The First Annual Bury-the-AI-Hype Competition (Beijing Offline Event)

"Got a bit? Come through."

Long-awaited, long-awaited — the scent of spring is in the air, and the Zang Ai Family's first offline event is finally here.

We're planning to hold the "First Annual Zang AI Hype Competition" on January 24th, this Saturday at 6 PM, in Beijing's Haidian district. Huge thanks to our dear Zhihu family for the venue support ❤️

From the day Zang AI published its first article, Only Hype Dogs Do "One-Sentence Generation" AI, to today — it's only been seven short months. If this were a job, you'd just be getting your full-time offer. If you were a cook, you'd still be chopping vegetables at the prep station.

Yet it feels like an entire lifetime.

Because the essence of AI entrepreneurship is performance. At least the vast majority of people are performing entrepreneurship, and performance is hype. So AI entrepreneurship ≈ hype.

The Zang Ai Family is like investigators in a Cthulhu universe, constantly probing the latest hype dynamics of AI founders.

MiniMax, Moonshot AI, Stepfun, Zhipu AI, Youware, Head AI, ChatPods, Cluely, CrePal, Laifu FM, Myshell, Macaron, Coze Space, Mulerun, Manus, Genspark, Cherry Studio, Toki, Lunlun, Stepfun Desktop Assistant, Flowith, Gambo, Ant Group Lingguang, OiiOii, Looki, Plaud, Medeo, Rokid, Flova...

Over the past six months, we've delivered sharp takes on the major companies and products on the market. Yet, regrettably, much like one of the core tenets of the Cthulhu mythos — "madness is contagious" — after gazing too long at AI founders, we've caught the hype bug ourselves.

The Zang Ai Family has contracted hype disease 😭

So we're putting on this offline event — no livestream, no recording. We'll be on-site voting with our family to crown the Most Hyped AI Product of 2025, and also spotlighting what's actually not hype, with a simultaneous exclusive release on Zhihu Tech.

As another Thomas, aka Hobbes, might put it: this is an event of all against all.

To give attendees something to aim at, we've set up several themed sessions, each with sharply opinionated guest speakers. Attendees can ask questions freely, roast freely — the emphasis is on adversarial tension and pure enjoyment.

First Annual Zang AI Hype Competition Agenda:

Opening: Deep Analysis of AI Hype Trends Over the Past Year, With a Glorious Outlook for 2026

Yi-Hang Luo, Founder & CEO of Silicon Star X Xianyu, Actual Controller of Zang AI

- Electronics Guy's Hardware Observations

Nixon, Host of Brainwave Podcast, Hardware Product Manager

- Live Demo of the "Real AI OS," Audience Free to Debunk

Austin, Founder of Taku

- Violent Strafing Run on All AI Browsers

Kaiyi, Engineer Who's Built AI Browsers, Senior Developer of Manus's Predecessor Browser

- AI Investors Have Gone Too Crazy

Shang Jin, Founder of Readever

Yi-Hang Luo and Xianyu will co-open the event, dueling to see who can be more cutting in their industry-wide strafing. Nixon, who runs with the electronics crowd and knows the hardware ecosystem inside out, will share his latest observations on fellow hardware entrepreneurs.

Austin, who's been hyping hard that he's building the real OS, will face direct judgment from the live audience. Kaiyi, hailing from Hegang, will deliver his pure-love takedown of AI browsers.

Even Shang Jin, probably the most normal-seeming person in the room, is going to rage against the AI investment ecosystem! 😠😡🤬

Also, this event is entirely ad-free — just real talk. If you have unique takes on any product, you can note them in the registration form and reach out to Muqiu privately. We'll decide whether to activate an open-mic segment based on submissions.

Scan the QR code on the poster to register. The Zang AI stage is open — got a bit? Come through 👊

To ensure quality of discussion and sharpness of takes, we're capping attendance at around 80. If way more people sign up (surely Beijing isn't this full of hype merchants?), we'll randomly draw for tickets — no title-based filtering, period.

The exact venue will be sent via registration email.

Risk disclosure: You won't learn anything at this event. It's purely for the vibes. Self-improvement junkies who love big inspirational speeches are not encouraged to register.