91–100 of 221 posts
This acquisition is a complete joke in China. From the very beginning, the company focused almost entirely on marketing. Then, after a few months, it fled China and relocated to Singapore. Now that it’s been acquired by Meta, you could say it has finally fulfilled its mission.
I’m wondering why these companies are so hyped and valued at these astronomical levels. Honestly, nothing really impresses me enough to think, “Wow, this company actually deserves that kind of valuation”. These valuations are to the point point that this looks too close to money laundering, just like buying art.
I hear you, and mostly share the point of view, but that’s what people were saying about the instagram valuation too.
From their Wikipedia, because I had no idea who they were: "Following Manus's launch in March 2025, Butterfly Effect raised $75 million in a funding round led by Benchmark at a valuation of approximately $500 million in April 2025." Half a billion a month after launch and acquisition before the end of the same year. Wild times.
There's a saying "follow the money". In this case you just need to follow the people involved in this company and the ones who negotiated this deal from Meta side and you will get the answer why it was acquired and why its valued so high. Financial engineering and social networking at its best.
This acquisition is a complete joke in China. From the very beginning, the company focused almost entirely on marketing. Then, after a few months, it fled China and relocated to Singapore. Now that it’s been acquired by Meta, you could say it has finally fulfilled its mission.
From their Wikipedia, because I had no idea who they were: "Following Manus's launch in March 2025, Butterfly Effect raised $75 million in a funding round led by Benchmark at a valuation of approximately $500 million in April 2025." Half a billion a month after launch and acquisition before the end of the same year. Wild times.
i just released the full AIE workshop covering Manus' product surface area if anyone is also out of the loop and wants to catch up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz0-brt56L8
(no vested interest am just friends w Ivan who works there. also as a singaporean i guess this is a small W for the Singapore AI scene)
This acquisition is a complete joke in China. From the very beginning, the company focused almost entirely on marketing. Then, after a few months, it fled China and relocated to Singapore. Now that it’s been acquired by Meta, you could say it has finally fulfilled its mission.
This statement is completely baseless
1. Manus was never targeting Chinese domestic market, for obvious reasons
2. Manus was founded by successful founder with exit, backed toptier investors in China, they always have great reputation in the AI industry
3. Prior to manus' launch, the team developed Monica, as they are the frontier AI chat bot aggregator
I really felt disgusted by stereotyping Chinese startup: they either baselessly downplay the innovation by the team, or they attribute their success to morally inferior conduct, which both are never really different than their western counterparts.
Please stop stereotyping Chinese startup
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s the difference between social media and books? Or is your point that all entertainment is harmful to individuals and society?
Taking your questions at face value, the difference is incentives and feedback loops. Books are static. They do not watch you, adapt to you in real time, or optimize themselves to keep you reading at any cost. Social media does. It measures behavior, runs constant experiments, and tunes feeds to maximize engagement, often by amplifying outrage, fear, or tribalism.
In books it’s exactly the same thing: do not believe for one second that the publishing industry does not watch engagement metrics (aka: sales) and does not adapt to the taste of the market. It’s also tuned to maximize outrage; see how popular unauthorized biographies of polarizing figures have become - who is next on Walter Isaacson list ? I am betting Trump must be somewhere there and it’s gonna be a banger.
This acquisition is a complete joke in China. From the very beginning, the company focused almost entirely on marketing. Then, after a few months, it fled China and relocated to Singapore. Now that it’s been acquired by Meta, you could say it has finally fulfilled its mission.
I am Chinese and AI founder since 2023 This statement is completely baseless 1. Manus was never targeting Chinese domestic market, for obvious reasons 2. Manus was founded by successful founder with exit, backed toptier investors in China, they always have great reputation in the AI industry 3. Prior to manus' launch, the team developed Monica, as they are the frontier AI chat bot aggregator I really felt disgusted b…
I’m wondering why these companies are so hyped and valued at these astronomical levels. Honestly, nothing really impresses me enough to think, “Wow, this company actually deserves that kind of valuation”. These valuations are to the point point that this looks too close to money laundering, just like buying art.
Yep. Concur with this conclusion. It is getting really ridiculous now. No way most of these companies are at the valuation they are in.
Or the investors are just plain stupid.
This acquisition is a complete joke in China. From the very beginning, the company focused almost entirely on marketing. Then, after a few months, it fled China and relocated to Singapore. Now that it’s been acquired by Meta, you could say it has finally fulfilled its mission.
I am Chinese and AI founder since 2023 This statement is completely baseless 1. Manus was never targeting Chinese domestic market, for obvious reasons 2. Manus was founded by successful founder with exit, backed toptier investors in China, they always have great reputation in the AI industry 3. Prior to manus' launch, the team developed Monica, as they are the frontier AI chat bot aggregator I really felt disgusted b…
> they always have great reputation in the AI industry
Highly doubt this.
> the team developed Monica, as they are the frontier AI chat bot aggregator
How is this remotely technically impressive? LLM chat apps have been commoditized for years already.
Even within the Chinese tech/AI community, Manus has often been frowned upon. People literally built OpenManus the next day after Manus' launch marketing went viral to demonstrate the point. Most of the positive coverage around Manus came from WeChat PR articles, which I'm sure you know how those Gongzhonghao work.
I agree that the West often stereotypes Chinese startups in unfair ways. But the Manus story is about as stereotypical as it gets.