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The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora

(openai.com)
247 points inesranzo | 4 comments | 11 Dec 25 14:05 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | 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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jimbokun ◴[11 Dec 25 14:49 UTC] No.46232048[source]▶
If OpenAI has exclusive rights to AI generation for Disney and other IP rights holders, that would create the kind of moat they've been missing so far.
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herbturbo ◴[11 Dec 25 15:01 UTC] No.46232214[source]▶
Thats a business agreement not a moat. And you might have rights to generate the characters but they still need to do something. You only have to look at the repeated Disney flops to see they themselves have no ideas.
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jklinger410 ◴[11 Dec 25 15:03 UTC] No.46232240{3}[source]▶
And if you're the only company with that business agreement. As long as you still have it, it's a...moat.
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herbturbo ◴[11 Dec 25 15:07 UTC] No.46232307{4}[source]▶
Well that’s the thing with moats - they don’t just disappear one day.
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alephnerd ◴[11 Dec 25 15:12 UTC] No.46232359{5}[source]▶
These kinds of parternships also throw in free inference with MFN clauses, which make a mutual moat.

A moat doesn't have to be a feature, and equity stakes have been fairly successful moats (eg. Much of AWS's ML services being powered by Anthropic models due to their equity stake in Anthropic).

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1. herbturbo ◴[11 Dec 25 15:26 UTC] No.46232541{6}[source]▶
A moat is a permanent feature protecting a castle against attack. That’s the metaphor. If it’s not their own device intrinsically protecting them then it’s not a moat in my book.
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2. alephnerd ◴[11 Dec 25 15:28 UTC] No.46232577[source]▶
That is not how we use the term "moat" in this context, because competitors eventually converge on offerings within 1-2 years.

I don't need some stuck up HNer telling me about stuff I deal with in my day-to-day job.

Edit: can't reply

> a business deal that can be transferred to a new partner the second it expires is much more temporary

Generally, these kinds of equity deals include an MFN clause.

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3. afavour ◴[11 Dec 25 15:43 UTC] No.46232782[source]▶
> That is not how we use the term "moat" in this context, because competitors eventually converge on offerings within 1-2 years.

Then I guess we need a new term because that's not how I interpret the term moat either. To me, ChatGPT chat history is a moat. It allows them to differentiate their product and competitors cannot copy it. If someone switches to a new AI service they will have to build their chat history from scratch.

By comparison a business deal that can be transferred to a new partner the second it expires is much more temporary.

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4. jklinger410 ◴[11 Dec 25 16:10 UTC] No.46233176{3}[source]▶
> To me, ChatGPT chat history is a moat.

Every service has a chat history. You are talking about stickiness, which is (roughly) the same for every product.

ChatGPT wins a bit with stickiness because their AI personalizes itself to you over time, in a way that others don't quite do.

A moat is something unique. It can't really be a moat if all services offer it.