Disney making $1 billion investment in OpenAI, will allow characters on Sora AI video generator

[JAN J]

Sure hope this means a Disney War book 2 is on the way soon. No doubt it’d be one of the best reads, just as much as the first book about the Eisner years was.

He could call it "The Bobby Wars"

 

[monothingie]

$1 billion dollars for what. For the public to get to use Disney characters they used to sue for?

I wonder how much costs savings AI slop could generate (vs current Disney slop). Disney is great at controlling costs in everything except studios.

 

[networkpro]

Its just a drop in the bucket. OpenAI's burn rate so far for 2025 is 8 Billion. Iger just tossed the equivalent of both the East and West Coasts' entire Galaxy's Edge lands into the wood chipper.

 

[monothingie]

There are still defenders here…but the fish is visibly rotting from the head….

Oh what was the other thing?

…right…HE’S NOT LEAVING!!!

for you kids at home who need closed captioning…he’s entrenching himself with another stoolie

This time without the fake retirement

No you’re wrong! Bob’s already told us twice that he was leaving for good. He really means it this time!

 

[monothingie]

It’s just a drop in the bucket. OpenAI's burn rate so far for 2025 is 8 Billion. Iger just tossed the equivalent of both the East and West Coasts' entire Galaxy's Edge lands into the wood chipper.

But Doesn’t this make Bob look like the big tech CEO that he always wanted to be?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

But Doesn’t this make Bob look like the big tech CEO that he always wanted to be?

There may or may not be a 10 foot portrait of Steve Jobs on the ceiling in his office above the desk

 

[Andrew C]

No question. Just imagine all the juicy info on Iger vs Chapek, Iger vs Peltz, Perlmutter vs Feige and Kathleen Kennedy vs everybody.

That’s like 3 additional books alone

 

[Disney Irish]

No you’re wrong! Bob’s already told us twice that he was leaving for good. He really means it this time!

You guys are playing checkers, Bob is playing 4D chess.

This whole AI thing is really just so he can upload himself into the cloud and live forever. That way you guys can claim he is ruling the universe from the grave when he finally shuffle off this mortal coil. So don't you see he is trolling you guys, and will be forever.

 

[Andrew C]

You guys are playing checkers, Bob is playing 4D chess.

This whole AI thing is really just so he can upload himself into the cloud and live forever. That way you guys can claim he is ruling the universe from the grave when he finally shuffle off this mortal coil. So don't you see he is trolling you guys, and will be forever.

 

[monothingie]

You guys are playing checkers, Bob is playing 4D chess.

This whole AI thing is really just so he can upload himself into the cloud and live forever. That way you guys can claim he is ruling the universe from the grave when he finally shuffle off this mortal coil. So don't you see he is trolling you guys, and will be forever.

Going by the ROI on $DIS under Bob…

 

[MrPromey]

are you nuts? partnering with AI giants is basically turbo boosts for investor relations.

So you're predicting this will be the thing that turns the stock around?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

So you're predicting this will be the thing that turns the stock around?

The last 20 attempts failed…so eventually something will hit

 

[MrPromey]

I heard the same thing in the late 90s about ECommerce and Web2.0, and here we are 30ish years later.

Did you spend that period in some sort of alternate reality where the dot.com bubble burst was not a thing?

That whole period where people were pumping billions of dollars into money-losing dot.com startups who didn't even pretend to have a path to profitability that all went belly up and bankrupted many people when they did?

What you heard was accurate. More dot.com businesses from that era went bust than survived.

You might as well say "I heard the same thing in the late 1920's about the US stock market or maybe "I heard the same thing in the mid aught abut the housing market".

This is like saying the pandemic wasn't that bad because it only killed around a million US citizens.

Seriously, how horribly, horribly bad of an example could you possibly give?

 

[Disney Irish]

Going by the ROI on $DIS under Bob…

I mean you believe he is never leaving, it’s King Bob foreva right? So yeah it’s the next move, 4D chess buddy.

 

[Disney Irish]

Did you spend that period in some sort of alternate reality where the dot.com bubble burst was not a thing?

That whole period where people were pumping billions of money into money-losing dot.com startups who didn't even pretend to have a path to profitability that all went belly up and bankrupted many people when they did?

What you heard was accurate. More dot.com businesses from that era went bust than survived.

You might as well say "I heard the same thing in the late 1920's about the US stock market or maybe "I heard the same thing in the mid aught abut the housing market".

This is like saying the pandemic wasn't that bad because it only killed around a million US citizens.

Seriously, how horribly, horribly bad of an example could you possibly give?

 

[MrPromey]

What exactly was your point?

That because SOME companies survived, all the naysayers were wrong?

Or was your point that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about?

That you're actually doubling down on such a truly stupid example that's obvious to almost anyone who was an adult living through that period is hilarious.

 

[Disney Irish]

What exactly was your point?

That because SOME companies survived, all the naysayers were wrong?

Or was your point that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about?

That you're actually doubling down on such a truly stupid example that's obvious to almost anyone who was an adult living through that period is hilarious.

The point was that the underlying technology of the time that many naysayers were claiming would go away with the bubble survived and went on to power much of world that we have today, ie the baby wasn't thrown out with the bathwater. So yes the current AI bubble of Wall St will burst eventually as all bubbles do, but AI will survive and continue to be used long after.

 

[monothingie]

I mean you believe he is never leaving, it’s King Bob foreva right? So yeah it’s the next move, 4D chess buddy.

Why is it taking so long to find a new CEO?

Are any of the potentials in anyway impressive?

This has been going on for the past 3 years with the same 3 or 4 internal candidates that Bob has worked with extensively.

We’ve gone from the “Hey Bob Chapek, you’re the new CEO now. Ok bye” to a never ending succession scheme that’s laughable at best.

But I guess it’s hard for low information people to follow.

 

[MrPromey]

The point was that the underlying technology of the time that many naysayers were claiming would go away with the bubble survived and went on to power much of world that we have today, ie the baby wasn't thrown out with the bathwater. So yes the current AI bubble of Wall St will burst eventually as all bubbles do, but AI will survive and continue to be used long after.

What the naysayers were saying was that the business model was unsustainable and they were entirely correct.

If you'd like to point me to an archived article where anyone was saying the underlying technology was worthless, to prove your claim, be my guest.

Today these companies are losing money hand-over-fist, harming the environment, causing chip shortages everywhere and driving up the price of existing consumer and commercial tech manufacturing as a result. What these companies are doing right this very minute is a cancer on free markets and the planet.

Will the tech survive? I'm sure it will. Will there be money in pimping your brand out for people's Tiktok vidoes in the next five to ten years?

Feel free to invest your money I guess, if you think so.

I mean, JibJab has managed to sort of hold on with the boomers so I guess there's a chance...

But just because AI will survive doesn't mean the company Disney just dumped a billion dollars into will... or that what it comes out looking like on the other end will be relevant. Remember when Yahoo was poised to take over the world? Just because they managed to survive the bubble does not make them an example to strive for.

But none of this is relevant to my original point which was that pointing to the pre-dot.com bust as an example is hardly helping your case. You could have pointed to so many other things like maybe, how people expected feature animation to fail when Walt decided to make Snow White - you know, something that didn't crash the economy immediately after the period in question?

 

[Disney Irish]

Why is it taking so long to find a new CEO?

This has been going on for the past 3 years with the same 3 or 4 internal candidates that Bob has worked with extensively.

We’ve gone from the “Hey Bob Chapek, you’re the new CEO now. Ok bye” to a never ending succession scheme that’s laughable at best.

Is the end of 2026 here yet? Last I checked that was when his contract ends. And that by early 2026 they would make an announcement.

So unless something has changed they are still on schedule.