Why do people here dislike Iger? He’s done amazing things for the company. He cleaned up the big messes Eisner left
The guy who kept all of Eisner’s senior lieutenants from the strategic planning committee that made a whole litany of train wreck decisions (cooking guest spending projections that led to over building EuroDisney’s room stock, acquiring ABC, running Imagineering and feature animation into the ground, direct to video crap, building multiple half assed gates in Anaheim, Paris, Hong Kong, and over interference in day to day operations)?
The guy who was Eisner’s COO for the five years leading up to the end of Eisner’s tenure?
The guy who considered shuttering Walt Disney Animation after they acquired Pixar?
The guy who put the kibbosh on hand drawn animation at WDAS because one film underperformed as the studio was rebuilding public goodwill and was against “Avatar” at the box office?
The guy who wanted, and seriously tried, selling the parks division wholesale?
The guy who singlehandedly hamstringed the Star Wars sequel trilogy by pushing for a completely unrealistic May 2015 release date in fall 2012?
The guy who has mandated that all additions to the parks, with few exceptions, be connected to existing franchises?
The guy who has jacked up ticket, room and food prices at the parks while thousands of CMs live on poverty wages?
The guy who oversaw a massive brain drain and outsourcing at Imagineering as the design quality took a nosedive and savings from said cuts never materialized?
The guy that though it was a good idea to spend $60-70 billion in share buybacks to artificially inflate the value of the company?
The guy who could have, and seriously considered, buying Netflix back in ‘12-‘14 instead of buying BAMTech and Fox assets at ridiculous valuations (oh and we’re still on the hook for Comcast’s share of Hulu by FY ‘24)?
These aren’t fanboy nitpicks. They are a future business school case study into why Disney “lost its luster”. Iger didn’t seriously repair the core damage of the Eisner years, he bought a bunch of stuff with the ESPN and Parks cash at the expense of the future of the company.