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As a former Disney employee and someone who's kept up with internal politics, even though his contract was up at the end of next year this feels sudden and not
by madrox 7y ago
As a former Disney employee and someone who's kept up with internal politics, even though his contract was up at the end of next year this feels sudden and not in line with how Disney tends to do things. Disney has quite a number of disparate businesses, from theme parks to streaming services to movies. Chapek is a business guy that has done consumer products and parks (parts of the business that aren't huge growth areas), and hasn't even been president of parks for that long. He has no experience on the creative side. Usually the future CEO is appointed to a COO/President role in order to help them learn the parts of the business they don't have experience in. It also helps vet if they'll be capable of leading all those business heads, which is how they determined not to go with Tom Staggs after he was made COO. Not doing this is pretty irregular, especially with all the shakeup that occurred with Fox. They're still working through a lot of that.
Similarly, I don't buy the story that Iger is moving into a creative leadership role. It's true there's been a vacuum there since Lasseter left, but unless there's long term tenure planned, Iger won't be very influential. Anyone who's worked at a large company knows that no one listens to the guy whose only responsibility is to have creative ideas if they have no other real responsibility and will be out in a few months. Iger put himself into a meaningless, insignificant role, and no one has satisfactorily explained why.
I don't think there's a scandal. If there was, the narrative around his departure would be different and he wouldn't be sticking out to the end of his contract. He wouldn't still be chairman of the board. I've heard a rumor the board is upset about Star Wars, but Q1 2020 was pretty solid and Mandalorian was well received. I'm actually worried he's sick, though I hope not because I admire him a lot. Regardless, I do feel like there's another shoe. I guess we'll have to wait to find out what it is.
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- onlyrealcuzzo 7y agoWhen CEOs unexpectedly leave, don't they usually do it because they know something? Have there been CEOs in the past that have "left", but actually been forced out due to scandal? It seems like there's been a few attempts at that, but of the cases I know, the CEOs seem to fight back and try to keep their position.
- pixl97 7y ago>When CEOs unexpectedly leave, don't they usually do it because they know something That in theater revenue is about to tank because of virus fears? Then again I have no idea how much of Disney revenue occurs at the movies.
- madrox 7y agoThey do better than most other studios, but that's a declining segment. Also, it represents a very, very small part of Disney's overall revenue. If everyone literally stopped going to theaters tomorrow then Disney would still be earning billions a year. Also, you can't blame the CEO for sales being down during an epidemic. No one else would do better.
- jedieaston 7y agoMaybe, maybe not. Because if no one goes to movies and no theme parks, then..?
- dragontamer 7y agoThen no one subscribes to Disney+ streaming, and if no one buys Disney clothes or toys, and if no one goes on Disney Cruises, and if everybody stopped watching ESPN Sports or sports on ABC (including football). Then maybe... just maybe... Disney will start to have some issues.
- Retric 7y agoJust start looking through this list it’s an insane 240Billion dollar conglomerate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_The_Walt_Disney_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_The_Wa...
- usrusr 7y agoWould be made up tenfold in streaming when everyone avoids public entertainment, with less middlemen, and tanking theatre sales would still be available as a convenient excuse if needed. It couldn't possibly be about virus fears.
- dntbnmpls 7y ago> Similarly, I don't buy the story that Iger is moving into a creative leadership role. He's still staying on as executive chairman which outranks the CEO. But it is nevertheless odd that he is stepping down so quickly without a transition period. I don't think it is scandal driven or the board would have ousted him from his chairman position as well. I'm just guessing here, but it could be health related. The last time a major CEO stepped aside was Steve Jobs due to illness. Eventually, Tim Cook became the CEO while Jobs stayed on as Apple's chairman until his death. I remember there was talk about him running for president as well. Could be that as well but it is a bit late in the game for that. It's puzzling for sure.
- madrox 7y agoHe decided a couple years ago not to run. I'm worried it's health as well. Even though he's in great shape, he's pushing 70.
- zaphirplane 7y agoMark Hurd also stepped aside quickly
- gfmentor 7y agoIf he was great then he wouldn’t be leaving now. You don’t have to keep up with internal politics to know that.
- lefstathiou 7y agoA buddy of mine speculated he may be gearing up to run for the oval office. Seems outlandish but I kind of like the idea...
- madrox 7y agoI don't know if it's common knowledge or not, but he decided not to a couple years ago. His family doesn't want him to.
- aerovistae 7y agoWhy would the board be upset about star wars?
- madrox 7y agoThe movies have generally underperformed and hasn't hit internationally like they hoped. They've had to revise a lot of their long term plans of Star Wars. It hasn't been great. Regardless, I don't think they're that upset. Star Wars hasn't been a home run, but it's been a solid double and net positive to Disney.
- tomohawk 7y agoThe mismanagement of the franchise turned off so many people. This caused Solo to tank. This cause lots of major talent such as Lawrence Kasdan, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to leave the franchise. Benioff and Weiss were slated to do a whole new trilogy for Star Wars, but they suddenly realized they didn't have time.
- selimthegrim 7y agoWhat about Solo in particular? I thought Kasdan saved it from the comedy pair.
- m-p-3 7y agoI think Solo was good, but it was a collateral damage from the fanbase.
- snowwrestler 7y agoThey should have given Solo a year from The Last Jedi, especially after there were such vocal complaints about it. Instead they stuck to their May release date. A lot of people feel that hurt Solo’s box office a lot.
- randycupertino 7y ago^ agree. If anything is ruining Star Wars, it's Disney's non-stop focus of milking the franchise like a bottomless cash cow. They're rushing storylines, inventing characters just to sell merchandise (porg plushies!) and creating fans fatigue with movies coming out nonstop like clockwork every year.
- dakial1 7y agoI'm actually worried he's sick, though I hope not because I admire him a lot. That was my first thought also. Similar to what happened to Accenture's Pierre Nanterme, who had to step down because of his cancer (and sadly succumbed to it in 2019). But he was transparent about the reason, I don't know what was the rationale for Iger.
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- allen3 7y agoThe board doesn't care about Star Wars or any movie title, the board job isn't to care about revenue that a film brings in that's the executive leadership job.
- late2part 7y agoWhat are you going on about? The board represents the shareholders, and cares about the stock price, which is influenced by the P&L of various projects. So it is very reasonable for the board to care. I've seen Board Members spend dozens of hours on a $20k sale for a company.
- allen3 7y agoSusan E. Arnold (executive of The Carlyle Group), Mary T. Barra (GM CEO), Safra A. Catz (CEO of Oracle), Francis A. deSouza (CEO of Illumina), Michael Froman (Vice Chairman and President, Strategic Growth at Mastercard), Maria Elena Lagomasino (CEO of WE Family Offices), Mark G. Parker (CEO of Nike), Derica W. Rice (Executive Vice President of CVS Health). Almost half of the board is a CEO of another company, you think they care about P&L of Disney? The board is mandated with 3 committees which are the Audit Committee, the Compensation Committee and the Governance and Nominating Committee. None of the committees deal with P&L or stock price. The executive team deals with the day to day operations of the company, the CFO should be the one asking about P&L and not the board. The Disney board met 7 times in 2019. I doubt they spoke about the Star Wars or any film during that meeting.
- CamouflagedKiwi 7y agoOf course the board would be concerned if they feel the company is failing to execute on one of its core properties. They're not chatting about films for fun, they acquired Lucasfilm for $4B and it's not unreasonable for them to be concerned that money's not been used as well as it could have been.
- late2part 7y agoI think you are confusing the documented policies with how the world actually works.
- dboreham 7y agoDarn. My first thought was he has decided to run for president.
- KingFelix 7y agoGreat comment, Thank you
- wolco 7y ago"Iger won't be very influential". You don't know Bob. His voice will pull strings behind the scene. He may even work his way back. Very few have his understanding of all of the parts. He will be leaned on heavily. Plus he is someone with political favours to spend.
- madrox 7y agoHe'll be in the room where it happens, sure. Point is that if anyone has creative differences with him, they'll feel no desire to align with him. It won't be like he'll be held accountable if he's wrong, and he'll be long gone by the time any current projects see daylight. Disney (even Iger himself) has done this to quite a few people over the years. At Disney we called it putting someone in the "aloha suite"
- to11mtm 7y agoUmm, WAT? The answer to this is simple. Paz de la Huerta named Iger (and Eisner) in her lawsuit against Weinstein. The allegations in short were that that their behavior allowed Miramax to cover up what happened to her. Weinstein was just convicted of Rape. That's separate from the civil cases, but with a criminal conviction on even one, the civil cases become that much easier to win. In my mind either he's stepping down because it will help in damage control/settlement amount negotiations, or it was part of a settlement itself.
- madrox 7y agoPossible, but I don't think he'd remain as chairman and finish out his contract if that were the case. When Lasseter was in that position, as beloved as he was at the time, they didn't hesitate to cut all ties. I think it's something else. Then again, I could be wrong.
- thu2111 7y agoLasseter wasn't the CEO.
- jedieaston 7y agoNo, but if anything, he was the leader of Disney Animation, probably the most important thing to get right for Iger (since Eisner had bungled it so much). They needed him, but didn’t hesitate to cut him as far as they could until projects completed and he was let loose.
- ahaferburg 7y agoFrom Lasserter's Wikipedia entry: > The films he has made have grossed more than $19 billion (USD), making him one of the most successful filmmakers of all time.