3 minutes to reflect
China is dominating the AI scene lately. First came DeepSeek—offering ChatGPT-level quality at a fraction of the cost. Then, just weeks ago, Manus AI burst onto the scene.
What makes Manus special? It's an agent that actually delivers on its promise: tell it what to do, and it executes flawlessly.
The buzz around Manus has created a frenzy, with early access becoming so coveted that a secondary market emerged—people selling access codes for thousands of dollars. That's how valuable this tool is perceived to be.
Among the early adopters, someone had a stroke of genius (or mischief): they asked Manus to clone itself. Dutifully, Manus complied, and Anus AI was born—now freely available on GitHub for anyone to download.
The frontier of AI agents has been pushed one step further, and democratized in the process. Again.
You might never try Manus or Anus yourself, but the real lesson here transcends these specific tools: in today's AI landscape, there is virtually no sustainable competitive advantage (MOAT). Revolutionary technology becomes a commodity almost overnight.
For investors and entrepreneurs, this raises a critical question: if the foundation models themselves can't maintain their value, where will the defensible business opportunities in AI truly emerge?
2 resources to advance to pro
Check Manus & Anus out
Check Manus, the universal tool to solve problems. A team of agents at your fingertips. And if you feel brave, Anus, its mischievous cousin. (link)
Learning from a 3200 x missed return. An expensive lesson.
“I passed on @solana's seed round in early 2018 at $0.04. At current prices, that's a 3,250x.Solana was one of my first ever pitches as a junior VC, and back then I wrote memos for every deal I passed on (adorably naive and overconfident).Re-reading this memo now is peak junior VC cringe.
So here it is, fully unedited—the worst investing miss of all time.Happy birthday, Solana! 🎂 (LINK)
1 reason to smile
Breakthrough in cancer research: mRNA technology opens up new horizons. I LOVE SCIENCE!
Have a great weekend,
Enjoy Spring!
Simone