Compare moats
Up to three covered companies, band by band. Every call is a curated editorial judgment, never a disclosed figure — and every band carries its cited basis.
| The Walt Disney Company | Applied Digital | Synopsys | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moat rating | wide FY2025 10-K: a content library spanning approximately 100 years of production history — roughly 5,300 live-action film titles, 460 animated film titles plus deep episodic series holdings — feeds every segment (streaming, parks, consumer products, theatrical), and the physical parks portfolio (Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, Hong Kong Disneyland 48%, Shanghai Disney Resort 43%, Disney Cruise Line) is not replicable at comparable scale (sec.gov dis-20250927.htm, FY ended 2025-09-27). | none The FY2026 10-K (filed 2026-07-29) shows contracted revenue, not a demonstrated competitive edge. About 1,410 MW is leased under 15-year take-or-pay, non-cancellable base terms worth about $36.2 billion, but only about 100 MW of the roughly 1.5 GW that is contracted and either operating or under construction was operating and earning revenue at May 31, 2026, and Item 1A says "lessees may have the right to terminate applicable leases if there are significant delays in construction." Item 1A also concedes "We do not have the resources to compete with larger providers of similar products or services at this time," and the Competition section names 13 power-advantaged developers the company competes with. Signed leases give revenue visibility, but the filing does not show a durable advantage. | wide The FY2025 10-K positions Synopsys as 'a global leader in supplying the mission-critical EDA solutions' and, after the Ansys merger, 'the global leader in engineering S&A software' — two adjacent franchises the filing says now sit in one portfolio. |
| Moat type | intangibles ip The moat is franchise IP and brands: the FY2025 10-K lists Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic as the top-level pillars of Disney+, and Mickey and Friends, Star Wars, Spider-Man, Disney Princess, Frozen, Avengers and Toy Story among the major licensed properties; the same IP is monetized across theatrical, streaming, parks and licensing windows (sec.gov dis-20250927.htm). | none The 10-K claims three advantages: power-advantaged sites (it believes securing power and interconnection ahead of demand is 'the principal constraint on new HPC capacity and a core differentiator for us from many of our competitors'), a standardized 'franchise-style' design, and hyperscaler master service and master telecom service agreements 'that are difficult to obtain.' The filing does not show any of them to be durable. Its Competition section says competition 'centers on securing and developing sites with access to large-scale, reliable, and cost-competitive power and interconnection' and names 13 power-advantaged developers going after the same leases, and Item 1A concedes it lacks the resources to compete with larger providers. Signed leases are take-or-pay and non-cancellable, so a tenant leaving for convenience owes 'the full remaining contractual value,' but that is contractual lock-in on each lease rather than a moat source, so no moat type is assigned. | switching costs The 10-K describes EDA as 'mission-critical' software licensed mostly as network licences across a customer's whole design flow, with post-contract support providing 'frequent updates to maintain the utilization of the software due to rapid changes in technology' — a dependence that renews at every process node. |
| Leadership | co leader Clear leader in its two profit engines — TEA's 2024 Theme Index ranks Disney Experiences the top park operator worldwide with Magic Kingdom #1 for 19 straight years (laughingplace.com, 2025-10-24), and the studio topped the 2025 global box office at $6.58B (Screen Daily, 2026-01-04) — but in total video Disney is second: Nielsen's April 2026 Media Distributor Gauge puts Disney at 10.3% of US TV viewing vs YouTube's 13.4% (MediaPost, 2026-06-25). Co-leader is the honest company-level band. | behind The 10-K makes no leadership claim and gives no ranking or share figure. Item 1A concedes "We do not have the resources to compete with larger providers of similar products or services at this time" and that some rivals have "substantially greater liquidity and financial resources than we do." Its Competition section places APLD against established operators (Digital Realty, Equinix), hyperscalers that build their own capacity, independent developers and 13 named power-advantaged developers (IREN, Cipher Digital, TeraWulf, Hut 8, Riot, CleanSpark, HIVE, Core Scientific, Bitdeer, Galaxy Digital, Fermi, Keel Infrastructure, MARA). | co leader The 10-K claims global leadership in EDA while stating 'The EDA industry is highly competitive' and that Synopsys competes against other EDA vendors and against customers' own internally developed design tools. |
| Pricing power | strong Q3 FY26 (quarter ended June 2026, reported 2026-08-05): domestic Parks & Experiences operating income rose 27% on 11% revenue growth, and streaming operating margin expanded from 6.6% to 12.9% on 11% subscription revenue growth — margin expansion well ahead of volume in both engines (thedesk.net earnings summary). Counterweight: the FY2025 10-K notes MVPD consolidation may pressure linear carriage terms, so pricing power is concentrated in parks and DTC, not linear. | weak Item 1A says "Due to the limited number of hyperscalers, we expect that a limited number of customers will continue to account for a high percentage of our revenue for the foreseeable future," and that if customers' equipment usage declines or they discontinue use of its facilities, APLD "may be compelled to lower our lease prices in some instances or risk losing a significant customer." One customer was 59% of FY2026 revenue from continuing operations. Take-or-pay, non-cancellable terms protect contracted revenue over the base term, and Note 19 reports a $39.1M HPC Hosting segment profit on $385.3M of segment revenue in FY2026, but those terms are agreed with a small group of concentrated buyers. | moderate The 10-K lists 'license terms, price and payment terms' among the principal competitive factors and states 'No single factor drives an EDA customer's buying decision'; licence fees depend on licence type, product mix and the number of copies licensed. |
| Summary | Disney's moat is a century of franchise IP monetized through mutually reinforcing windows that competitors cannot assemble: the FY2025 10-K describes a library of ~5,300 live-action and 460 animated film titles built over approximately 100 years, distributed through streaming (Disney+ ~132M and Hulu ~64M paid subscribers as of 2025-09-27), linear networks, theatrical release and physical parks. The parks flywheel is the clearest expression: TEA's 2024 Theme Index (published 2025-10-24) again ranked Disney Experiences the top theme park operator worldwide, with Magic Kingdom the most-visited park for the 19th straight year. The studio led the 2025 global box office with $6.58B — its ninth #1 finish in a decade — driven by its own franchises (Zootopia 2 $1.48B, Lilo & Stitch $1.04B, Avatar: Fire and Ash) per Screen Daily (2026-01-04). The challenged edges are real: in Nielsen's Media Distributor Gauge for April 2026 Disney held 10.3% of total US TV viewing — second to YouTube's 13.4%, ahead of Netflix's 7.8% — and the 10-K flags MVPD consolidation pressure on linear carriage terms. But the Q3 FY26 report (2026-08-05) showed the model inflecting: revenue +7% to $25.25B, Experiences revenue +10% to $9.97B with domestic parks operating income +27%, and streaming operating margin expanding from 6.6% to 12.9% year over year. | Applied Digital designs, builds and operates purpose-built, liquid-cooled HPC data centers, which it calls 'AI factories', and leases the capacity to CoreWeave and investment-grade hyperscalers. At May 31, 2026 its 10-K lists five campuses (Polaris Forge 1-3 and Delta Forge 1-2) with about 1,410 MW contracted under roughly 15-year take-or-pay, non-cancellable leases worth about $36.2 billion over the base terms. The filing claims three sources of advantage: it controls power-advantaged sites, it uses a standardized 'franchise-style' design built to deliver about 150 MW in about 14 to 18 months, and it holds hyperscaler master agreements that are 'difficult to obtain.' The same document shows how early the company is. About 100 MW was operating and earning revenue. One customer was 59% of FY2026 revenue from continuing operations. It competes with Digital Realty, Equinix, hyperscalers that build their own capacity and 13 named power-advantaged developers, and it concedes that it lacks the resources to compete with larger providers. Signed leases give long-dated revenue visibility, but the filing does not show a durable competitive advantage. | Synopsys sells the sign-off tools (PrimeTime static timing, IC Validator physical verification) and the silicon-proven IP that chip designs are built against, and the FY2025 Ansys merger added the multiphysics sign-off products (RedHawk-SC, Totem-SC) to the same portfolio, growing headcount about 40% to roughly 28,000. |
| Chain position | Content/IP owner at the top of the entertainment value chain: produces and owns franchise IP (Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, 80%-owned ESPN), distributes it through owned channels (parks, Disney+, Hulu, ESPN DTC, ABC, theatrical), licenses it downstream to consumer-products makers and retailers, and is a major upstream buyer of sports rights (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, college football) — including the pending NFL Transaction exchanging a 10% ESPN stake for NFL Network assets (FY2025 10-K, sec.gov dis-20250927.htm). | Developer and landlord of power-advantaged, liquid-cooled AI data-center capacity, leased long-term to CoreWeave and investment-grade hyperscalers. | Design-and-IP layer feeding both the chip designers and, post-Ansys, the systems companies that simulate the products those chips go into. |
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| Long-horizon vote | +0.35 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | -0.20 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.30 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. |