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ManusAI Joins Meta

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Re: ManusAI Joins Meta

#151

Post by sixtyj »

dinniwang wrote: post #89
kylecazar wrote: post #11

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.

Manus and Kortix seem to be rare in the way how you interact with them. It looks like that every "chat" is running its own Linux box.

And instead of chat, you can define the results form - table, markdown text, pdf etc. I have tried it and Manus seems to deliver more organised results.

Should be the value of transaction so high? Idk.

But I remember WhatsApp situation… feels the same.

Re: ManusAI Joins Meta

#153

Post by jrflowers »

It is nice that most people have a good grasp of Latin vocabulary and immediately recognize the word for “hand” because otherwise you’d probably get questions like “is the name of your product being eighty percent ‘anus’ intentional?” and so on

Re: ManusAI Joins Meta

#154

Post by noobermin »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #147

Sometimes I feel people are just jealous. If Meta is so ready to throw money why don't these people just build something and sell it to them for billions in 6 months. Join the winning side instead of complaining.

So I have a position that I don't think you'll like. I feel like making money is a means to a better life. Generally, we as a society should seek value creation that actually improves society and increases our productivity. If all you want to do is basically trick rich people out of their money, I don't think that is the world I want to live in.

Yes this is an argument from morality fundamentally. I guess I want to live in a society that rewards being productive and making others better. Not essentially theft a step or two removed.

Re: ManusAI Joins Meta

#155

Post by beAbU »

sixtyj wrote: post #151
dinniwang wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Manus and Kortix seem to be rare in the way how you interact with them. It looks like that every "chat" is running its own Linux box. And instead of chat, you can define the results form - table, markdown text, pdf etc. I have tried it and Manus seems to deliver more organised results. Should be the value of transaction so high? Idk. But I remember WhatsApp situation… feels the same.

Whatsapp had almost 0.5b users at the time of acquisition, and it was (still is) wildly popular in emerging markets and europe.

Re: ManusAI Joins Meta

#156

Post by [deleted] »

ares623 wrote: post #128
dinniwang wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It really does seem like friends giving friends a piece of the pie before it all blows up.

[deleted]

Re: ManusAI Joins Meta

#157

Post by bko »

dinniwang wrote: post #89
kylecazar wrote: post #11

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.

Their wiki says they have ARR over 100m. Pretty impressive for a product that's 9 months old. 20x multiple is high sure, but hardly seems like friends giving friends money for ... reasons

Re: ManusAI Joins Meta

#158

Post by vintermann »

uberdru wrote: post #132
imwally wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never heard of manus so I clicked the About Us page. Wow, it is insufferable.

I had to look. This tickled the copywriter in me: "Mission: To extend human reach by giving everyone the code to leverage their life." so you can leverage your life? never thought of that.

I guess if you live a highly leveraged life, you have better chances of success, but if you die, five other people die too. Not sure it's a good idea.

Re: ManusAI Joins Meta

#159

Post by aylmao »

sixtyj wrote: post #151
dinniwang wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Manus and Kortix seem to be rare in the way how you interact with them. It looks like that every "chat" is running its own Linux box. And instead of chat, you can define the results form - table, markdown text, pdf etc. I have tried it and Manus seems to deliver more organised results. Should be the value of transaction so high? Idk. But I remember WhatsApp situation… feels the same.

I think both aquisitions have little to do with the product, and make a lot of sense when you look at the numbers and broader strategy.

WhatsApp had a very clear value at the time of aquisition. It had 450 million users, growth of over 1 million users a day, and was in direct competition with one of Facebook's main products (Messenger) [1].

They did pay $4 billion cash + $15 billion in shares, which is a lot, but overall a not too unreasonable $8 cash + $33 in shares per user to join forces with it's biggest messaging competitor. It not only covered a flank, but catapulted Facebook to own worldwide private messaging overnight.

Manus apparently has "millions of paying users" already [2]. although Manus hasn't been around very long, it's developed by a company that's been around since 2022 [3]. Millions of paying users sounds like a good way for Meta to set foot on the consumer AI product space, which it doesn't seem to be capturing too quickly [4]. It's also based in Singapore and has a lot of Chinese ties, so there might be some strategy there.

[1]: https://about.fb.com/news/2014/02/facebook-to-acquire-whatsa...

[2]: https://archive.is/ykBOm

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manus_(AI_agent)

[3]: https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/20/meta-ais-app-downloads-and...

Re: ManusAI Joins Meta

#160

Post by germinalphrase »

gubicle wrote: post #104
germinalphrase wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go on.

Consider the possibility that the people who make these decisions aren't actually all that smart and are easily manipulated by marketing and the sycophants/impostors they surround themselves with.

I understand what they are arguing, but they are just lobbing insinuations at the crowd. I (perhaps wrongly) assumed they had specific insight into the people and relationships inside the transaction that could be shared.
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