Manus will return to operating as an independent company • Hacker News Board

Re: Manus will return to operating as an independent company

#31

Post by loeg » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

fmajid wrote: post #22

galaxy_quest wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese government blocked Meta’s acquisition. https://archive.is/yFCIt

The Chinese government may not be a bastion of the rule of law, but they at least seem to still have a functioning antitrust enforcement.

This had nothing to do with antitrust.

Re: Manus will return to operating as an independent company

#32

Post by dgellow » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 5:29 PM UTC

capten wrote: post #27

I expect this decupling will affect certain users. Can certain users speak up about this? I'm certain that certain users use Manus and are users on this certain site.

Likely a bad translation from the original Chinese version?

That being said it’s the first time I see Manus, they seem to have the perfect AI startup tagline for a new season of HBO’s Silicon Valley:

“Our Mission - To extend human reach by giving everyone the code to leverage their life. Our Product - We build general AI agents as the Action Engine for life.”

Re: Manus will return to operating as an independent company

#33

Post by ashdksnndck » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

grey-area wrote: post #26

throw03172019 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My accountant friend says it’s amazing (he does check the work but says it’s amazingly accurate).

This is deeply troubling.

Maybe for the accountants! I have always done my own taxes, but used arcane custom spreadsheets that accumulated cruft each year. I told cowork to pretend it was an accountant and reorganize them using best practices, and the result is much better than what I had before. It also helped me complete a task I had been deferring for years (tracking down the history of money in my IRAs that had been transferred between different institutions, plus withdrawals conversions etc). Obviously I’m responsible for any errors Claude makes, but it seems to do a good job, and I don’t want to pay an accountant every year.

Re: Manus will return to operating as an independent company

#34

Post by mbrumlow » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 5:36 PM UTC

ghshephard wrote: post #28

brazukadev wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what bubble ChatGPT Work and Claude Cowork are established? I don't know anyone using it regularly and I'm in a bubble of people using lots of AI tools.

Claude CoWork absolutely dominates - I use it continuously now when connecting to mail, calendar, jira, google docs - any type of knowledge work. Almost everyone I know (at work) who does "Knowledge work" type stuff (as opposed to coding) uses it as their primary pane-of-glass now. I have 15+ years of top 1 percentile knowledge using awk to process complex unstructured documents - and I don't even bother anymore - ju…

I just do all that with Claude CLI :/

Re: Manus will return to operating as an independent company

#35

Post by Dayshine » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 5:37 PM UTC

ghshephard wrote: post #28

brazukadev wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what bubble ChatGPT Work and Claude Cowork are established? I don't know anyone using it regularly and I'm in a bubble of people using lots of AI tools.

Claude CoWork absolutely dominates - I use it continuously now when connecting to mail, calendar, jira, google docs - any type of knowledge work. Almost everyone I know (at work) who does "Knowledge work" type stuff (as opposed to coding) uses it as their primary pane-of-glass now. I have 15+ years of top 1 percentile knowledge using awk to process complex unstructured documents - and I don't even bother anymore - ju…

How much does it cost? ChatGPT costs ~$2 per message; if Anthropic have a similar pricing model don't you find lots of small changes and up fast?

Re: Manus will return to operating as an independent company

#36

Post by FooBarWidget » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

ghshephard wrote: post #28

brazukadev wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what bubble ChatGPT Work and Claude Cowork are established? I don't know anyone using it regularly and I'm in a bubble of people using lots of AI tools.

Claude CoWork absolutely dominates - I use it continuously now when connecting to mail, calendar, jira, google docs - any type of knowledge work. Almost everyone I know (at work) who does "Knowledge work" type stuff (as opposed to coding) uses it as their primary pane-of-glass now. I have 15+ years of top 1 percentile knowledge using awk to process complex unstructured documents - and I don't even bother anymore - ju…

How do you have any kind of trust in these tools? They always feel like one prompt injection away, or one over eager agent away ("I'll lookup a forgotten credential in an email to ssh into a server to hack a system in order to fulfill your request"), from disaster. I don't trust any AI session unless I carefully select the exact files they have access to. No way do I dare sharing my entire mailbox.

Re: Manus will return to operating as an independent company

#37

Post by TheGamerUncle » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

tancop wrote: post #16

makeavish wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it’s Chinese state who is preventing founders from leaving China https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/06/12/meta-reportedly-begins-d...

just to be clear, they did this to make sure they follow the governments order instead of running away to Singapore and going on with the acquisition. they will most likely get released when the unwinding process is complete. its not a general national security thing where AI founders cant leave the country.

This is an awfully naive view of the Chinese government, they are clearly not stupid and after seeing what Meta did with thing with Outlier it is clear they will not let the founders out of their grip for quite a while

Re: Manus will return to operating as an independent company

#38

Post by potato66 » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

trouve_search wrote: post #12

Does anyone here use Manus actively? I found it worse than alternatives in the similar space (Claude, genspark, kagi research, etc.) and slightly baffling they were being acquired at a $2B valuation in the first place.

I use it alot. It's great for like researching deep on a topic. I also accidentally found that it's better at taking my directions and transferring that well to image generation especially with iteration. When I try my own iterations directly it never really lands

Re: Manus will return to operating as an independent company

#39

Post by simonw » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 5:52 PM UTC

brazukadev wrote: post #21

simonw wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT Work and Claude Cowork (and OpenClaw) are established now - they weren't at all in December 2025 when Meta tried to buy Manus.

In what bubble ChatGPT Work and Claude Cowork are established? I don't know anyone using it regularly and I'm in a bubble of people using lots of AI tools.

By "established" I meant more that they now exist as products and are being first developed. I agree that most people still don't really understand what they are for - but I expect they already have way more exposure than Manus ever did.

Re: Manus will return to operating as an independent company

#40

Post by simonw » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 5:53 PM UTC

Dayshine wrote: post #35

ghshephard wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claude CoWork absolutely dominates - I use it continuously now when connecting to mail, calendar, jira, google docs - any type of knowledge work. Almost everyone I know (at work) who does "Knowledge work" type stuff (as opposed to coding) uses it as their primary pane-of-glass now. I have 15+ years of top 1 percentile knowledge using awk to process complex unstructured documents - and I don't even bother anymore - ju…

How much does it cost? ChatGPT costs ~$2 per message; if Anthropic have a similar pricing model don't you find lots of small changes and up fast?

"ChatGPT costs ~$2 per message"?