ZHIHU-W

$Reddit(RDDT.US) Q2 was broadly solid.

As a key AI data source with a strong human signal, Reddit is benefiting from referral traffic tailwinds from Google and other gateways.

However, a soft spot in US user growth became more pronounced this quarter, with US DAU declining QoQ for the first time.

Up 6x in a single quarter, the investor darling and foundation-model poster child—Zhipu—has reported as well.

Straight to the point: 1) Revenue: API biz ARR reached RMB 250 mn in Mar.

Among domestic independent model vendors, $Z.AI(02513.HK) is a pure homegrown LLM player, with talent anchored in universities and a client base largely comprising the Gov. and SOEs on the B2B side.

In the business-model analysis 'Deep Dive into MiniMax and Zhipu: Are Foundation Models, Compute Intensity and Financing Stamina the Decider?', Dolphin Research argued that amid high costs and rapid iteration, the foundation-model industry has turned into a brutal test of financing endurance.

Discussing the third-quarter report of $Reddit(RDDT.US), this time it is actually similar to the situation in the second quarter, also involving a process of expectation correction: 1. Before the earnings report, market tracking showed poor growth in North American user data (decline in duration, zero growth in users). Considering that North American users are the main source of monetization, the lack of user growth raises doubts about growth potential, and high valuations (generally hovering around 40x-50x EV/EBITDA) naturally cannot be sustained. 2. When the actual earnings report was released, although North American user growth was not as bad as third-party data tracking indicated (negative growth), it was still not promising...

Indirectly riding on the east wind of AI