News Josh D’Amaro Named Next CEO of The Walt Disney Company

[Chef Mickey]

The Florida parks are really close to ideal - it’s honestly just a few bad apples that need to be fired that are bringing it down.

WDW for the most part has really great CM’s right now.

The staff is quite a bit worse than before and I have a lot of park experience. Anecdotal, maybe, but it’s consistently worse than 10+ years ago.

 

[Chef Mickey]

But would those things improve the stock performance?

It seems what you’re suggesting would require more staff and much more money devoted to the parks.

No, the parks stuff just tells me Josh is the wrong guy in general.

Disney has strategic problems I doubt a Parks establishment guy can handle fixing. Josh actually did a good job at the Parks from a finance perspective, but I disagree with his strategy and longer term vision there too. Wall Street also hates it.

 

[JD80]

Does this go here?

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

A lot of the things I mentioned earlier that I don’t want to keep listing. The failures are well-documented. Endless price increases, IP galore, ride closures, poor staff, poor food, poor value, poor maintenance, unused buildings, bad ride decisions, cutting hours, cutting entertainment and staff, etc.

What do you mean poor maintenance? They've been pretty on top of fixing stuff all over the resort for a couple of years now, and it's pretty rare to see major issues. There was a time when maintenance at the Disney parks was basement level, but that isn't now.

 

[Chef Mickey]

What do you mean poor maintenance? They've been pretty on top of fixing stuff all over the resort for a couple of years now, and it's pretty rare to see major issues. There was a time when maintenance at the Disney parks was basement level, but that isn't now.

One example, broken effects in Rise.

 

[JD80]

What do you mean poor maintenance? They've been pretty on top of fixing stuff all over the resort for a couple of years now, and it's pretty rare to see major issues. There was a time when maintenance at the Disney parks was basement level, but that isn't now.

Seems nearly like almost all of his points are mostly incorrect - though I will give him empty buildings.

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

One example, broken effects in Rise.

You mean the ones that they spent a massive amount of time, money, and effort to fix in California and will likely fix in Florida when they get a good opportunity to do so?

 

[Disstevefan1]

It's about discretionary income and how the economic climate and factors listed play a role. Nobody said its cheap, but these circumstances don't happen in a vacuum.

One thing is for sure.
Disney will continually raise prices forever infinity no matter who is in office even after Jan. 20th 2029

 

[Disney Analyst]

Ushering in of a new team and era?

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

The staff is quite a bit worse than before and I have a lot of park experience. Anecdotal, maybe, but it’s consistently worse than 10+ years ago.

I disagree but as you said - very anecdotal.

 

[Stripes]

But be objective - I don't even remember when I posted that, but how long after I posted did it take TSLA to actually do something? Do you think it's possible I changed my opinion? It's kinda rude to pull out something I might have said 10 years ago and infer I am an idiot because I said something that actually was true at the time.

I never said you were an idiot because of something you said 10 years ago. Nobody is always right (except me, of course ).

My main point wasn’t about how you were wrong with Disney and Tesla stock 10 years ago, it was about your confidence in stating inaccuracies and using circular logic today. I bring up the Disney/Tesla conversation, not because of your error in picking stocks, but rather your credibility when it comes to recognizing company leadership that can take a company to the next level.

He was the best choice from a limited group of terrible choices because they didn't do a proper search.

I also think artificially limiting a CEO search to outsiders is pretty bad advice, to be frank.

Someone outside the company who is a disrupter. CEO is not easy to find and I'm not pretending it would be easy. For me, that person has to be outside the establishment.

 

[Chef Mickey]

You mean the ones that they spent a massive amount of time, money, and effort to fix in California and will likely fix in Florida when they get a good opportunity to do so?

When? You act like spending massive amounts of money and time is somehow commendable. They likely built a poor ride system and needed to actually fix it instead of band aids for years. That's their fault too.

 

[Chef Mickey]

I never said you were an idiot because of something you said 10 years ago. Nobody is always right (except me, of course ).

My main point wasn’t about how you were wrong with Disney and Tesla stock 10 years ago, it was about your confidence in stating inaccuracies and using circular logic today. I bring up the Disney/Tesla conversation, not because of your error in picking stocks, but rather your credibility when it comes to recognizing company leadership that can take a company to the next level.

I also think artificially limiting a CEO search to outsiders is pretty bad advice, to be frank.

I disagree. Again, I was right about both at the time.

I've been right a lot more than wrong, but only I would know that. It's silly to think that post discredits my overall ability to recognize good management. I was correct on both points and only 10 years later can you say I wasn't on Tesla. Again, you don't know my Tesla position post 10 years ago. I was right until 2020.

You know how analysts upgrade and downgrade stocks? I never did that after my post. I was correct that Disney was the better bet until soon after when I literally sold shares. I was selling various times after they announced Chapek, when they brought back Iger, after the Disney+ debacle. I had a lot of shares to sell.

I would put my DIS buy/sell record against almost anyone here. It's actually a masterclass that I made good money in DIS with them being such a trash stock in any long hold scenario.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

You mean the ones that they spent a massive amount of time, money, and effort to fix in California

Wasn’t it just a computer program issue? Do you have a source that it was a massive amount of money and effort?

 

[Chef Mickey]

I never said you were an idiot because of something you said 10 years ago. Nobody is always right (except me, of course ).

My main point wasn’t about how you were wrong with Disney and Tesla stock 10 years ago, it was about your confidence in stating inaccuracies and using circular logic today. I bring up the Disney/Tesla conversation, not because of your error in picking stocks, but rather your credibility when it comes to recognizing company leadership that can take a company to the next level.

I also think artificially limiting a CEO search to outsiders is pretty bad advice, to be frank.

Outsiders only is a lot less limiting than only insiders, however.

 

[Tha Realest]

Outsiders only is a lot less limiting than only insiders, however.

How many legit outsiders would let it dangle they were seeking out the CEO position when the company already had four in-house VPs already announced as being under consideration?

 

[Stripes]

Outsiders only is a lot less limiting than only insiders, however.

Sure, but your circular logic that Disney’s board must have conducted an improper search that was limited to insiders because they picked an insider is faulty and plainly false. James Gorman, Disney’s chairman and lead of the succession planning committee, has made numerous public statements that the board conducted an exhaustive search that included well over 100 individuals inside and outside of the company.

“I wanted to be able to say – and the board wanted to be able to say that whoever got this job beat all comers. This wasn’t a rigged game. This was all comers, and Josh did it.” - James Gorman

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

When?

If you’re asking for when they’re gonna fix it in Florida, I’d imagine when Monsters opens would be the first good opportunity to send Rise into it’s first refurb. Any sooner would be detrimental to DHS.

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

Wasn’t it just a computer program issue? Do you have a source that it was a massive amount of money and effort?

The canons were not the only issue. There were other smaller things that got fixed up in the refurb as well. They did a lot of show improvement during Rise’s downtime earlier in the month. The canons were a separate thing done earlier of course.

But the computer program aspect was also not just a simple click of a mouse. It took a good amount of work to find and correct. Editing complex code like that takes some effort, and not to mention there’s more work to do even once the issue in the code was found and resolved.

 

[HMF]

Ushering in of a new team and era?

Who?