While that agreement was presented publicly as all but a done deal, an OpenAI statement at the time said it was “subject to the negotiation of definitive agreements, required corporate and board approvals, and customary closing conditions.”
Now, Axios cites “a source familiar with the situation” in reporting that no money ever changed hands in the planned deal. The Financial Times reports that the deal never got off the ground as OpenAI shifted its strategic direction, according to “two people familiar with the matter.” And Deadline cites a Disney insider who said point-blank that “the deal is not moving forward.”
See, this is why openai can never go public: if it has to open its books, the music stops.
Disney does not have the luxury of teasing its investors with billion dollar deals-- every quarter, they have to report where they’re stacking their chips, and any cute shit will get them sued and investigated at a minimum. They probably expect their peers to meet them halfway on that.
Openai is not a serious company. When a major prospective partner like fucking Disney wants to open a billion dollar account, what possible excuses could a real company have for not figuring it out?
I would like to argue that when a company reaches a certain equity value, it should not have the option of closed books. if the government is going to treat a company as “too big to fail”, then it’s “too big for privacy”
They are spinning this as some sort of “nah, we decided we didn’t want a billion dollars cause we’re doing something else instead.”
But as you said, that is horseshit, no one leaves a billion dollars on the table.
I bet the reason is that Disney got a peak at the actual capabilities and were like “this is garbage, why would be pay a billion dollars for something that isn’t any better than the janky shit that goes on youtube?”