Good to know petulant man-children never change.....
-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
WDI Layoffs
- Thread starter pheneix
- Start date
Rteetz
Well-Known Member
Joe rohde tweeted this minutes ago saying he doesn't think the rumors are true...
https://twitter.com/joe_rohde/status/761617532570566656
https://twitter.com/joe_rohde/status/761617532570566656
radiohost
Well-Known Member
Quinnmac000
Well-Known Member
He didn't specify which rumours...so.
asianway
Well-Known Member
That and a nickel
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
Well I have some experience in this kind of thing, Stage 1 is when you dump your most expensive customer facing assets. Disney has already DONE this. Now we are on to Stage 2 When you fire the creative people responsible for your product pipeline be they Scientists, Software people, Hardware engineers or even Fashion designers, Well I've never seen a company after they did this which did not end up being dismembered by the vultures of Wall St.
Stage 3 will be a few quarters of increasingly bad earnings and financial news along with the inevitable shareholder lawsuits.
Stage 4 is the breakup of the company. I don't think any of the TWDC Divisions are going away but they will end up under new management.
Seriously Cap'n you really should be looking for a new job in another organization sooner than later.
prfctlyximprct
Well-Known Member
Good because I don't think my boss would approve me going home sick for this!
asianway
Well-Known Member
Disney would truly thrive if it were carved into separate companies. Brand Holding, Parks, Media
Quinnmac000
Well-Known Member
Anyone know if Scott Trowbridge got the boot? That would be the best...for every other theme park.
Rteetz
Well-Known Member
With him heading Star Wars I doubt it but who knows at this point.
Mike S
Well-Known Member
Would he go back to Uni?
CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
What exactly are you talking about? Disney's most expensive customer facing assets are arguably the Dream, the Fantasy, and My Magic Plus. Those things all came on board in the last five years. What exactly did they dump?
I don't think you understand the scope of WDI. This would be a big layoff, but WDI would not be decimated.
I'm not ruling this out, but the only chance it happens is if the entire television industry collapses in on itself like a dying star.
My favorite. I like Disney so I must work for Disney because there's no other reason someone who likes Disney would be here on this Disney fan site.
Quinnmac000
Well-Known Member
Depends on his contract...and if Florida enforces non competes. If Florida doesn't enforce that statue, i would expect him to.
hopemax
Well-Known Member
Wow, I figured that would have generated articles somewhere. I guess there is still time.
Like most, I'm not a fan of Fitzgerald either. But I've been increasingly worried about the lack of "Institutional Knowledge" through .many, many areas of Disney's operations, and losing any of the remaining people who knew what it was like to work under the old guard is a big blow. Anyone who went through the planning and construction of Epcot knows things that are valuable that unintentionally make their way into their projects. Maybe, there should have been 10,000 little things that should have been done, and you've sacrificed a ton of them to further your career, but that leaves a lot that who knows if anyone has bothered to consider.
And despite all of Rohde's, I don't know what I want to call it.., the environments he's created are really the only places where I've been in modern Disney where I have immediately felt a strong emotional attachment. Other stuff looks pretty, but leaves me feeling cold and ultimately unimpressed. Like Tony, I felt he needed a good project manager partner, who could let him do his thing extremely well, but know when things needed to be reigned in...not them be the project managers. Like you don't let the engineers talk to the customers, don't let the artists run the business (but absolutely the business needs to trust the artist and not act that they know better. Who was the business-sort of guy who left WDI because he didn't like what he was hearing out of Eisner's people when he came in? Marty has talked about how losing him was a loss because he knew how to balance the creative with the realities of business.)
Walt and his people have been gone a very long time now, obviously, and despite all the recent (and not so recent given its been about 20 years now) indications that Imagineering doesn't really know how to design a theme park anymore, I like many, would still cling to the hope that someone would one day ask, "How do we do this right?" (something Tony expressed hoping for as well) And the people who had been trained by the old guard would be able to recount old stories of all the things that had been learned by trial and error, and major mess-ups and there would be a foundation upon which to build. And this is the sort of news that makes it impossible for that day to come. I don't think modern Disney even has any clue of what they don't know.
There is (obviously) no Walt to provide the vision, and no team that trusted and were completely committed to that vision, even if they didn't understand what they were doing (like the old guard would admit, when they were put on his Mickey Mouse project). Imagineering is so much more closer to the group of Amusement park operators who insisted that everything Walt was doing was a mistake. Other ventures have tried to duplicate Disney's park success, and as close as Universal Creative has gotten lately, they still are missing so many elements that lead a project to transcend to the level that the Disney parks did. Everyone is still too eager to sacrifice that "last 5%" thinking it doesn't matter; when it is what makes all the difference. Design has gotten so much better, that many places are now capable of building pretty, even beautiful pieces. But when they try to put them all together, the puzzle is still lacking the cohesion and transitions that make it work as a whole.
I feel like I'm not doing a good job of putting my thoughts into words. But whatever failures Tom and Joe might have had, and there are many, doesn't mean that Disney is better off without them, because the talent, and knowledge they possess is not as easily replaced as people think. Part of the problem is that I think modern business thinks you can just "contract out," whatever you need, when the level of talent and knowledge that is required in successful, creative ventures needs to be carefully cultivated, and molded over years to really get it to shine, consistently.
I feel sick.
Anyone have any other names or are we all in a holding pattern till an official statement?
@pheneix @Lee @WDW1974 @marni1971
I've heard nothing aside from a few months ago to expect a lot of "housekeeping". I won't get into the politics.
In addition to this, Shanghais wrapped. It's been the norm to see clearing once a big projects finished too. Sadly.
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
Yes it would and Iger would cement his legacy if he reorganized the company into something that resembled a Japanese keiritsu with the TWDC being a small organization which holds the majority of the stock for the subsidiary companies. This of course isolates the risk from any ONE company hitting a rough patch. It also forces the companies to stand alone on their financial results and allows the use of management structures appropriate to each division.
The trouble with a company like Disney is it takes a TEAM to run it, You need a STRONG FINANCE GUY and A STRONG CREATIVE GUY and they need to have equal clout, Walt/Roy Eisner/Wells
The reality is Disney is as it's currently configured is going to blow up, Either Iger does a controlled version or the KKR and Bain Capital will do an uncontrolled version.
CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
That's essentially how Disney operates now. Disney "Corporate" is a small organization that owns all of these sub-organizations. All of the businesses within Disney have their own P&Ls. The same is true of Comcast, Time Warner, or any other conglomerate.
What exactly do you think John Lasseter, Kevin Feige, and Kathleen Kennedy do all day, knit sweaters?
Short the stock. Put your money where your mouth is.
In what way did they have hopes about AK drawing people in? Is it supposed to be drawing people in? I would assume that any comparison to projected attendance would need to wait until Avatar is open.