Dev burned by VC compute-sponsorship promises, gets a ¥999 airdrop from DeepSeek
dotey · x · 2026-10-28
Developer yifanxuephai shares an AI-ecosystem anecdote: after leaving a startup he self-funded a multi-agent harness, burning $100+/day on MiniMax API while every token-sponsorship application to funds came up empty. He applied to MiraclePlus's bootcamp lured by promised compute sponsorship of up to ¥1M, only to realize he was padding headcount for someone else's KPI — and decided to go all-in on open source.
The twist: his open-source dsh-layerfs plugin got noticed, and DeepSeek's ops team airdropped him ¥999 — the first sponsorship he actually received came from a model lab, not the institutions making big promises.
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