Really liked the answer with the reduce() function. Here's another way to sort the string using accumulate().
from itertools import accumulate
s = 'mississippi'
print(tuple(accumulate(sorted(s)))[-1])
sorted(s) -> ['i', 'i', 'i', 'i', 'm', 'p', 'p', 's', 's', 's', 's']
tuple(accumulate(sorted(s)) -> ('i', 'ii', 'iii', 'iiii', 'iiiim', 'iiiimp', 'iiiimpp', 'iiiimpps', 'iiiimppss', 'iiiimppsss', 'iiiimppssss')
We are selecting the last index (-1) of the tuple