Y Combinator’s Garry Tan wants U.S. open-weight AI labs to ‘distill’ frontier models, too

Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator, argues that U.S. open-weight AI labs should adopt distillation techniques used by frontier model makers to create more diverse, publicly accessible models. He believes allowing such practices would prevent a single proprietary company from dominating AI, and he rejects calls for regulators to restrict distillation. Tan stresses that open-weight labs should operate freely, without government overreach, to balance innovation and public access.