MiniMax's AGI Bet: Engineering Logic Behind Zero Pay and $16B Fundraising

I noticed an interesting detail: MiniMax founder Yan Junjie declared in an all-hands letter that he would "no longer take a salary until AGI is achieved," while simultaneously the company plans to raise HK$16 billion. This isn't simply a case of "a founder trading sentiment for trust," but rather a technical route choice made by an engineering team amidst a valuation collapse—using personal equity to buy an open-source ecosystem, and using fundraising to buy time.