DeepSeek-R1 shook the AI world in early 2025: a top-tier model released under a permissive MIT license, delivering state-of-the-art performance with unprecedented accessibility. Its Mixture-of-Experts architecture made massive efficiency gains possible, while the open-weight approach sparked a frenzy of downloads, forks, and experimentation. The result? Big Tech raced to catch up, and investors saw a clear signal: AI is rapidly commoditizing at the model level, shifting value to proprietary applications, unique data, and distribution. Openness fuels growth, and those who actively shape and contribute to the ecosystem are positioning themselves to capture the potential upside.