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The rollercoaster at the paradise pier in Disneyland
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Disney’s parks are getting more expensive, again

The real Mouse-heads might not care.

It’s a small, and increasingly expensive, world.

Fulfilling the dreams of kids and Disney adults alike got a lot pricier from Wednesday, with the most in-demand daily tickets at Disneyland rising between $7-$12, while annual passes to the park soared by as much as $125.

Although the base entry fee of $104 is staying the same, the move hasn’t done much to combat the growing feeling among many people that a lot of Disney’s parks are becoming almost unjustifiably expensive. In fact, a recent report from Disney blog MickeyVisit suggests that the most expensive daily tickets for the California park have risen 114% in the last 10 years, from $96 to $206

Visiting the Disney World parks in Florida, whose recent shuttering in the wake of Hurricane Milton could wipe $200 million from the company’s earnings according to Goldman Sachs estimates, will also be getting more expensive, though not until 2025, after the company announced price hikes there 8 months ago. 

The rising prices may have upset a lot of die-hard Disney-heads, but a lot of the evidence suggests that millions are still willing to pay up to get into the House of Mouse’s many global parks. In the first 3 quarters of Disney’s fiscal year so far, the company’s super lucrative Experiences division, which includes domestic and international parks and consumer products, brought in $25.9 billion — up almost 7% on the same period last year. 

Disney park revenues and popularity
Sherwood News

Disney still dominates the most visited theme parks in the world list too, according to the annual Global Attraction Attendance Report from TEA and AECOM, occupying 8 of the top 10 spots from Florida to France and Tokyo to China.

Deciding how much to charge for entry into some of the “happiest places on Earth” is always going to be a hard puzzle. For years, Disney’s answer has been: just a little more than last year.

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Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind’s CEO and founder, was also an early Anthropic investor

A chess prodigy and an actual a knight of the realm in the UK, it’s perhaps no surprise that Demis Hassabis has made some strategic moves about his exposure to AI upside. According to people familiar with the matter, the influential AI architect became an angel investor in Anthropic, currently behind many of the leading AI models, per Arena AI leaderboards.

The Nobel Prize winner’s position in the Claude creator was previously undisclosed and, per the Financial Times, highlights Hassabis’ “growing influence across the AI industry.”

Google, which bought DeepMind, the company that Hassabis cofounded and heads to this day, for a reported ~$400 million in 2014, is also a key Anthropic investor. The tech giant reportedly plans to invest up to $40 billion in the AI company as part of the mutually beneficial relationship the pair have forged, with reports that Anthropic has committed to spending $200 billion in the other direction on Google’s cloud services over the next five years.

Im playing all sides, so I always come out on top

In addition to his financial support for Anthropic, Hassabis has also invested in a range of AI startups launched by colleagues, such as Inflection AI, a company set up by DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman (who is now CEO of Microsoft AI), as well as efforts from other collaborators, like David Silver’s Ineffable Intelligence.

Hassabis also emerged as a recurring figure on the fringes of the recent Elon Musk v. Sam Altman trial, cropping up repeatedly in testimonies and court documents and appearing to live, as The Verge put it, “rent-free” in Musk’s head.

Founded in 2021, Anthropic has recently raised funding at a reported $900 billion valuation, sending it soaring ahead of competitor OpenAI.

The Nobel Prize winner’s position in the Claude creator was previously undisclosed and, per the Financial Times, highlights Hassabis’ “growing influence across the AI industry.”

Google, which bought DeepMind, the company that Hassabis cofounded and heads to this day, for a reported ~$400 million in 2014, is also a key Anthropic investor. The tech giant reportedly plans to invest up to $40 billion in the AI company as part of the mutually beneficial relationship the pair have forged, with reports that Anthropic has committed to spending $200 billion in the other direction on Google’s cloud services over the next five years.

Im playing all sides, so I always come out on top

In addition to his financial support for Anthropic, Hassabis has also invested in a range of AI startups launched by colleagues, such as Inflection AI, a company set up by DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman (who is now CEO of Microsoft AI), as well as efforts from other collaborators, like David Silver’s Ineffable Intelligence.

Hassabis also emerged as a recurring figure on the fringes of the recent Elon Musk v. Sam Altman trial, cropping up repeatedly in testimonies and court documents and appearing to live, as The Verge put it, “rent-free” in Musk’s head.

Founded in 2021, Anthropic has recently raised funding at a reported $900 billion valuation, sending it soaring ahead of competitor OpenAI.

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