Meta was cofounded by a college dropout — and so was its latest acquisition.
Ji Yichao, the cofounder and chief scientist of Manus, the AI startup snapped up by Meta, shared two pictures on X: one of his younger self behind a laptop, and another of a young Mark Zuckerberg, seemingly in the same room, also working at a laptop.
Both pictures appear to have been taken at the so-called “Facebook House” in Palo Alto, California, a five-bed home where Zuckerberg worked on Facebook after famously dropping out of Harvard University in 2004. The house was later rented by budding entrepreneurs and business students.
“21 years ago and 13 years ago, two dropouts in this same room set out on their own journeys. Today, those paths merge,” Ji wrote in the Monday X post.
The 32-year-old Ji was the public face of Manus for its launch in March, introducing its “general-purpose” AI agent designed to carry out tasks autonomously. Meta announced its acquisition of Manus on Monday, which the Wall Street Journal reported exceeded $2 billion.
According to reports in Chinese media, Ji started a computer science degree at the Beijing Information Science and Technology University (BISTU) in 2010, but later dropped out to focus on entrepreneurship. He returned to BISTU in 2015 and graduated in 2018, according to a blog from the university. Manus did not immediately respond to a Business Insider request for comment.
Zuckerberg and Ji have plenty of company. Meta’s other big AI acquisition this year, Scale AI, was founded by another college dropout — Alexandr Wang. Microsoft cofounders Bill Gates and Allen dropped out of college, along with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and many more.
Ji’s post comes as college degrees are under renewed scrutiny. Gen Z in particular has been questioning whether a degree is worth the debt, while others are wondering if college can future-proof their career prospects in a job market being shaken up by AI.
Fei-Fei Li, a Stanford professor known as the “Godmother of AI,” said earlier this month that a college degree matters less now when her company hires software engineers.
However, data published by the New York Federal Reserve in April suggested that a college degree can still pay off in the long run — provided students pick the right degree.
Manus was launched in March by the Chinese AI product studio Butterfly Effect. The startup relocated to Singapore in mid-2025 and said it has surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue. Meta said it would continue to offer Manus’ subscription as a separate business while integrating the startup’s technology into its own platforms.
