What Next for Disney

Quote: DRich

The end of Disney was December of 1966.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney

They should soon be ready to thaw him out and get him back in the CEO chair.

Quote: AZDuffman

They should soon be ready to thaw him out and get him back in the CEO chair.

Everything I ever read about Walt Disney said he was a total jerk of a boss. He underpaid an overworked all his cartoonists and they hated his guts.

1994’s unauthorized Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince. Author Marc Eliot alleged that Disney was an informant for J. Edgar Hoover who ratted out a number of “politically subversive” people – mostly union sympathizers — to the FBI. Disney was often petty and vindictive and he almost never would praise or compliment anybody who worked for him. In fact, he would often fire somebody and hire them back a few weeks later just to teach them a lesson. He held grudges, he was a rabid anti-semite, he was a tyrant of a boss. The image of him being a soft-spoken grandfatherly type was a well-crafted public persona.

Quote: Evenbob

Everything I ever read about Walt Disney said he was a total jerk of a boss. He underpaid an overworked all his cartoonists and they hated his guts.

1994’s unauthorized Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince. Author Marc Eliot alleged that Disney was an informant for J. Edgar Hoover who ratted out a number of “politically subversive” people – mostly union sympathizers — to the FBI. Disney was often petty and vindictive and he almost never would praise or compliment anybody who worked for him. In fact, he would often fire somebody and hire them back a few weeks later just to teach them a lesson. He held grudges, he was a rabid anti-semite, he was a tyrant of a boss. The image of him being a soft-spoken grandfatherly type was a well-crafted public persona.

Sounds like a mix of Steve Jobs and Ray Kroc. With some Henry Ford thrown in.

Lots of those kind in the ranks of successful businessmen.

Quote: AZDuffman

Lots of those kind in the ranks of successful businessmen.

He would also dress in his sister's clothes when he was in grade school and prance around the house. He would brag to colleagues that he soaked his testicles in ice water before he had sex because it made him last longer with his wife. This was long long before it was okay to talk about stuff like that. Disney was angry and paranoid and thought his cartoonists were communists who were trying to ruin him by starting unions. He was always broke because in the early days he had just as many colossal failures as he did successes and it wasn't until Disneyland took off they really started to make money. If he thought you wronged him in some way he never forgot it it would be always trying to pay you back. He was the polar opposite of that nice grandfatherly old man we saw on the Wonderful World of Disney.

Quote: Evenbob

He was always broke because in the early days he had just as many colossal failures as he did successes and it wasn't until Disneyland took off they really started to make money.

Nothing wrong with that. Successful people try lots of things, some work some do not. VC is based on it.