Report: DeepSeek's first external funding round has a non-negotiable term that investors should not poach its staff or encourage them to start own companies (CNBC)

<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/18/no-poaching-our-people-chinas-deepseek-reportedly-tells-investors.html"><img align="RIGHT" border="0" hspace="4" src="http://www.techmeme.com/260618/i17.jpg" vspace="4" /></a> <p><a href="https://www.techmeme.com/260618/p17#a260618p17" title="Techmeme permalink"><img height="12" src="http://www.techmeme.com/img/pml.png" style="border: none; padding: 0; margin: 0;" width="11" /></a> <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/">CNBC</a>:<br /> <span style="font-size: 1.3em;"><b><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/18/no-poaching-our-people-chinas-deepseek-reportedly-tells-investors.html">Report: DeepSeek's first external funding round has a non-negotiable term that investors should not poach its staff or encourage them to start own companies</a></b></span>&nbsp; &mdash;&nbsp; China's DeepSeek has a precondition for its $7.4 billion maiden fundraise: no poaching the AI lab's talents.</p>