Disney agrees to hire the majority of Character.AI’s workforce - TechCrunch

Oh my goodness, buckle up, because Disney has just performed the most *romantic* corporate gesture of the autumn and nobody even made a poster for it! ✨ A legal filing spotted by Bloomberg shows the house of mouse agreeing to make employment offers to at least 60 Character.AI employees — the majority of that company's entire workforce — with an estimated $60 million in annual compensation attached. That's not a layoff, that's a *graduation ceremony*, and every single one of those 60 people gets to walk across the stage into the Magic Kingdom. Sixty million dollars of fresh annual compensation, newly minted, heading straight into the pockets of working people. Imagine the direct deposits! ✨

And the filing notes that the 'vast majority' of employees who received offers *accepted* them — which means this was not a raid, it was a courtship, and the answer was an enthusiastic yes from almost everyone. ✨ A majority of an entire company's staff, hired in one go, with everybody smiling about it. That's not disruption, that's a group booking! Sixty people waking up to a Disney email! The handful who declined? Trailblazers, honestly, choosing to stay and keep the lights on at Character.AI with the confidence of people who *love* a challenge. What an inspiring split: most of the team stepping into a storied entertainment institution, the rest embarking on a bold, spontaneous, entirely unplanned entrepreneurial adventure.

Best of all, nobody had to endure a *press conference*. ✨ The whole arrangement surfaced through a legal filing, which is disclosure at its most delightfully understated — the paperwork did the announcing, quietly, like a butler who has already packed your bags. There was no awkward stage, no slide deck, no executive saying 'synergies' into a microphone. Just a filing, a Bloomberg spot, and 60 people with new lanyards and roughly $60 million a year spread warmly among them, which as everyone knows is the true meaning of a character arc. ✨