DeepSeek Makes Investors Sign Clause Promising Not To Poach The Company They Are Funding

HANGZHOU—AI lab DeepSeek required its own investors to sign agreements barring them from hiring its employees, a precaution that assumes the people handing over the money are the primary threat, and is, on the available evidence, correct.

The anti-poaching clauses oblige backers to wire hundreds of millions of dollars and then formally promise not to walk out with the talent that the hundreds of millions of dollars are nominally for. Legal experts described the structure as a company protecting itself from its shareholders, who are protecting themselves from each other, in an industry where everyone is simultaneously funding, copying, suing, and recruiting everyone else.

"It's a sign of a healthy partnership," said one person familiar with the terms, of a partnership that opens with a signed pledge not to rob the partner. "We trust our investors completely, which is why we had them initial each page."

The arrangement reflects an AI funding market in which capital and talent have become indistinguishable from theft, and a check is now understood as a polite way of getting close enough to take something. Several investors reportedly signed enthusiastically, having already read the clause carefully for ideas.

DeepSeek said the agreements would protect its culture, its roadmap, and its people, in that order, from the people writing the checks that fund its culture, its roadmap, and its people.

"Everyone at the table wants the same thing," the person said. "That's the problem."