Manus Bio
Manus
Manus is the AI agent product released in March 2025 by Butterfly Effect (蝴蝶效应), the company founded by serial entrepreneur Xiao Hong (肖弘) — not a biotech, despite the name. It went viral in China overnight and drew overseas attention too, with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey calling it "Excellent!" and The Economist dedicating a piece to it . The product grew out of Xiao Hong's earlier tool ventures — a China-version Benchling, then ChatGPT-for-Google, then the browser extension Monica.im, a round that brought in Sequoia, Tencent and Wang Huiwen — before the team pivoted from an unreleased browser project to launching Manus . Its backer story is notable: ZhenFund partner Liu Yuan invested in Xiao Hong five consecutive times across these pivots, making him the earliest investor . Discussion in the corpus frames Manus less as a technical breakthrough than as a product milestone for AI agents — its approach described as "Less Structure, More Intelligence," with the product itself sparking debate over whether it was substance or scarcity marketing .
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Coverage
A Small Bit of Experience from the Manus Team on Evaluating Models
Feeling studious today.
Malvin's Greatest Hits
The Bible has arrived.
The 500th Day of the Agent Era: What's Disappearing, What's Being Born, and Why We Should Stop Investing in GUI-Thinking Software
On January 1, 2025, we released a kickoff podcast episode. ZhenFund managing partner Yusen Dai and Koji proposed in their conversation: 2025
The 500 Days of the Agent Era: What's Disappearing, What's Being Born, and Why We Should Stop Investing in GUI-Thinking Software
6 Keywords to Debrief the Agent Moment
The Best Way for Humans and AI Agents to Work Together Hasn't Been Invented Yet | A Conversation with Paperboy
One look, and the Agent gets it.
Most guys have worse chat game than EVE.
AI Turned the Tables and Got Me to Spend
Xiaosu Technology's William Du: Search Is 10× Cheaper Than Reasoning, but 90% Don't Know It | Yunqi Capital
How to Spend Your Tokens Without Regret
Bridge Speaks for the First Time: AI Is Killing Software, and We Want to Be the Gateway to the Agent Era
We want to make software that eliminates software.
You Won't Dare Claim You Understand AI Until You've Read the Doubao Money-Making Playbook
In the Age of AI, Jocks Rule
The First-Order Problem for Agents: Proactivity and the Economics of Context
Human attention has never been more scarce.
"AGI Is Here? I Used It for a Week and My Scalp Went Numb" | A Conversation with Haoran Zhang: Co-founder of Moxt
Moxt = More Context
OpenClaw, you have a new order!
Your first Agent, on us.
"AGI Is Here? I Used It for a Week and My Scalp Went Numb" | A Conversation with Haoran Zhang: Cofounder of Moxt
Have We Still Underestimated the True Ceiling of AI Coding? | A Conversation with Xie Jibao: Technical Lead at QoderWork
One-click install, ready to use out of the box, secure and reliable work companion
I discovered a new business loop in OpenClaw.
The real winners are the ones who can keep "breathing."
After Closing a Sequoia Angel Round, the Browser Isn't the Best Container for the AI Era | A Conversation with Tan Shaoqing of FloatBoat
Another one, out to dethrone Microsoft.
First Hands-On With Floatboat: The One-Person Company Workflow May Be About to Change
All for One, One for All — the flow of information.
20 Questions to Understand OpenClaw: The Viral Mechanics, What Fundamentally Changed, and Startup Opportunities
Bubble or Starting Point?
In-home lobster installation, waiting in line for lobster installation — that's way too janky. He built a desktop lobster that installs in 60 seconds | A conversation with Song Jian, founder of DeskClaw
The Shrimp Myth Lives On
Deep Dive into OpenClaw's Source Code: Extreme Context, Local-First, and Intelligent Value-Add | AI Practitioners
At the heart of OpenClaw is extreme context. It's more of an AI control plane — its greatest strength isn't intelligence, but engineering innovation.
OpenClaw is worse than a dog
Openclaw goes Android, Manus goes Apple
OpenClaw Deep Dive: Why It Suddenly Blew Up, and What It Means for Us
Tools go out of style; understanding the essence of tools doesn't.
Vibe Coding, Act Two: The Big Four, and Those Who Want to Win | A Conversation with Guangxiang Zhu, Baidu Miaoda Product GM
He built a wheel — and ran it over the 20-year-old version of himself.
2026 Silicon Valley Reading List: 56 Books Recommended by 18 Silicon Valley Founders
Bill Gates recommended 26 books, Elon Musk recommended 23.
What Future Does He See That We Don't? | A Conversation with 18-Year-Old Tu Jinhao: Former DeepSeek Intern, Alibaba Math Competition AI Track Champion
The 18-Year-Old Boy Who Lives in AI
Tu Jinhao: Starting from 2026
On the Future of Agents, Memory, and Human-Computer Interaction
How MIT Engineers Built the Tool That 80% of YC Founders Use
Even if the market is tiny, as long as you're No. 1, you can establish mindshare and set the standard.
Clawdbot is a midlife-crisis hype campaign orchestrated by Elon Musk.
Elon Musk hacks the whole world
Manus Team Joins Meta: A Decade-Long Journey for a Group of Young People
A deep understanding of users and exceptional product engineering ability are what truly scarce in this era.
I Got Complained About by AI Circle's Big Bing (With a Sincere Apology Letter Attached)
The Most Singapore-Respecting Episode Yet 👊🇸🇬🔥
Where Did the Money Go? Who's Still Writing Checks? A 2025 VC Debrief With Jing Liu
VC takes a certain amount of instinct.
Where Did the Money Go? Who's Still Writing Checks? A 2025 VC Debrief with Jing Liu New Consensus and Undercurrents Among China's VCs
2026 AI Year-Opener: The Year of R | A Conversation with Yusen Dai of ZhenFund
History rewards those who take the first small step into the fog.
A Conversation with ZhenFund Partner Yuan Liu: One Week with Manus, Ten Years with Red Xiao
New Year 2026 Conversation with Koji: The Year of R
2026 AI Kickoff Conversation: The Year of R | A Conversation with Yusen Dai of ZhenFund
Leaving ByteDance to Go All-In on AI: Why Jinqiu Fund Isn't Called "Jie Yang's Jump" | AI Deadlock
Don't overgeneralize.
Vol.001 | A Conversation with Yuan Liu: One Week with Manus, Ten Years with Xiao Hong
First-Round Backing from Allen Zhu and Hillhouse: How a Post-'95 ByteDance Alum Wants to Build the World's First Vibe Workflow | A Conversation with Refly.AI's Wei Huang
Between Agent and workflow, Vibe Workflow is carving out a new path.
Allen Zhu invested in a Vibe Workflow company
"Coze for Dummies"
Zhang Tao Responds to Controversy for the First Time: Why Manus Hasn't Been Replaced | Tsinghua University Campus Tour
The magic only happens when you give intelligence back to the model.
Agnes: A Company That Only Copies and Hypes Its Way Into AI Circles
I never would have paid any attention to Agnes AI — until I came across this tweet: a $100 million valuation this round, $300–500 million next? That's absolutely an AI star in the making. So how come I've never heard of it? And this fundraising pitch — why does it reek of a scam?
What's So Great About Gemini 3, the Model Everyone's Praising? | Yunqi Tech π
AI's evolution is far from over
2025 AI Scene: What We Witnessed and Imagined This Year
There is no turning back — the only way forward is through.
Flowith is useless.
Agent OS ❌ Chromium & Claude Code Wrapper Competition ✅
60 Days After Alibaba Enters the Global AI Coding Battlefield | A Conversation with Shutong: Founder of Qoder
"Exactly right. Couldn't be more right."
2025 AI Live: What We Witnessed and Imagined This Year
The Local Gateway to Agent OS
The young upstart beats the old guard.
a16z AI Application Spending Report: What Enterprise AI Apps Are Companies Actually Paying For｜Hello Tech
Where the Money Is Going: The Future Direction of AI Applications
LynkSoul's DouDou AI 1.0 Hits 1 Million New Users in 10 Days, Immersive AI Gaming Experience Event This Week | Unity Ventures Portfolio
Welcome to the world of *Black Myth: Wukong* with AI
The AI Investment Mid-Game: Talent Wars, Faith Divides, and Super Opportunities
I notice you've entered a period/full stop (。) with no Chinese text to translate. Please provide the Chinese content you'd like me to translate, and I'll be happy to help.
Behind the Claude Code Top User: How an AI Founder Pushed a Tool to Its Limits | A Conversation with Xiaopai Liu
ByteDance Proves with Coze: Agents Can Only Be Engineered
An AI Development Platform Can't Go B2C
Deep Dive: a16z's Global Top 100 AI Apps — New Patterns and Trends | Yunqi Techπ
It's not just about who's fastest — it's about who can stick around.
"Make Agents Easy for Everyone" | A Conversation with Zhang Xiantao, President of Alibaba Cloud Wuying
Anticipate shifts in advance and prepare for the changes coming over the next two to three years.
"Making Agents Accessible to All" | A Conversation with Xu Qing (President of Alibaba Cloud Wuying Division) and An Chen (Product Lead at AgentBay)
2025 Silicon Valley AI Mid-Year Review: Serial Acquisitions, Big Tech Talent Wars, and Who Will Break Out | A Conversation with Fusion Fund Founding Partner Lu Zhang
Money is cheap; time is what actually matters.
Why Compete on Models When You Can Compete on Orchestration? CrePal Wants to Be the Creative Director for AI Video Models | A Conversation with CrePal Founder Jiaming Liu
By "orchestrating" the best video models on the market, it helps users generate complete videos from a single sentence, dramatically compressing a complex process that once took days and cost thousands of yuan.
MyShell Shows That AI Startups Are Really Just Issuing Tokens
Crypto Hype as a Fix for AI's Dilemma
Are Model and 'Shell' Values Both Underestimated? ZhenFund's Yusen Dai's Mid-2025 AI Review
In 2025, the "Sedol moment" for industries far and wide is only just beginning.
An Agent Infra Founder with $25M ARR Says: We're at 6:05 AM on Day One of the Agent Era | A Conversation with William Du of Xiaosu Technology
What Opportunities Has the AI Agent Boom Created for Upstream and Downstream Industries?
Manus Founder Walks Through: How to Systematically Build Context Engineering for AI Agents?
If model progress is a rising tide, we want Manus to be the boat, not a pillar nailed to the seabed.
In China's Most Cutthroat AI Coding Race, He Bets on China First to Build the Industry's Pinduoduo | A Conversation with Wuxin, Founder of CodeFlying
CodeFlying's users are middle-aged fishing enthusiasts, water delivery guys from the neighborhood, pork shop owners...
What startup ideas does his AI experiment give you? | Chatting with Yan Wang: Giving AI ears and eyes, using AI to buy groceries and ship packages
The future belongs to those who know how to use AI best.
What Startup Ideas Does His AI Experiment Give You? | Chat with Ya Ge: Giving AI Ears and Eyes, Using AI to Buy Groceries and Ship Packages
Yusen Dai of ZhenFund: From "No Need to Pay" to "Can't Live Without It," AI Is on Track to Shatter Humanity's Fastest Growth Records
The development of AI is a bit like boiling water — once it hits the boiling point, the arrival of the steam engine will spark a new industrial revolution.
Kimi Researcher Team on Itself: Agents Aren't Frankenstein's Monsters, They're the Model Itself | BlueRun Ventures Family Headlines
When Agents Become Everyday Foundation Models
Halfway through 2025: 9 AI Aha Moments That Stopped Me in My Tracks
Half of 2025 is gone — 9 AI Aha Moments
Great products are often born at the "Crossing" of technology and the humanities.
Ren Xinqi, Yue Dian Technology: The toB Agent Generating Over 100 Million RMB in Revenue Is Reshaping Human-Machine Collaboration | Yunqi Capital Doers
When Agents Actually Become Colleagues
First Investment Deal Agent Bobby Launches; Exclusive Interview with Vakee
Never underestimate anything you see in life.
Yunqi Capital's Chen Yu: AI Entrepreneurship Isn't About Speed — Direction and Endurance Matter More | Partner Perspectives
Achieve non-consensus breakthroughs with limited resources
Linear Capital's Can Zheng: The Hype Is Just a Surface — Opportunity Belongs to Teams With Conviction and Execution | Linear View
Focus on the power of obsession and execution.
Starting from Five Investments in Manus's Red Xiao: A Conversation with ZhenFund Partner Yuan Liu on How His Read of People Has Evolved
I think the market is at its best right now.
"Potential Energy" Is the Moat for AI Products | Latest from a16z
You need to break the mold.
MiniMax's Fat Cat Universe
Pang Mao Was Set Up by AI
Wang Hua's Latest Prediction: The Biggest Difference Between the AI Era and the Mobile Internet Era Is Fulfillment, Not Connection
The first year is the golden window to capture the first-mover advantage on model dividends — start building now.
Deep Dive: Why the Next Stop for General-Purpose Agents Is the Agentic Browser?
The Next Stop on the Road to General Agents
Ten Questions for Zhou Hongyi | After 27 Years as an Entrepreneur, Today Is When I Face the Most "Uncertainty"
AI is moving so fast that your lead might only last a week.
Linear Zheng Can: AI Apps Are in the "Pre-iPhone 6" Era
Where are the gaps?
Charging Into the "AI Startup Battleground": What's on Medeo's Mind? | Chatting with Chenran on AI Video Products and Opportunities for Young People
Find your own "aha moment."
"SEO's New King of the Grind": Pollo AI Founder Abiao on How to Do SEO, Work with Creators, and Run Paid Ads
SEO isn't rocket science, but it's not exactly simple either.
"Uninhibited, brimming with youthful audacity" | Ten Days After Agent Neo's Launch
Innovation is happening.
Crossing Podcast hit 40,000 users! The one thing I think we did right, and a whole bunch of feelings
Not a crossroads of confusion or bewilderment, but a crossroads brimming with possibility.
"Success Is the Mother of Success" | I Moderated a Roundtable Where the Quotes Kept Coming
Riding the AI Wave
MaHui Entrepreneur | Lovart Founder Malvin: We Have No Product Managers, Only Designers
We're not trying to build a product for everyone anymore — we're building for prosumers.
Agent Neo Launches: A First-Hand Conversation with CEO Derek and CMO Guai Zi — The Starry-Eyed Founders Building the Ultimate AI Creation Tool
First Look: Lovart, the World's First Design Agent, Is Here!
We are witnessing history.
Yunqi Capital Research | AI Applications 2025: New Technologies and Trends Analysis
Looking at Direction from First Principles
A Spring Weekend Evening Discussing AI Progress and Opportunities in 2025 | Shanghai Offline Salon Recap
We talked until 11 p.m. again.
Critique always sounds clever, just as creation always looks clumsy | After judging the Xiaohongshu Indie Developer Competition, I have so much I need to get off my chest
Between cleverness and clumsiness, I choose clumsiness.
[Shanghai Offline Salon] AI's First 100 Days of Upheaval: After DeepSeek, Manus, and GPT-4o, Where Does VC Go in 2025?
开年到现在的这 100 天，AI 领域风起云涌，从 [**DeepSeek 的突破**](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzAxMDMxOTI2NA==&mid=2649090936&idx=1&sn=3eb049d79d7d950c8f66408dd05c27e
ZhenFund's Yusen Dai: A Long Conversation on AI Agents — Every Industry Will Face Its "Sedol Moment" (Part 1)
In the Agent era, "attention is not all you need."
Behind Manus's Viral Moment: 20 Questions to Understand AI Agent
Here's everything you want to know about Manus & AI Agent.
Why Are China's New Generation of AI Entrepreneurs "Growing Wild" on Xiaohongshu?
In 2025, we've noticed an intriguing phenomenon: Xiaohongshu is becoming the "minimum viable testing ground" for AI entrepreneurship.
Behind the Manus Hype: 20 Questions to Help Us Understand AI Agents
What's Behind the Manus Hype: How Can Agentic AI Products Build Lasting Competitive Advantages?
🚥 Koji Editor's Note: Next week, Crossing's podcast will feature the third installment of our "20 Questions" column.
A Long Conversation with Yusen Dai on Agents: Every Industry Will Face Its "Sedol Moment" — Is Attention Not All You Need?
Hands-On with Manus: The First AI That Actually Gets Things Done, Made in China (50 Use Cases + Breakdown)
The World's First General-Purpose Agent 2025, Dawn Breaks in the East
![[Shanghai Offline Salon] AI's First 100 Days of Upheaval: After DeepSeek, Manus, and GPT-4o, Where Does VC Go in 2025?](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fkkcktdhgzddmdjdjoenc.supabase.co%2Fstorage%2Fv1%2Fobject%2Fpublic%2Fmedia%2Fimages%2F874d29c6-c8ee-483f-b3b3-b65ebcb898aa%2F6b0037f0b673.jpg&w=384&q=75)
