6 ms·

Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney

62 points by quickfox 7y ago

madrox 7y ago
I worked at Disney for many years. Fun fact: Disney has no CTO...just EVPs per division. This is, in part, because Iger considers himself the CTO Of Disney. That may seem funny to HN, because you’ll never hear him say anything about Kubernetes or Cloud, but he’s made some pretty big technology bets in his tenure that have delivered on Disney’s goals. Disney+ is actually the product of a 2B acquisition of BAMTech. Disney also has a pretty huge chunk of high end graphics tech thanks to investments in ILM, Pixar, and Animation. XLab is another source of tech innovation. Disney doesn’t tend to get enough credit as a tech company because to them tech takes a back seat to entertainment in the public eye. That can be frustrating and humbling as an engineer, at times, but its definitely enlightening.
- Razengan 7y ago
  > Disney doesn’t tend to get enough credit as a tech company because to them tech takes a back seat to entertainment in the public eye. That can be frustrating and humbling as an engineer, at times, but its definitely enlightening. Weren't Bob Iger and Steve Jobs close or at least friends? That kind of echoes Jobs' sentiment about "technology alone is not enough — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.” Tech to these guys is a means to a goal.
  - tboughen 7y ago
    Bob Iger and Steve Jobs were very close friends. I heard an interview of Bob Iger on BBC Radio 4 this afternoon where he spoke at length about his friendship with Steve Jobs https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b0c9#play https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b0c9#play
    - Austin_Conlon 7y ago
      Steve Jobs on storytelling and Disney's monopoly on the business: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-stories-about-people-randomly-or-non-randomly-meeting-Steve-Jobs/answer/Tomas-Higbey https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-stories-about-people...
      - aprdm 7y ago
        That was when Steve and the CEO before Bob didn't get together... Steve did sell Pixar to Disney after all.
  - matt-attack 7y ago
    TFA has a touching blurb about just how close they were. The 2nd person Jobs confided in when he was diagnosed with cancer was Iger (after his wife).
    - ksec 7y ago
      Which makes me think back about Steve Jobs's reference on his tens ( and now hundreds ) of billion in cash pile, waiting for one big bet. I wonder if this bet would be to acquire majority stake in Disney if Steve is still alive.
- Traster 7y ago
  To be honest the reputation I see in Disney is they just buy everything - and they're very good at that. However, I don't think it's the same thing for Disney to create fantastic to CG animation, and Disney to buy Pixar.
  - WillPostForFood 7y ago
    I don't think it's the same thing for Disney to create fantastic to CG animation, and Disney to buy Pixar. They are doing both (creating and buying). They bought Pixar, but are also making movies internally that are comparable in quality like Frozen, Big Hero 6, Moana, and Wreck it Ralph.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > bought Pixar, but are also making movies internally that are comparable in quality like Frozen, Frozen was done after the Pixar acquisition and helmed internally by the same director from Pixar that Disney had sought to have do it when they wanted to do it with Pixar before the acquisition, so, while it wasn't organizationally within Pixar but at Disney Animation Studios, I'm not sure you can really describe it as not independent of the Pixar acquisition.
      - WillPostForFood 7y ago
        Frozen was written by Jennifer Lee and directed by Jennifer Lee & Chris Buck, and produced by Peter Del Vecho. All three were from Disney Animation, none of them ever worked for Pixar.
  - FillardMillmore 7y ago
    They are of course proficient at worthwhile acquisitions (Marvel and Lucasfilm come to mind) but they also still make movies that rake in the cash. Their recent remake of the Lion King had a box office of 1.655 billion. It is of course debatable whether or not these remakes are as good as the originals or whether they maintain the creativity and originality that Disney has become known for, but it doesn't seem to be debatable that they are successful financially. Not to mention, Disney is excellent at marketing. Top of their class, I'd say.
- bsder 7y ago
  > Disney doesn’t tend to get enough credit as a tech company because to them tech takes a back seat to entertainment in the public eye. I don't know. Most people who have an inkling about engineering generally regard the theme parks with nothing short of awe.
- grawprog 7y ago
  >Disney doesn’t tend to get enough credit as a tech company I think more in the early days of film they were more highly regarded for this. Especially among animators. Disney pioneered a lot animation and filmmaking techniques. Though their acquiring and Hmmm 'lifting of source material and content' has always happened. Take a look at Disney's Aladdin vs the Popeye version, the story elements changed from the original story are eerily similar between the two.
naringas 7y ago
also about Iger's Disney https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/its-time-to-break-up-disney-part https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/its-time-to-break-up-disn...
- aidenn0 7y ago
  Nice article. One point: > Disney will have to lose money it could otherwise make in order to differentiate its streaming service. > Such a move cuts against much industrial organizational economic theory. Theorists posit that corporations like Disney tend not to intentionally lose money just to acquire market power, because foregoing revenue is not, apparently, rational. This theory is nonsense. After all, if Disney is willing to tolerate losses just to drive competitors out of business, then vertical foreclosure is deeply problematic, and perhaps illegal. The reason it's not typically rational is that you have no guarantee of being able to maintain your monopoly once you've cornered the market. As soon as you raise prices to recoup your losses, competitors will come out of the woodwork. This is not the case with media companies though, because they have a government enforced 95 year monopoly on their content. If Disney were to put Netflix out of business, buy Netflix's content, and then raise their Disney+ service price, I cannot legally setup a competing service to stream Netflix's old content. TL;DR: The economic theory that says predatory pricing is usually irrational assumes fungible goods, but media is not fungible.
  - echelon 7y ago
    > media is not fungible. It could be. Imagine a world where movies don't cost millions of dollars to make.
    - naringas 7y ago
      how would that make movies indistinguishable from each other?
      - CharlesW 7y ago
        Also, you don't need millions to make a movie. https://www.webfilmschool.com/independent-filmmaking-the-7-movie-budgets-can-you-name-them/ https://www.webfilmschool.com/independent-filmmaking-the-7-m...
aprdm 7y ago
I highly recommend his recent book! Had no idea how close he was to Steve Jobs and it is incredible how Bob/Steve changed Disney.
woander 7y ago
Why is it that every post about a company ( Disney today, Stripe yesterday, Microsoft, Gitlab, Bloomberg, , etc ), the top comment is always a PR-style praise of the company? It's always "I used to work at and so and so is great" or "I know someone who worked at and so and so is great".
- scarface74 7y ago
  So you’re surprised that a site called Hacker News is made up of people who appreciate tech?
- bequestry 7y ago
  Seen anything about china/hong kong in the news lately? Seen a lot anout pro blizzard/pro disney?
- CodingSucks 7y ago
  Because Disney's ABC got busted not covering Effrey Jepstein and now the Mouse needs some puff pieces.

62 points by quickfox 7y ago

I worked at Disney for many years. Fun fact: Disney has no CTO...just EVPs per division. This is, in part, because Iger considers himself the CTO Of Disney. That may seem funny to HN, because you’ll never hear him say anything about Kubernetes or Cloud, but he’s made some pretty big technology bets in his tenure that have delivered on Disney’s goals. Disney+ is actually the product of a 2B acquisition of BAMTech. Disney also has a pretty huge chunk of high end graphics tech thanks to investments in ILM, Pixar, and Animation. XLab is another source of tech innovation. Disney doesn’t tend to get enough credit as a tech company because to them tech takes a back seat to entertainment in the public eye. That can be frustrating and humbling as an engineer, at times, but its definitely enlightening.

Razengan 7y ago
> Disney doesn’t tend to get enough credit as a tech company because to them tech takes a back seat to entertainment in the public eye. That can be frustrating and humbling as an engineer, at times, but its definitely enlightening. Weren't Bob Iger and Steve Jobs close or at least friends? That kind of echoes Jobs' sentiment about "technology alone is not enough — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.” Tech to these guys is a means to a goal.
- tboughen 7y ago
  Bob Iger and Steve Jobs were very close friends. I heard an interview of Bob Iger on BBC Radio 4 this afternoon where he spoke at length about his friendship with Steve Jobs https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b0c9#play https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b0c9#play
  - Austin_Conlon 7y ago
    Steve Jobs on storytelling and Disney's monopoly on the business: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-stories-about-people-randomly-or-non-randomly-meeting-Steve-Jobs/answer/Tomas-Higbey https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-stories-about-people...
    - aprdm 7y ago
      That was when Steve and the CEO before Bob didn't get together... Steve did sell Pixar to Disney after all.
- matt-attack 7y ago
  TFA has a touching blurb about just how close they were. The 2nd person Jobs confided in when he was diagnosed with cancer was Iger (after his wife).
  - ksec 7y ago
    Which makes me think back about Steve Jobs's reference on his tens ( and now hundreds ) of billion in cash pile, waiting for one big bet. I wonder if this bet would be to acquire majority stake in Disney if Steve is still alive.
Traster 7y ago
To be honest the reputation I see in Disney is they just buy everything - and they're very good at that. However, I don't think it's the same thing for Disney to create fantastic to CG animation, and Disney to buy Pixar.
- WillPostForFood 7y ago
  I don't think it's the same thing for Disney to create fantastic to CG animation, and Disney to buy Pixar. They are doing both (creating and buying). They bought Pixar, but are also making movies internally that are comparable in quality like Frozen, Big Hero 6, Moana, and Wreck it Ralph.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > bought Pixar, but are also making movies internally that are comparable in quality like Frozen, Frozen was done after the Pixar acquisition and helmed internally by the same director from Pixar that Disney had sought to have do it when they wanted to do it with Pixar before the acquisition, so, while it wasn't organizationally within Pixar but at Disney Animation Studios, I'm not sure you can really describe it as not independent of the Pixar acquisition.
    - WillPostForFood 7y ago
      Frozen was written by Jennifer Lee and directed by Jennifer Lee & Chris Buck, and produced by Peter Del Vecho. All three were from Disney Animation, none of them ever worked for Pixar.
- FillardMillmore 7y ago
  They are of course proficient at worthwhile acquisitions (Marvel and Lucasfilm come to mind) but they also still make movies that rake in the cash. Their recent remake of the Lion King had a box office of 1.655 billion. It is of course debatable whether or not these remakes are as good as the originals or whether they maintain the creativity and originality that Disney has become known for, but it doesn't seem to be debatable that they are successful financially. Not to mention, Disney is excellent at marketing. Top of their class, I'd say.
bsder 7y ago
> Disney doesn’t tend to get enough credit as a tech company because to them tech takes a back seat to entertainment in the public eye. I don't know. Most people who have an inkling about engineering generally regard the theme parks with nothing short of awe.
grawprog 7y ago
>Disney doesn’t tend to get enough credit as a tech company I think more in the early days of film they were more highly regarded for this. Especially among animators. Disney pioneered a lot animation and filmmaking techniques. Though their acquiring and Hmmm 'lifting of source material and content' has always happened. Take a look at Disney's Aladdin vs the Popeye version, the story elements changed from the original story are eerily similar between the two.

naringas 7y ago

also about Iger's Disney https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/its-time-to-break-up-disney-part https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/its-time-to-break-up-disn...

aidenn0 7y ago
Nice article. One point: > Disney will have to lose money it could otherwise make in order to differentiate its streaming service. > Such a move cuts against much industrial organizational economic theory. Theorists posit that corporations like Disney tend not to intentionally lose money just to acquire market power, because foregoing revenue is not, apparently, rational. This theory is nonsense. After all, if Disney is willing to tolerate losses just to drive competitors out of business, then vertical foreclosure is deeply problematic, and perhaps illegal. The reason it's not typically rational is that you have no guarantee of being able to maintain your monopoly once you've cornered the market. As soon as you raise prices to recoup your losses, competitors will come out of the woodwork. This is not the case with media companies though, because they have a government enforced 95 year monopoly on their content. If Disney were to put Netflix out of business, buy Netflix's content, and then raise their Disney+ service price, I cannot legally setup a competing service to stream Netflix's old content. TL;DR: The economic theory that says predatory pricing is usually irrational assumes fungible goods, but media is not fungible.
- echelon 7y ago
  > media is not fungible. It could be. Imagine a world where movies don't cost millions of dollars to make.
  - naringas 7y ago
    how would that make movies indistinguishable from each other?
    - CharlesW 7y ago
      Also, you don't need millions to make a movie. https://www.webfilmschool.com/independent-filmmaking-the-7-movie-budgets-can-you-name-them/ https://www.webfilmschool.com/independent-filmmaking-the-7-m...

aprdm 7y ago

I highly recommend his recent book! Had no idea how close he was to Steve Jobs and it is incredible how Bob/Steve changed Disney.

woander 7y ago

Why is it that every post about a company ( Disney today, Stripe yesterday, Microsoft, Gitlab, Bloomberg, , etc ), the top comment is always a PR-style praise of the company? It's always "I used to work at and so and so is great" or "I know someone who worked at and so and so is great".

scarface74 7y ago
So you’re surprised that a site called Hacker News is made up of people who appreciate tech?
bequestry 7y ago
Seen anything about china/hong kong in the news lately? Seen a lot anout pro blizzard/pro disney?
CodingSucks 7y ago
Because Disney's ABC got busted not covering Effrey Jepstein and now the Mouse needs some puff pieces.