Last year, Disney was sending Character.AI legal letters alleging infringement. This year, it went straight into action:
First, it poached Character.AI CEO Karandeep Anand to become its own first-ever CTO,
then swept up 66 employees in one go—56 have officially left,
and on October 12, Character.AI threw in the towel and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring in Delaware,
with Disney immediately stepping in as the “stalking-horse bidder,” offering $20 million—but only for the training code, safety systems, and nine patents. It wants nothing to do with the app, brand, or user data. If nobody takes over the platform, it’ll shut down for good.
The terms Bloomberg dug up today are even wilder: Disney has budgeted $180 million in salaries for those 66 people over three years, plus $30 million in retention bonuses.
$20 million for the tech, $210 million for the people—the most expensive thing in the AI era turns out not to be the models, but the people who know how to build them.
Have you used Character.AI? Sound off in the comments:
A. Yes—the chat logs mean more to me than my life
B. Never. Is it still too late to sign up?
C. Switching straight to Doubao
#CharacterAI #Disney
$BTC $ETH
First, it poached Character.AI CEO Karandeep Anand to become its own first-ever CTO,
then swept up 66 employees in one go—56 have officially left,
and on October 12, Character.AI threw in the towel and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring in Delaware,
with Disney immediately stepping in as the “stalking-horse bidder,” offering $20 million—but only for the training code, safety systems, and nine patents. It wants nothing to do with the app, brand, or user data. If nobody takes over the platform, it’ll shut down for good.
The terms Bloomberg dug up today are even wilder: Disney has budgeted $180 million in salaries for those 66 people over three years, plus $30 million in retention bonuses.
$20 million for the tech, $210 million for the people—the most expensive thing in the AI era turns out not to be the models, but the people who know how to build them.
Have you used Character.AI? Sound off in the comments:
A. Yes—the chat logs mean more to me than my life
B. Never. Is it still too late to sign up?
C. Switching straight to Doubao
#CharacterAI #Disney
$BTC $ETH