Zhipu, Afraid of Becoming the Next MiniMax
Title: Zhipu, Fearing to Become the Next MiniMax
In July 2026, amid the success of its coding-focused AI, Zhipu's founder, Tang Jie, issued an internal letter titled "The Giant Wave Has Come." It notably avoided celebrating recent triumphs, such as Zhipu's trillion-HKD market cap and booming MaaS revenue driven by its GLM-5.2 model in coding applications. Instead, the letter pivoted the narrative to future-oriented concepts like Long Horizon Task, Autonomous Agents, Self-Evolving systems, and AGI.
This strategic shift in messaging followed the sharp devaluation of its competitor, MiniMax. After its lock-up period expired, MiniMax's stock plummeted as the market began evaluating it with traditional SaaS metrics like ARR and user growth, rather than as a frontier AI pioneer. Seeing this, Tang Jie aimed to preempt a similar revaluation of Zhipu. He fears that if the market starts viewing Zhipu primarily as a profitable "AI coding company," its valuation would become anchored to conventional financial metrics, losing the premium associated with AGI potential.
Therefore, the letter reframed Zhipu's mission. While acknowledging that coding was the current commercial driver, Tang positioned Zhipu on the "infrastructure path," akin to OpenAI and Anthropic. The new focus is on developing agents capable of complex, long-term planning and autonomous operation—moving from assisting individuals (OPC: One Person Company) to automating entire organizations (NPC: No People Company). This "Touch High" plan explicitly prioritizes long-term AGI research over short-term monetization.
The article frames this as a critical divergence in China's AI landscape: the "commercialization path" (exemplified by MiniMax) versus the "infrastructure path" (chosen by Zhipu). The former risks being judged harshly by internet-era metrics once growth slows, while the latter risks failing if technological breakthroughs stall. Tang Jie's letter is thus a calculated move to secure Zhipu's identity as an AGI contender, buying time before the inevitable market demand for commercial proof. The core question remains: can Zhipu's "mo gao" (reach high) plan achieve genuine technological leaps fast enough to outpace the market's diminishing patience for stories over substance?
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