
Meta raised eyebrows in December when it was reported that the social-media giant would pay upwards of $2 billion to acquire Manus, a small agentic AI company out of China — an eye-popping price that many critics have since decried as an overpay. But one man's overpay is another's opportunity, and sellers that get too caught up in valuations of their company based on comparables — rather than creativity — risk losing out on huge upsides and leave millions of dollars on the table.