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

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch · Jul 20, 2026 · 1h 17m

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…