Meta's next big AI bet: Manus

Happy New Year!

Thank you for being part of our community. Wishing you a wonderful 2026!

This week’s problem might get your heart rate up. Here’s what to expect today:

• Climbing Stairs problem

• CI/CD pipelines

Read time: under 4 minutes

CODING CHALLENGE

Climbing Stairs

You are climbing a staircase. It takes n steps to reach the top.

Each time you can either climb 1 or 2 steps. In how many distinct ways can you climb to the top?

Example 1:

Input: n = 2
Output: 2
Explanation: There are two ways to climb to the top.
1. 1 step + 1 step
2. 2 steps

Example 2:

Input: n = 3
Output: 3
Explanation: There are three ways to climb to the top.
1. 1 step + 1 step + 1 step
2. 1 step + 2 steps
3. 2 steps + 1 step

Solve the problem here before reading the solution.

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SOLUTION

To solve this problem, we can use dynamic programming. We'll build our solution from the bottom up.

For any step n, the number of ways to reach it is the sum of ways to reach (n-1) and (n-2). This is because we can reach step n by either taking one step from (n-1) or (n-2).

Note that the case where we take 2 steps from (n-2) to (n) is also included in this because we will have to take one step from (n-1) in this case.

The time complexity of this solution is O(n), where n is the number of steps.

SYSTEM DESIGN

CI/CD pipelines

After the recent “Blue Screen of Death” outage at Microsoft, CI/CD has become a hot topic again. Let’s try to understand what CI/CD means.

CI/CD is a set of practices that aims to improve the speed and reliability of software releases.

There are two parts in CI/CD:

• Continuous Integration (CI): CI is about merging code changes frequently. Developers push their code to a shared repository multiple times a day. Each integration is verified by automated builds and tests. This helps catch and fix issues early.

• Continuous Delivery (CD): CD takes the code that passed CI and automatically deploys it to a staging environment. It ensures that the code is always in a deployable state. The final step to production can be manual or automated.

Now, let's see what a CI/CD pipeline might look like:

1. Code commit: Developers push code to the repository.

2. Build: The application is compiled.

3. Unit tests: Small parts of the code are tested individually.

4. Integration tests: Different parts of the application are tested together.

5. Deploy to staging: The application is automatically deployed to a test environment.

6. Acceptance tests: The application is tested in an environment similar to production.

7. Manual approval: A team member reviews and approves the changes.

8. Deploy to production: The application is deployed to the live environment.

9. Post-deployment tests: Final checks are done to ensure everything works in production.

10. Monitoring: Appropriate alarms are set to find issues in the production servers.

Steps 1 to 5 are CI and steps 6-10 are CD.

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NEWS

This Week in the Tech World

Meta Acquires AI Startup Manus for $2B+: Meta agreed to buy Singapore-based AI agent startup Manus for over $2 billion. The deal was struck in just 10 days as Zuckerberg intensifies AI efforts.

SoftBank Completes $41B OpenAI Investment: SoftBank Group has completed its $41 billion investment in OpenAI, giving the Japanese conglomerate about 11% stake in the ChatGPT maker.

Nvidia Licenses Groq Tech for $20B: Nvidia is acquiring assets from AI chip startup Groq for $20 billion in cash. Groq's CEO and senior leaders will join Nvidia to scale the inference technology.

xAI Buys Third Data Center Site: Elon Musk's xAI acquired a third building called "Macrohardrr" to expand AI compute capacity to nearly 2 gigawatts. The name is a jab at Microsoft.

China Mandates 50% Domestic Chip Equipment: China now requires chipmakers to use at least 50% domestically made equipment for new capacity. The rule aims to build a self-sufficient semiconductor chain.

OpenAI Hiring Head of Preparedness: OpenAI is hiring a new safety executive to study emerging AI risks. Sam Altman says models are "starting to present some real challenges" in cybersecurity and mental health.

Apple Patches Two Zero-Day Flaws: Apple released emergency security updates to fix two WebKit vulnerabilities actively exploited in targeted attacks. Google's Threat Analysis Group discovered the bugs.

2025 Tech Layoffs Reach 122K+: Over 122,500 tech employees were laid off in 2025 across 257 companies. However, that's 20% fewer than 2024's total of 152,900, signaling possible stabilization.

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YOUR FEEDBACK

Until next time, take care! 🚀

Cheers,

Sahil + Sarra