This hatred for Jack Welch is ludicrously revisionist and overblown. Was "Neutron Jack" overhyped by the business press in the '90s? Yes, but he wasn't merely a slash and burn artist. He GREW GE considerably in his day. And now, GE did not use accounting fraud, because accounting fraud requires a company to overstate how profitable it is. Enron was never a profitable company, for example. GE always was in those days. You don't get a market cap of $450 billion in those days if you're not doing things right at all. Simply put, Welch may not have been a full-blown hero, but he's not this villain, the "man who broke capitalism."
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News Chapek FIRED, Iger New CEO
- Thread starter Chef Mickey
- Start date
So, was Eisner the man who cratered the stock price and was taking Disney down a bad road, or did he merely "lose his way and need help?" Did you want him to stay, or did you really want him gone?
Were there even any realistic alternatives besides Iger for the CEO spot in 2005?
Br0ckford
Premium Member
I admire your effort to be contrarian on almost everything. It keeps the debate going. I quite enjoy it.
It's not "contrarianism for contrarianism's sake," if that's what you're implying. This is my stance, and I'm also pointing something. You ask me to take you at your word, but your word is extremely contradictory all the time. How can I take you at your word if I don't even know what your word is? Eisner is a very big example. I know most people on this forum decried him and called him an enemy at the time. Now they claim he's still needed and that he "just needed help?"
I can't tell what you actually believe. And to some extent, all of you don't either. And in some cases, you don't believe anything, you just move your piece across the game board and take whatever position needs to be true in an effort to defeat or ignore the points I make. All in the game, yo.
SamusAranX
Well-Known Member
I give Iger credit for initially acknowledging some of the problems Eisner left and working to resolve them.
I think his best move was the complete revamp of DCA and giving it a cohesive theme....but then they turned around 2 years later after spending 1 billion dollars and began IP overlays and shoehorning. Creatively, he just doesn't have it.
Then throw in the Igernomics that Chappie gladly continued to adopt and we have the WDW of today.
I think his best move was the complete revamp of DCA and giving it a cohesive theme....but then they turned around 2 years later after spending 1 billion dollars and began IP overlays and shoehorning. Creatively, he just doesn't have it.
Then throw in the Igernomics that Chappie gladly continued to adopt and we have the WDW of today.
Br0ckford
Premium Member
I was complimenting you, but ok.
I know, and I wasn't being hostile, merely clarifying what I mean. I'm sorry if I came across that way.
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
GE was systematically destroyed. From “make” to “talk”…the kinda thing that has had wide repercussions people don’t fully understand to this day…
I’ll add another to the list.
You remember the 90’s, right?
pdude81
Well-Known Member
He needed another 2 or 3 years of appointing board members until he had enough juice, but I don't think that was ever going to happen. IMO Chapek was in senior management for more than enough time to know how the game is played. Once he starting dancing with Peltz they turned the rudder hard and he fell overboard. Oops.
Yes. And you want a true slash and burn artist who systematically destroyed things? Look at Al Dunlap at Sunbeam. That is the type of individual you are attacking Welch as.
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
Yep…that Eisner…
The one that took over a rather small cartoon/tv studio with a couple of parks and made it a conglomerate.
And has been a boogeyman for the disgruntled and those that don’t know better ever since.
And he was far from perfect…but funny how humans are judged by “averages”. Except here where he did nothing right and Bob is looking over a wasteland now, huh?
That's not a direct answer, though? Was Eisner someone who needed to be removed and targeted by Roy and Stan Gold's Save Disney campaign, or was he the right person for the company all along...even as he said "We don't need Pixar," was unable to do a turnaround at ABC, had the Ovitz debacle, didn't settle with Katzenberg early on, and kept alienating people in his way. Was he really that bad or was he really what the company needed in those lean years?
WERE THERE ANY ALTERNATIVE CANDIDATES FOR IGER THAT WERE REALISTIC IN 2005? You've still never answered that one.
If Chapek cleaned house on Day 1 he'd still be in his office right now. The BOD only moved on him, because Chapek's underlings (the Iger holdovers) had their knives out. Note the housecleaning that Bob Iger did within hours of getting his title back. Bob Chapek's changes were undone within a matter of days.
Of course 6 months later, Chapek is smiling ear to ear as he probably realizes the bullet he dodged.
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
Dude…you’re not old enough to know what you’re talking about…
All the CC Econ classes you can take can’t make you an authority.
Now if you want to lecture me on the history of Twitter…or whatever it’s called now? I’m all ears
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
Chapek was his Covid shield…not a controversial take at all…
But I do agree the blood letting was inevitable.
Bob believed it was worth $160 a share…because he’s a fool.
When your product isn’t selling…how do hog peddle your stock for more?
Only Bob would convince himself of that.
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
Eisner needed to go. But not because of Roy’s ego clash with him.
Which is why Iger was put in. He was a nothing. Completely disregarded by both. And he’s heading back that way now unless this board turns heel on him.
You seem to lack a fundamental understanding why Roy accepted Iger in the first place? What kinda 12 year old business genius where you then? Too much PS2?
Eisner had to go cause it was Too long.
…And now fill in the blanks why that’s important today?
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pdude81
Well-Known Member
I don't know that he could have cleaned house on day one when the previous CEO sat above as Executive Chairman. They let him dump Peter Rice and gave that pathetic contract extension, but it seemed like Chapek was set up to fail. The way I see it, he only survived that long by using every dirty play in the book to increase profit margins in the parks. I don't even blame him, given the circumstances.
You don't remember Sunbeam? You don't remember "Chainsaw Al?" The very real accounting fraud he supervised there?Dude…you’re not old enough to know what you’re talking about…
All the CC Econ classes you can take can’t make you an authority.
Now if you want to lecture me on the history of Twitter…or whatever it’s called now? I’m all ears
Again, Jack Welch is not this archvillain. GE's fall really began under Jeff Immelt, and so many people at GE told Welch he was the wrong choice. Would GE be the market leader still with a different choice, like Jim McNerney? No, but it would still be a major player. Welch wasn't perfect by any means, he did a lot of things right, and this revisionist history attacking him is ludicrous, especially when it credits him for inventing things that preexisted him by decades (celebrity CEOs, "shareholder value return", financialization).
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
Of course there were. The idea that Iger is the only one capable of leading the company is crazy talk.
That was John Lassiter who got his way on several things as part of the Pixar deal.
TalkingHead
Well-Known Member
Unpacking Bob Iger’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good PR Week
Many in Hollywood hoped the re-upped Disney CEO, long considered the corporate leader most in tune with talent, would emerge as a levelheaded mediator who could end the labor impasse. And then he spoke his mind.
www.hollywoodreporter.com