NY Times: Bob Iger Effectively Back As CEO

[TheRealBobIger]

I'M BACK

Hope you guys didn't miss me to much!

 

[Disgruntled Walt]

What did he actually do? Decide to buy a bunch of money making properties at extremely high costs and then force those properties into the parks which he didn’t seem to know anything about.

I’d rather have the live action remakes vs. the Eisner level cheap sequels, so I’ll give him that much but still... all of those live action remakes and Pixar sequels should have been brand new content.

All you have to do is watch the last episode of the Imagineering Story...it's an ode to Iger's parks contributions...

 

[Goofyernmost]

Indeed. I assume part of Iger's confidence comes from Disney having had a very clear roadmap and plan for pretty much all of its business ventures.

There was no need for pressing company reinvention or another big acquisition. Debts needed to be paid down, a few key aquisitions need tweaking, but he is there to do that in the background. I assume with the successful launch of Disney+ he realized there was nothing else he really "wanted/needed" to do.

Stepping back and let someone literally just keep the ship pointing in the right direction (Chapek) until they found someone else a few years down the line seems smart. Chapek isn't exactly young, I'm sure they were planning on him being in the roll 3... 5 years max.

I wasn't sure if Iger saw this coming and decided to bail, but clearly he didn't. He doesn't have the greatest confidence in Chapek... but clearly was confident nothing needed doing.

Of course, he saw this coming. If anyone would have insider information about Corona it would be him. He knew what was going to happen and made his exit from the total spotlight just in time. Got to admire that. Now he gets to have just about the same amount of control that he had before and will get none of the blame. Sure hope Chappie has broad shoulders because anything bad that is happening will be squarely put on him. And when Disney bounces back, which it will, guess who will get the credit for stepping back in and saving the company. I really didn't appreciate how clever Iger was until all this started happening. Just before Iger left his post, he was able to green light Billions of dollars in park upgrade and improvements. Guess who is going to get blamed when 50% or more is cut back.

 

[Slpy3270]

Well, at least there isn't discussion about selling off assets at the moment.

 

[muddyrivers]

It's funny this article comes out as every time we have been hearing updates about the park, it's been coming from Iger, not Chapek. I was already thinking "Why is Iger making these statements rather than Chapek?" Now it appears we know why.

 

[TrojanUSC]

It's funny this article comes out as every time we have been hearing updates about the park, it's been coming from Iger, not Chapek. I was already thinking "Why is Iger making these statements rather than Chapek?" Now it appears we know why.

One of the more telling aspects of the article was the subtext of the author saying they call Chapek "Bob C," then spelling out that it was in a very "kindergarten" kind of way.

 

[Stripes]

The “fewer employees” bit is something Disney has desperately needed for years on the corporate side. Having worked with Disney on a few things, the amount of people they get involved on sometimes trivial projects is obscene and much more than any other company I’ve done business with.

It sucks people will lose jobs because of this, but Disney has been bloated with redundant positions for a decade now.

Do you mind my asking what type of work Disney hired you to perform? Just curious.

 

[Slpy3270]

Articles like this make the optimistic "Disney will get through this" and "Disney will quickly rebound" takes look worse since these articles make it seem like the company is teetering into bankruptcy like AMC.

 

[bryanfze55]

WDW was terribly stagnant when Iger took over. Eisner ran things into the ground during his last ten or so years. The gutting of Epcot started under Eisner. DCA 1.0 occurred under Eisner.

I think Eisner was inherently more creative than Iger and probably had more love for the Disney brand. Iger is just a suit. But take Frank Wells out of the picture, and Iger has been able to make more effective business decisions and been more willing to spend money on the parks. The last ten years of Iger’s tenure have been a pretty robust period of expansion for the parks.

 

[Brad Bishop]

Like create a monopoly instead of developing content of their own?

They have no faith in their own creators for film or the parks..

...or buying everything, increasing their debt load, and leaving them in a worse situation now to where they need to borrow even MORE money to the point where they were downgraded?

 

[Horizons '83]

WDW was terribly stagnant when Iger took over. Eisner ran things into the ground during his last ten or so years. The gutting of Epcot started under Eisner. DCA 1.0 occurred under Eisner.

I think Eisner was inherently more creative than Iger and probably had more love for the Disney brand. Iger is just a suit. But take Frank Wells out of the picture, and Iger has been able to make more effective business decisions and been more willing to spend money on the parks. The last ten years of Iger’s tenure have been a pretty robust period of expansion for the parks.

I think you're pretty spot on, although I wouldn't dumb him down to a suit. I think, in some ways, he was able to balance the business/shareholder responsibility duties with creating(greenlighting) some pretty awesome park attractions. I really recommend reading his book that came out last year. It goes into great detail about the the last few Eisner years and how that all played.

 

[Lilofan]

In this corona crisis I would rather have Iger instead of Chapek to steer the ship anyday.

 

[networkpro]

Do you mind my asking what type of work Disney hired you to perform? Just curious.

My guess would be as a suction device at the bio-digester plant.

 

[Lilofan]

My guess would be as a suction device at the bio-digester plant.

Probably a third party contracted employee. When job is completed , your services are no longer needed.

 

[sedati]

Really, I think his biggest failure was not getting an established in-house video games division up and running. That would have helped weather this storm. Need a better balance of at home vs destination offerings going forward (Disney+ couldn't have come out at a better time.) Otherwise, he has shown great devotion to the company. There will always be things to complain about, but I think this is more than just a job to him.

 

[WDW862]

Really, I think his biggest failure was not getting an established in-house video games division up and running. That would have helped weather this storm. Need a better balance of at home vs destination offerings going forward (Disney+ couldn't have come out at a better time.) Otherwise, he has shown great devotion to the company. There will always be things to complain about, but I think this is more than just a job to him.

Disney's next big purchase needs to be a video game publisher. Make Star Wars games in house, instead of leaving it to EA to it up.

 

[trainplane3]

Wait for it...

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Do you mind my asking what type of work Disney hired you to perform? Just curious.

Corporate tool/PR spin doctor...

Pays $6,000 a year in Disney dollars and comes with a maingate pass

WDW was terribly stagnant when Iger took over. Eisner ran things into the ground during his last ten or so years. The gutting of Epcot started under Eisner. DCA 1.0 occurred under Eisner.

I think Eisner was inherently more creative than Iger and probably had more love for the Disney brand. Iger is just a suit. But take Frank Wells out of the picture, and Iger has been able to make more effective business decisions and been more willing to spend money on the parks. The last ten years of Iger’s tenure have been a pretty robust period of expansion for the parks.

Minimum investment to have it trudge along after 10 years of nothing and tripling the prices is “robust” to some...I suppose?

 

[bryanfze55]

Corporate school/PR spin doctor...

Pays $6,000 a year in Disney dollars and comes with a maingate pass

Minimum investment to have it trudge along after 10 years of nothing and tripling the prices is “robust” to some...I suppose?

Not just 10 years... how much really happened in the 90s to US parks?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

That article had very little substance. Iger is attending more BlueJeans meetings? Uhm ok. There really isn't any indication of where they were in the handoff process to make a good determination of whether Iger was always calling the shots or had actually tried to hand things over. There is no depth to this article. All it seems to show is that Iger's number was still in reporter's speeddial.

I disagree....this is the ultimate, excuse free opportunity to harvest “blue ocean” theory.

Think about it: they can gut whatever they want as far as overhead and blame it on “a new world”. This is like the gods saying that we needed a new Neutron Jack Welch and no consequences for allowing Iger to be it - potentially.

While most seem happy with this, did everyone just skip over the part about the mood at Disney is dire. They aren't going to go bankrupt but I think the magic every loves won't be there when they do reopen. I have a feeling there will be more cuts to entertainment at the parks. They will do whatever they can to make that money back.

...I have some bad news on this one