they're doing at that point right there which you cannot get anywhere else it's very well integrated with Google Maps um it gives you all the information reviews um when you're going and visiting
a new city like travel planning becomes a lot easier with like reals that are posted by people on Tik Tok search on Tik Tok is a lot better than on Instagram so end to endend it's a better app than Instagram and going back to your point perplexity you believe is the only non-mac cap AI company that can recreate the app the algorithm that's right I mean what gives you that comp again just to be very clear not saying nobody else can recreate the algorithm but we're not we are the only company that's not allied with
big Tech or non big Tech or non Mega cap to use Andre and hor with little Tech mhm uh that can uh still have the talent to do this and um also a lot of people think like the search app and Tik Tok have no connection to each other uh but there is a lot of the next generation is just searching on the Tik Tok search bar so um I think like like a lot of propaganda and misinformation exists on Tik Tok so uh something like an AI power Community notes uh that can just ANW
answer people's questions or a pen like additional information in an automatic way is necessary and so we want to like also surface Tik Tok content live content into perplexity result and enrich the results so there will be a tighter integration between the two apps but they can continue to simultaneously exist bootstrapping off each other's distribution complexity and Tik Tok correct and and so we can also prevent future incidents where like uh an app like deep SE goes viral through Tik Tok and everyone's data is going to China if an American company ran it but that
means interfering with the output from users right saying hold on don't how do you get not interfering but adding a community note hey look you know go ahead and install the app if you want to but beware your data is going to China and be aware this is a model that's censored do you need AI researchers to create the algorithm because you guys don't actually build the models right you're kind of agnostic you bring everything together is that enough to be able to recreate the AL yeah definitely I mean the the algorithms are more based
on uh traditional recommendation systems rather than uh generative outputs also we can still build generative models like it's not that we cannot we we don't we choose not to do that because it's not the best us of our Capital but we have post-rain models ourselves and like we for example We Made It Uncensored we know how we we train a lot of other models in the product that suggest questions and like we have a feed and we're trying to get it personalized to the user so I think like there's a lot of things that we
can do uh using our expertise to like rebuild the Tik Tok right and it's interesting you think search is really key to that which makes the experience better 100% why do you think a little tech company should be running Tik Tok versus a Microsoft or a big Tech first of all like um I think the whole point is like you you cannot make big Tech even more powerful than it is uh and I think pretty much every average American understands it today uh that like for example in the case of Google they own YouTube already
right and giving them the only viable alternative to videos is is not necessarily a good thing and same with Microsoft like uh the only thing that let Google even compete with Microsoft on consumer was the fact that Microsoft never had a videos platform right so you don't want to give them that like I I think it's good for more competition uh that just drives more creativity in people and um I also think like it's a new app it's a new generation app you don't want like the old business people to run it how do you
fund such a deal I don't think financing will be a concern if like the parties interested in transacting want to do it is that because the government would own if essentially no the government's not going to pay for the financing uh what we proposed is that in case the merger happens and in case the join company um in the event of an IPO which we should absolutely do um then uh the proceeds from the IPO um whatever percentage that President Trump wants can go to the the government and he's recently announced the United States Sovereign
will fund so we can give it to that so I I think that would be a great way to like um you know make our government richer because a great app like Tik Tok is being run in the American soil with American algorithms and data centers such a change though I mean do you think that users are comfortable with the US government to getting all of that data do you think that that's a development well the government is not going to to get the data okay I I think that's why like it's very essential to
understand like um there are sovereign weal funds in other countries um for example examp Le the Middle East has a sovereign fund Japan Korea and these are all like LPS limited partners in many of American Venture Capital firms and those firms invest in many of these companies like like you know for example Andre and harit is an investor um in many companies and a lot of the seoa a lot of their Capital comes from Sovereign funds yeah so this is already a thing and so um it's completely fine for a sovereign fund to make a
direct investment in a company um it's just like matter of like where the money goes through and uh owning equity in in a valuable asset uh doesn't mean that you get the data so I I think that's very important yeah for making that distinction so if a merger were to happen would it be an IPO right away is that what you're saying not right away obviously we need to figure out ways to like rebuild the algorithm and like integrate the two products more tightly um and like monetize the business even better um and and and
so on so we got to do a lot of work but then once it's done like it's going to take 2 3 years or maybe more maybe I'm underestimating it right but definitely the intention is to IPO and make sure the public can own an equity in the joint entity and it's not just going to be the public I'm just saying that as president Trump wanted the government to also benefit from it for for pushing for this thing to happen right like he could have just had the ban run through but fig trying to make
a solution um take place here so I think like we just proposed a novel solution where like um the B down shareholders can still like own majority of the equity they have as long as the voting control goes to the American entity and then the government also benefits from the merger have you laid out this argument the strategy to anyone in the Trump Administration uh so we've been talking like you know I've definitely had conversations but um not directly with the president what about your shareholders perplexity um how do you convince them that this isn't
sort of a distraction when you're building something already that is you know growing quickly new in a really competitive space well I think everybody understands that like um the ultimate game is distribution right uh content is King but distribution is kind of like the ultimate thing um and and um you perplexity competing with Google uh just accelerates 5 to 10 years with the owner with the asset called Tik Tok you just have like I think one and three Americans are using Tik Tok at this point almost on a daily basis so your investors would be
in favor of this I'm sure I think so yeah well it's very exciting um what about the Chinese that feels like sort of a big hurdle have have you talked to them do you what makes confident yeah that they would be willing to this I guess with the algorithm that's what you're yeah that's the thing right like look I I believe the algorithm is more valuable than the company itself um my understanding is that people are throwing random numbers like Kevin oer is throwing some random numbers but um I think like just even without the
algorithm just the users and the app like it's pretty valuable it's at least uh you know 50 billion or whatever more than that um because it's it's such such a daily used app and those are rare um but with the algorithm it's going to cross hundreds of billions um and and so uh it's important that like the acquiring entity has some AI expertise to go build the algorithm what do you call the new company I I think the intention is that these are two separate entities for black City and Tik Tok us and there's a
parent entity that owns both of that got it and that's the the parent entity is the one that will IPO and then and uh that's the entity that will give some of the proceeds to the US Sovereign well fund got it
