# 20VC: Are OpenAI and Anthropic Overvalued? The Open-Source AI Reality | How Token Costs Will Fall 10x And Usage Will Explode 100x | The Future Is Not One AGI; It's Millions of Specialised Models with Lin Qiao, Founder and CEO @ Fireworks

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/twenty-minute-vc/20vc-are-openai-and-anthropic-overvalued-the-open-source-ai-reality-how-token-costs-will-fall-10x-and-usage-will-explode-100x-the-future-is-not-one-agi-it-s-millions-of-specialised-models-with-lin-qiao-founder-and-ceo-fi
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/twenty-minute-vc/20vc-are-openai-and-anthropic-overvalued-the-open-source-ai-reality-how-token-costs-will-fall-10x-and-usage-will-explode-100x-the-future-is-not-one-agi-it-s-millions-of-specialised-models-with-lin-qiao-founder-and-ceo-fi.md
Podcast: [The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch](https://stenobird.com/podcast/twenty-minute-vc)
Published: 2026-07-20T07:07:00+00:00
Episode link: https://thetwentyminutevc.libsyn.com/20vc-are-openai-and-anthropic-overvalued-the-open-source-ai-reality-how-token-costs-will-fall-10x-and-usage-will-explode-100x-the-future-is-not-one-agi-its-millions-of-specialised-models-with-lin-qiao-founder-and-ceo-fireworks
Audio file: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thetwentyminutevc/Lin_Qiao__Fireworks_AI.mp3?dest-id=240976
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Duration seconds: 4627

## Resource

Lin Qiao is the Co-Founder and CEO of Fireworks AI, the leading specialized intelligence and AI inference platform that last week raised $1.5BN at a whopping $17BN valuation. With just 200 people, the company has hit $1BN in ARR and expects to hit $2BN before the end of the year. Prior to Fireworks, Lin spent several years at Meta including on the founding team of PyTorch. AGENDA: 00:07 — Why Did Fireworks Bet on Inference When Everyone Else Was Chasing Training? 00:13 — Can Open-Source Models Turn AI Infrastructure into a Commodity? 00:19 — Should Enterprises Trust Chinese Open Models With Their Most Sensitive Data? 00:25 — Will Model Progress Keep Moving This Fast—or Are We Nearing a Plateau? 00:28 — Will the Multi-Model World Create a $100BN Routing Layer? 00:37 — How Much Will AI Token Usage Explode Over the Next Two Years? 00:43 — Will Token Costs Fall 10x—and Unleash 100x More Demand? 00:49 — Does Fireworks Eventually Have to Build Its Own Data Centres? 01:02 — What Is the Real Bottleneck Holding Back the AI Economy?

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