https://disneydish.bandcamp.com/track/outta-here-tom-staggs-leaves-disney
According to Jim Hill, popular opinion within the company is that Staggs was trying to get out before being the fall guy for Shanghai. (They later guessed 3-5 years until profitability after opening hugely over-budget.)
@ford91exploder and others suggested this too. The clue here is the short notice- Staggs leaving in 30 days, only two weeks before Shanghai opens.
But he suggested an alternate theory involving very prominent (and very opinionated) shareholders
as the result of stock-swaps during Iger's aquisitions, namely:
- Laurene Powell (Steve Jobs' widow, owns 7.5% of the Disney company!)
- Ike Perlmutter (CEO of Marvel since 2005, before the Disney acquisition)
Apparently Ike, in particular, really dislikes Iger and especially Staggs. A few sources say Ike was the one who put the brakes on Staggs. The feeling is that the stockholders remember Iger's follies (My Disney Experience is brought up again, which has me again wondering about Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg) and don't want him passing his mantle to an Iger-groomed candidate from within the company. They instead want a new mantle built, a departure from Iger-ism. Hence, they announced on a Monday the "robust search" forecasting a possible pick outside the company. One wonders what this means for Iger finishing his contract.
This theory jives with
@WDW1974's optimism, but it's hard to imagine stockholders being displeased with the stock's performance over the past few years. Maybe the stockholders saw shortsightedness, or maybe this is what happens when the egos of powerful individuals (Ike and Iger) collide. What do we know about Laurene Powell and Ike Perlmutter?
