Oh, if only....

[Clever Name]

Yes, Walt inadvertently did an illegal thing regarding what he owed to stockholders (by "inadvertently" I mean he didn't deliberately set out to break a law; he naively believed what he was doing was fair); we agree on that.

No, we don’t agree on that. You are misinformed about the creation and operation of WED Enterprises by Walt Disney. WED was created in total secrecy. The shareholders knew nothing about the creation of WED. Even the studio board of directors was deceived by Walt as to the nature of the WED operation. Walt hired away the best and the brightest employees from the studio and employed them at WED.

As head of the studio, Walt selected WED as the sole contractor to perform projects for the studio. Walt personally profited from all the WED projects because he billed the studio (or the sponsors) for all costs plus overhead. Walt’s salary as the CEO for WED was built into the costs.

He knowingly perpetrated fraud. The reason why the settlement was reached was to avoid adverse publicity. The studio was named after Walt and they could not allow his name to be tarnished because it would cause the studio to suffer financially. Walt had to settle because if a lawsuit was filed he knew he would lose any and all civil and criminal charges.

There is no doubt that Walt was both criminally and civilly liable in the creation and operation of WED Enterprises. He deliberately defrauded the studio.

In time, Roy saw things his way, and in the end, according to Disney biographer Pat Williams, Walt got pretty much everything he wanted, under a different (and more legal) arrangement.

No, you’re wrong. Roy did not see things Walt’s way. The incident you are describing relates to arguments that lawyers were having concerning the settlement. Several of the studio attorneys wanted to recover all of the money that Walt had taken from the studio over the years. Had they gotten that sum, Walt would have been left in the poor house. Roy had to remind the studio attorneys that none of them would even have a job if it wasn’t for Walt. This wasn’t a case of seeing things Walt’s way. It was a case of showing Walt more mercy than he had ever shown the shareholders.

As far as Walt getting what he wanted out of the settlement, that’s true. He didn’t go to jail. He wasn’t ruined financially. He was watched more closely by Roy and not allowed to cheat the company any longer. So yeah, he got what he wanted. :wave:

 

[Magenta Panther]

No, we don’t agree on that. You are misinformed about the creation and operation of WED Enterprises by Walt Disney. WED was created in total secrecy. The shareholders knew nothing about the creation of WED. Even the studio board of directors was deceived by Walt as to the nature of the WED operation. Walt hired away the best and the brightest employees from the studio and employed them at WED.

As head of the studio, Walt selected WED as the sole contractor to perform projects for the studio. Walt personally profited from all the WED projects because he billed the studio (or the sponsors) for all costs plus overhead. Walt’s salary as the CEO for WED was built into the costs.

He knowingly perpetrated fraud. The reason why the settlement was reached was to avoid adverse publicity. The studio was named after Walt and they could not allow his name to be tarnished because it would cause the studio to suffer financially. Walt had to settle because if a lawsuit was filed he knew he would lose any and all civil and criminal charges.

There is no doubt that Walt was both criminally and civilly liable in the creation and operation of WED Enterprises. He deliberately defrauded the studio.


No, you’re wrong. Roy did not see things Walt’s way. The incident you are describing relates to arguments that lawyers were having concerning the settlement. Several of the studio attorneys wanted to recover all of the money that Walt had taken from the studio over the years. Had they gotten that sum, Walt would have been left in the poor house. Roy had to remind the studio attorneys that none of them would even have a job if it wasn’t for Walt. This wasn’t a case of seeing things Walt’s way. It was a case of showing Walt more mercy than he had ever shown the shareholders.

As far as Walt getting what he wanted out of the settlement, that’s true. He didn’t go to jail. He wasn’t ruined financially. He was watched more closely by Roy and not allowed to cheat the company any longer. So yeah, he got what he wanted. :wave:

Bottom line, Walt was trying to get some fair compensation out of the company he built. He (apparently) went about it in the wrong way, but even so, it's a mischaracterization to paint him as some sort of evil greedy crook. If he was the greedyguts you try to paint him to be, if all he was interested in with WED was to line his pockets, why did he sell his vacation house and borrow to the hilt on his life insurance - in other words, risk considerable personal capital - to build Disneyland? Whatever convoluted corporate law he broke or almost broke, his motives were understandable. He had suffered and sacrificed and endured two nervous breakdowns to build a company that to this day is going strong, and at that point in time he was losing control of it and not in any way being fairly compensated for all that he did. WED ended up making Disneyland the success that it was, which certainly benefited those poor little stockholders, and in any case, any compensation he ever did receive is peanuts compared to the largesse granted to no-talent CEOs like Eisner and Iger. I notice that the only time you seem to post here is to hammer on about this one incident as if that paints an entire portrait of the character of Walt Disney. Which is patently false. But if that's how you get your jollies, carry on. But I feel sorry for you. :wave: