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The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora

(openai.com)
236 points inesranzo | 5 comments | 11 Dec 25 14:05 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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afavour ◴[11 Dec 25 14:47 UTC] No.46232022[source]▶
AI has driven the corporate suites of these companies insane.

> As part of the agreement, Disney will make a $1 billion equity investment in OpenAI, and receive warrants to purchase additional equity.

I don't know what kind of hypnosis tricks Sam Altman pulls on these people but the fact that Disney is giving money to OpenAI as part of a deal to give over the rights to its characters is absolutely baffling.

OpenAI and ChatGPT have been pioneering but they're absolutely going to be commoditized. IMO there is at least a 50:50 chance OpenAI equity is going to be next to worthless in the future. That Disney would give over so much value and so much cash for it... insane.

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1. elif ◴[11 Dec 25 15:00 UTC] No.46232184[source]▶
How is buying equity "giving money"?

Is it charity to buy AAPL as well?

I really don't understand your perspective

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2. raincole ◴[11 Dec 25 15:02 UTC] No.46232238[source]▶
They think OpenAI equity will be worthless so it's "giving money." Obviously Disney disagrees.
3. mikepurvis ◴[11 Dec 25 15:08 UTC] No.46232318[source]▶
Buying already existing shares of a public company is very different from buying just-created shares of a private one.

You literally are just handing them money for a piece of paper that says “lol you now own x% of whatever this thing turns out to be worth in the future.”

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4. close04 ◴[11 Dec 25 15:22 UTC] No.46232496[source]▶
Shares are always "x% of whatever this thing turns out to be worth in the future". It can be something, it can be nothing.

Disney is giving them money in the hopes that the AI market (bubble?) keeps growing and the value of OpenAI grows with it. And importantly, Disney wants to shift to AI generated slo... content so partnering with a top player with a proven product is a safe choice. Disney licenses its IP to OpenAI, OpenAI can then provide tools that generate said content Disney-style.

> Disney will become a major customer of OpenAI, using its APIs to build new products, tools, and experiences, including for Disney+, and deploying ChatGPT for its employees

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5. mikepurvis ◴[11 Dec 25 18:55 UTC] No.46235484{3}[source]▶
Right, but the distinction is that if I go buy a few thousand shares of DIS today, I'm not handing money to the Disney company, rather I'm handing it to the previous owners of those shares. The total pool of them is fixed, so it's all basically zero sum. At most my purchase might signal (in a microscopic way) to the market that there's demand, and push up the price, which benefits Disney.

It's very different when a privately held company creates new shares to sell, because then the money used to purchase those shares really does go right back to the company.