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I’ve never written a book review before. I’m 100% sure there are editorial standards in doing so that I will fall short of. That said, I read this book, and I’ve read other books, and I’m comfortable giving and explaining my opinion of this book.
And I do have to add, this is more of a book recap than a book review. I go through the book, discussing the things that Bob discusses and adding my commentary on the issues and on how Bob presented them. If you’re not interested in that, you may just want to go ahead and purchase the book yourself (affiliate link).
Note: The title of this review has been updated to reflect that Bob Iger is, once again, Disney CEO.
Who Is Bob Iger?
The prologue starts the book on an emotional note—documenting the days in 2016 that Iger spent opening Shanghai Disneyland while on the other side of the world, the Pulse nightclub shooting and then the alligator attack on a child at Grand Floridian unfolded.
Iger is well respected, even among critics of The Walt Disney Company, so perhaps an emotional hook isn’t necessary, but discussing his vulnerability at what should have been the high point of his career (the opening of Shanghai Disneyland) serves as a reminder that you can’t talk about business without talking about life.
It’s an effective start, one that immediately had me invested and started my emotions churning.
The book is largely chronological, which is notable because Iger actually has a chronological story to tell—something rare in high-profile executives. Obviously all companies and careers develop over time, but few high-profile executives built their careers starting at the bottom of the company.
Part 1, “Learning” focuses on the time before Iger became CEO of The Walt Disney Company. Overall this part could use more confidence from Iger. Then again, it is about “Learning,” so the persistent humility he shows at least fits the theme.
The first few chapters cover Iger’s start in entertainment. While he speaks in great deal about those above and around him, we are sort of left to wonder exactly how the author moved up the corporate ranks.
It’s obvious he had a skill for project management and an intense work ethic, but the lack of any exciting moments of early career development sort of reveals the mundanity of corporate life. Luckily (for the reader) the early days do come with a few juicy stories, from vulgar producers to an encounter with Frank Sinatra.
Even more interesting are some dictums we hear from those around Iger in these early years. “Innovate or die,” and “You can’t save yourself to success” speak poignantly to Disney parks fans these days (though obviously we need acknowledge the larger context of the current pullback in entertainment expenditures).
As he moves up in ABC, it’s clear that his penchant for risk-taking, along with an acknowledgment of his own limited expertise, drives much success. His decisions to air Twin Peaks and NYPD Blue are highlights of this time. As a television fan myself, these decisions are enough to earn Iger sizable respect in my book.
But again, as a parks fan, it’s hard to look at that body of work and not smirk in comparing it to where things stand at this moment. After all, what could have been a safer play than building a land based on one of the highest grossing film franchises of the decade and of all-time, Star Wars?
It’s especially painful when you consider the comparative risk of basing an entire land off Avatar. Yes, it was the highest grossing film of all-time, but it was a single film, and as a response to Harry Potter getting its own land, Avatar was a curious choice. Add to this that one of Disney’s most respected Imagineers and the man who would ultimately control the project, Joe Rohde, called building Pandora “impossible.” That was risky, and it paid off.
If risk-taking is what got Iger to where he is today, it’s certainly disappointing to see him wrapping things up with a “safe” bet having gone sideways. (Regardless of my own feelings, it’s impossible to say that sentiment around Galaxy’s Edge from a business perspective isn’t worrisome at the moment.)
The Disney acquisition of ABC gets brief treatment, and the early years at Disney again pass by with little discussion of the business of things. In particular, we go from 1994/1995, when ABC was sitting pretty at the top of the ratings, to post-2000, when Iger admits he bears “some of the blame” for the slip from #1 to #3.
The irony of this turn, from a narrative standpoint, is that it happens across a section in which Iger specifically details how he was careful to focus on his job and not the job he aspired to—CEO of The Walt Disney Company.
This obviously isn’t a critique of how Iger did business these years. I’m no executive and wouldn’t dream of criticizing business decisions made at the top of ABC while I learned my ABCs.
And Iger does spend time explaining his expanding slate of responsibilities, part of the “always be available to help” attitude that would eventually win him the seat at the top. It’s just jarring to go from him accepting responsibility for the successes and then a few pages later sort of passing over the declines.
The end of Part 1 is carried by Iger’s relationship with Michael Eisner, then-CEO of The Walt Disney Company.
The treatment of Eisner is…awkward. In part, this is because everyone, including most readers, know things don’t end well for Eisner. It’s also a matter of timing. Iger came in at the height of Eisner’s success and spent much of his time at Disney watching the downfall.
In broad terms, Iger talks him up as “one of the most respected CEOs in the world,” but on specifics Eisner looks less appealing. Eisner’s confusing, inconsistent treatment of Iger frequently rears its head. Once Iger officially gets the #2 spot at the company things sound smooth, but then comes the 2001 downturn.
Iger is honest about the awkwardness of that time, but you start to feel excessive sympathy for Eisner, almost at the expense of the author himself. When Roy Disney delivers his letter of resignation from the board, the top item on his scathing list of indictments of Eisner is “the failure to bring ABC Prime Time back from its ratings abyss.” Pages earlier, when Iger describes how business was divided between the men, “media networks” fell under Iger’s domain.
This is all to say that readers looking for honest insight into this tumultuous period of Disney history probably won’t find it here. While many characters are given a “…it’s not that he was a bad person/executive/manager…” treatment, Eisner definitely gets the most awkward level of protection.
In passing, after it’s been announced that Eisner will step down, Iger writes that “[Eisner’s] attention was often understandably elsewhere.” It really puts a pin in things to openly say the man wasn’t carrying his weight—as CEO of one of the largest companies in the world, no less—but that his failure to do so was “understandable.”
Part 1 ends leaving the reader asking the same questions the board struggled with—why you? Who are you?
It definitely is not the case that nothing makes him an impressive figure. He does highlight an intense work ethic a number of times. Risk-taking is also a theme. But he refuses to hammer any of these home.
The ending of Part 1, as his journey to the CEO position hits its climax—when Iger is on the cusp of being as far from an “average Joe” as he can be—mostly serves as a reminder of his humanity. He suffers an anxiety attack and loses his patience with the Board and their never-ending selection process.
Having begun with those painful days in Shanghai and now ending with stress over an extended interview process, Iger has surely proven his humanity by the end of Part 1. But that’s a curious choice for a book he explicitly says is “not a memoir.”
Throughout Part 1 we met personalities. There’s the relentless perfectionist, Roone Arledge. The CEO who bragged about picking themed lamps, Michael Eisner. And the man with such infamous personality he needs little introduction—Steve Jobs. And in meeting each of them you can’t help but think “that’s what made them great.”
But what makes Bob Iger great?
Part 2, “Leading,” covers the time following Iger being picked to take over Disney. Almost answering the question that was left at the end of Part 1, Iger immediately puts his humanity to work, repairing the Company’s relationships with Roy Disney and Steve Jobs.
The Pixar acquisition continues the theme—a long-shot that wasn’t as long as it seemed, and a dose of Iger’s humanity bringing the deal together.
The acquisition of Pixar was a landmark for a lot of reasons, most notably it began a trend that continued with Marvel and Star Wars of Disney buying external brands and bringing them into the fold.
It’s easy to look back at Pixar and forget that it wasn’t “Disney” originally. The films were distributed by Disney, but they were produced by an entirely separate entity, Pixar.
Iger comments watching a parade in Hong Kong Disneyland that none of the characters from Disney films were younger than ten years old, and he mentions the presence of Toy Story, Monsters Inc., and Finding Nemo characters.
At the time, it was easy (from the outside) to look past the role the acquisition played in Iger’s larger strategy of IP acquisition because what Pixar did was very similar to what Disney did, and indeed they often did it in partnership. Later, Iger contrasts how Disney and Pixar films are co-branded with the distinct identities maintained by Marvel and Star Wars.
In short, Iger saw in that Hong Kong Disneyland that the future of content wouldn’t come from within. He saw it in the Pixar partnership, and it continues to today. (It’s worth mentioning, of course, that the Pixar acquisition did indeed also help to rejuvenate Disney Animation.)
And so the story turns to the Marvel acquisition. Iger explains he started with Marvel—rather than Star Wars—in part because he thought George Lucas would be unlikely to see. What’s curious, though, is that the previous chapter had largely centered on him swinging for the fences and being surprised to find such a willing partner in Steve Jobs. We’re sort of left to ask what made the Lucas situation different.
While the Pixar acquisition was an impressive effort, the Marvel acquisition serves as a better showcase of Iger’s skillset. His tracking down of the notoriously reclusive CEO, Ike Perlmutter, harkens back to learning early in his career to do whatever it takes to get the job done.
And when it comes to sell the idea, Iger uses his own experiences on the other side of a Disney acquisition (when Disney acquired ABC) to sell the idea to his target. He even admits to using the same line he’d used toward Pixar—“It doesn’t make any sense for us to buy you for what you are and then turn you into something else.”
Iger highlights the risks he took with Marvel, including his insistence on the Black Panther and Captain Marvel films (both of which I love, by the way).
It’s easy to sit back as a theme park fan and complain that Black Panther doing a character greeting in Disney California Adventure makes absolutely no sense…but it’s also hard to look at a $4 billion acquisition that has generated somewhere around $20 billion in profits and be critical.
The Marvel acquisition chapter also covers a bit more of the relationship with Steve Jobs. A highlight is Iger taking Steve Jobs to see Art of Animation (more likely it was Pop Century) and Steve telling him “This is crap. You’re not faking anybody.” Iger’s response is, in part, that it wasn’t built for Steve Jobs.
Many commentators have already discussed that widely known fact that George Lucas was not happy with The Force Awakens. For his part, Iger admits that he could have took better care to personally tell Lucas his ideas would not be used, but at the end it boils down to something similar to what he told Steve—these news films weren’t for George Lucas.
He closes that chapter by highlighting what we already know as the theme of this section, and what he has taken care to make sure numerous characters have told us—Bob Iger wants us all to know we can trust him with our children.
It’s oddly on-the-nose that Lucas and Iger comment on Star Wars being like Lucas’s child. As the CEO of the brand that essentially defines family friendly entertainment, Iger plays a role in the lives of children throughout the world. And here his is, detailing his ability to convince three hard-headed parents to give up their children to him.
The final chapters of the book cover the development of Disney+ and the Fox acquisition. This is among the most interesting sections from a business perspective, although now this is the fourth time we’re doing this acquisition song and dance.
I found it interesting as a millennial consumer to hear Iger talk about Disney+. He contrasts his 2017 announcement of Disney+ with a 2015 earnings call where the theme was how much disruption was hurting their business. (Disney’s market capitalization—the worth of the company—was flat from 2015 until April 2019.)
To many of us on the outside, Disney+ was an obvious idea by 2015. Netflix was at 75 million subscribers, cord cutting was all the rage, and Disney was already a partner in Hulu. Consumers have raged for years about how difficult it is to consume content.
Netflix’s market cap in 2015 put it at roughly 1/4 to 1/3 the size of Disney. To hear Rupert Murdoch and Bob Iger discuss things, disruption was just starting to do its thing. They’re sitting pretty with their hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place just now realizing that the rest of the Monopoly board has been consolidated. “They’re coming for us next…” ya think?
It isn’t strange that Disney was late to the streaming party, except as far as Hulu was concerned. It’s understandable for the main reason Iger gives—it’s tough for a $150+ billion dollar company with a ton of established parts and quarterly earnings demands to recognize it needs to disrupt itself.
What’s strange is that Iger frames this as innovating. The innovating had already been done. By 2015, Netflix had already shown that not only was streaming the future, but that streaming companies could create their own content.
“It’s a strange thing, to think on the one hand that the narrative of your life makes complete sense.”
That’s a strange quote to include in a book that, again, purports to be a business book, not a memoir. But that ongoing gripe aside, the quote reveals the fundamental challenge for the book—Iger’s attempt to craft an enjoyable, sensible narrative sometimes falls flat as he refuses to make himself the hero of his own story.
At the main turning point of the book, when Iger fighting for the CEO job, he comes upon the idea that he can’t rehash the past. He can’t tell people why he might be better than the departing Michael Eisner. He refused then to look back and give the board a narrative where he played the hero. And now, looking back on his entire career, he again refuses to be the hero.