# Open source persists because studios need model control

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/open-source-persists-because-studios-need-model-control/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Gorkem Yurtseven](https://realalpha.app/builders/gorkem-yurtseven/) · Co-Founder & CTO, fal · Co-founded fal and spent years optimizing its inference engine for generative media models.
- Host: [Molly O'Shea](https://realalpha.app/people/molly-oshea/) · Founder, Sourcery · Ex-Upfront Ventures investor; has interviewed Alex Karp and Palmer Luckey.
- Show: Sourcery
- Episode: [Inside fal’s $1.65B Series E & F Led by Sequoia & Bessemer](https://realalpha.app/v/pPzJ1wE8Lnw/), Nov 3, 2026
- Moment: 45:06 to 48:07 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/open-source-persists-because-studios-need-model-control/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/pPzJ1wE8Lnw/?t=2706

## Quote

> “they want to be able to **fine-tune the model** they want to be able to apply different lauras filters to change the lighting”
> — [Gorkem Yurtseven](https://realalpha.app/builders/gorkem-yurtseven/) at [45:32](https://realalpha.app/v/pPzJ1wE8Lnw/?t=2732) · Sourcery

## Takeaways

1. Open models let studios customize styles and use unreleased characters.
2. Releasing an open model can also be a marketing tactic.
3. Customers care about keeping unreleased content private.

## About this segment

Studios want to fine-tune models and apply their own styles and characters, while open releases also draw attention. fal says customer trust and protecting unreleased work matter either way.

From “Inside fal’s $1.65B Series E & F Led by Sequoia & Bessemer”, Nov 3, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/pPzJ1wE8Lnw/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[45:18](https://realalpha.app/v/pPzJ1wE8Lnw/?t=2718) closed source debate is still going to be going on in two to four months six months how long do you think that's going to keep on going i think so because like anyone who's falling behind a little bit open sourcing their model is an incredible marketing tactic and the whole world starts talking about you if you open source your model and there are real advantages like if you talk to anyone any of these studios in hollywood they they want to be able to fine-tune the model they want to be able to apply different lauras filters to change the lighting to be able to use their unreleased characters, their unreleased styles on the models.

[46:01](https://realalpha.app/v/pPzJ1wE8Lnw/?t=2761) And the only way to do that is open source. So there are real technical advantages to it. Also, it's an incredible marketing tactic. So people are just going to keep doing it. Someone's going to create a frontier model. People who are falling behind is going to open source it. And the pendulum is going to keep swinging. We thought this was a bigger threat to our business in the beginning because we were running mostly open source.

[46:27](https://realalpha.app/v/pPzJ1wE8Lnw/?t=2787) And then we started partnering up with closed source models and running inference for them as well. So it's a win-win situation for us. But open source makes it a more interesting ecosystem. And I think it's good for the industry in general. So we always welcome more open source models and we support as much as we can the community. I think the fact that people want to protect their IP, that's going to continue, right?

[46:54](https://realalpha.app/v/pPzJ1wE8Lnw/?t=2814) Not just for media, but also you want to protect your source code, you want to protect your customer list, whatever, right? All of that, that's always going to be a thing. So I think, yeah, if you have something local, you don't have to worry about it. So I think it's always going to be there, this debate. Like when we talk to our customers, if they know the model is run on our GPUs, they trust the whole process so much more.

[47:21](https://realalpha.app/v/pPzJ1wE8Lnw/?t=2841) Open or close, this works the same. But that has been a big differentiation for our business. And obviously when it's open, like they know for sure that they can even self-host, but they trust us because we can do it better than them. but trust is really important with video models especially because people don't want their unreleased content to leak and it's usually an input to the video model when these creatives work with it.

[47:51](https://realalpha.app/v/pPzJ1wE8Lnw/?t=2871) So we've been really pushing on that with the enterprise customers and it resonates.