One problem was the “spiral” had zero to do with Chapek’s ineptitude at the top…
It was a long ticking timebomb and Bob lit the fuse a decade ago…masked by riding the wave of stable economic conditions and the MCU that worked during that period…almost nothing else did
I somewhat disagree in that it depends on which issue you are talking about. That is what determines who gets how much blame for me.
Personally, I feel that the overall direction of a company is too complex to just say good/bad, at least if we want any real insight or analysis of the why. That is where I find it helpful to break out the various factors that drive the overall direction. When we do that, I think most of us see that Iger had lots of issues, but the company as a whole did much better under him than Chapek. Further, it is easy to see where Chapek created plenty of his own problems that had nothing to do with Iger. Just for example...
- The Florida situation leading to the end of Reedy Creek? 100% Chapek. Iger had nothing to do with that.
- Brain drain/talent loss? 100% Chapek. No matter what we think of him, creatives
tend to like Iger outside of his IP mandate while they hated Chapek.
- Lack of any development or even plans for development of any of the parks while in charge? 100% Chapek.
- Putting a municipal hospital architect in charge of what remained of the corpse of Imagineering? 100% Chapek.
- Decision to reorg the company and place streaming ahead of all other entertainment despite all the people he consulted on it telling him it wouldn't go well? 100% Chapek.
- Trying to tell us that Halloween after parties were awesome while ignoring a devastatingly bad earnings miss? 100% Chapek.
- Going DIRECTLY against the board on multiple occasions, many of them after agreeing with them in meetings? 100% Chapek.
Now of course Iger should and does take the blame for giving us Chapek to begin with and if someone wants to make an argument Disney was already heading in the toilet before Chapek, that is fine, there is certainly evidence people can point to that would support that, but there is also plenty of evidence on how much the pace accelerated under Chapek and he created all new issues and emergencies for the company all on his own.
Let me put it this way. I feel like Iger pushed the company to the brink in a number of areas. Chapek came in, shoved it over the edge, climbed down to its broken body and then defecated on it all while telling us how great things were.