Shanghai Disneyland cost about $6 billion to build. It is 963 acres, about eleven times the size of Disneyland.
The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection. This doesn’t mean perfectionism at all costs, but it does mean a refusal to accept mediocrity or make excuses for something being “good enough.” If you believe that something can be made better, put in the effort to do it. If you’re in the business of making things, be in the business of making things great.
Innovate or die, and there’s no innovation if you operate out of fear of the new or untested.
His mantra was simple: “Do what you need to do to make it better.”
Instead, it’s about creating an environment in which you refuse to accept mediocrity. You instinctively push back against the urge to say There’s not enough time, or I don’t have the energy, or This requires a difficult conversation I don’t want to have, or any of the many other ways we can convince ourselves that “good enough” is good enough.
It’s a delicate thing, finding the balance between demanding that your people perform and not instilling a fear of failure in them.
In your work, in your life, you’ll be more respected and trusted by the people around you if you honestly own up to your mistakes. It’s impossible not to make them; but it is possible to acknowledge them, learn from them, and set an example that it’s okay to get things wrong sometimes. What’s not okay is to undermine others by lying about something or covering your own ass first.
But I learned something else along the way, too: Excellence and fairness don’t have to be mutually exclusive. I wouldn’t have articulated it that way at the time. Mostly I was just focused on doing my job well and certainly wasn’t thinking about what I’d do differently if I were in Roone’s shoes. But years later, when I was given the chance to lead, I was instinctively aware of both the need to strive for perfection and the pitfalls of caring only about the product and never the people.
My instinct throughout my career has always been to say yes to every opportunity.
She was incredibly supportive. “Life’s an adventure,” she said. “If you don’t choose the adventurous path, then you’re not really living.”
There’s nothing less confidence-inspiring than a person faking a knowledge they don’t possess. True authority and true leadership come from knowing who you are and not pretending to be anything else.
Empathy is a prerequisite to the sound management of creativity, and respect is critical.
Of all the lessons I learned in that first year running prime time, the need to be comfortable with failure was the most profound. Not with lack of effort but with the unavoidable truth that if you want innovation—and you should, always—you need to give permission to fail.
“Avoid getting into the business of manufacturing trombone oil. You may become the greatest trombone-oil manufacturer in the world, but in the end, the world only consumes a few quarts of trombone oil a year!” He was telling me not to invest in projects that would sap the resources of my company and me and not give much back.
In the mid-’90s, Disney had made a deal with Pixar to coproduce, market, and distribute five of their films. Toy Story was released in 1995 under a previous deal. It was the first full-length digitally animated feature film—a seismic creative and technological leap—and it grossed nearly $400 million worldwide. Toy Story was followed by two more successes: A Bug’s Life, in 1998, and Monsters, Inc.,
If you approach and engage people with respect and empathy, the seemingly impossible can become real.
“This is our new video iPod,” he said. It had a screen the size of a couple of postage stamps, but he was talking about it like it was an IMAX theater. “This is going to allow people to watch video on our iPods, not just listen to music,” he said. “If we bring this product to market, will you put your television shows on it?” I said yes right away.
By the time Michael named me COO, there were about sixty-five people in Strat Planning, and they’d taken over nearly all of the critical business decisions across the entire company.
THOSE MONTHS SPENT talking with Steve about putting our TV shows on his new iPod began—slowly, tentatively—to open up into discussions of a possible new Disney/Pixar deal.
“I’ve been thinking about our respective futures,” I said. “What do you think about the idea of Disney buying Pixar?” I waited for him to hang up or to erupt in laughter. The quiet before his response seemed endless. Instead, he said, “You know, that’s not the craziest idea in the world.”
One of the things I’ve always instinctively felt—and something that was greatly reinforced working for people like Roone and Michael—is that long shots aren’t usually as long as they seem.
It’s true that on paper the deal didn’t make obvious sense. But I felt certain that this level of ingenuity was worth more than any of us understood or could calculate at the time.
My instinct about Pixar was powerful. I believed this acquisition could transform us. It could fix Disney Animation; it could add Steve Jobs, arguably the strongest possible voice on issues of technology, to the Disney board; it could bring a culture of excellence and ambition into ours that would reverberate in much-needed ways throughout the company. Ultimately, the board could say no, but I couldn’t let go of this out of fear. I told my team that I respected their opinions, and I knew they were looking out for me, which I appreciated, but I thought we had to do this.
A lot of companies acquire others without much sensitivity regarding what they’re really buying. They think they’re getting physical assets or manufacturing assets or intellectual property (in some industries, that’s more true than in others). In most cases, what they’re really acquiring is people. In a creative business, that’s where the value truly lies.
On the day the board was set to vote, Michael came in and made his case. It was the same one he’d made with me—the price tag was too high, Steve was difficult and imperious and would demand control, Animation was not beyond repair. He looked at me and said, “Bob can fix Animation.” I said, “Michael, you couldn’t fix it, and now you’re telling me that I can?”
“The future of the company is right here, right now,” I said. “It’s in your hands.” I repeated something I’d said back in October, in my first board meeting as CEO. “As Disney Animation goes, so goes the company. It was true in 1937 with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and in 1994 with The Lion King, and it’s no less true right now. When Animation soars, Disney soars. We have to do this. Our path to the future starts right here, tonight.”
Who possessed great IP that could have applications across the full range of our businesses? Two companies came immediately to mind: Marvel Entertainment and Lucasfilm.
ON AUGUST 31, 2009, a few months after my first meeting with Ike, we announced we were buying Marvel for $4 billion. There were no leaks in advance, no speculation in the press about a possible acquisition. We just made the announcement, then prepared for the backlash: Marvel is going to lose its edge! Disney is going to lose its innocence! They spent $4 billion and they don’t have Spider-Man! Our stock fell 3 percent the day we announced the deal.
There’s a long-held view in Hollywood that films with predominantly black casts, or with black leads, will struggle in many international markets. That assumption has limited the number of black-led films being produced, and black actors being cast, and many of those that have been made had reduced budgets to mitigate the box-office risk.
“Look what we did,” he said. “We saved two companies.” All four of us teared up. This was Steve at his warmest and most sincere. He was convinced that Pixar had flourished in ways that it never would have had it not become part of Disney, and that Disney had been reenergized by bringing on Pixar.
On October 30, 2012, George came to my office, and we sat at my desk and signed an agreement for Disney to buy Lucasfilm. He was doing everything he could not to show it, but I could tell in the sound of his voice and the look in his eyes how emotional it was for him. He was signing away Star Wars, after all.
Projecting your anxiety onto your team is counterproductive. It’s subtle, but there’s a difference between communicating that you share their stress—that you’re in it with them—and communicating that you need them to deliver in order to alleviate your stress.
Steve had to believe my promise that we would respect the essence of Pixar. Ike needed to know that the Marvel team would be valued and given the chance to thrive in their new company. And George had to trust that his legacy, his “baby,” would be in good hands at Disney.
By early fall, we’d virtually closed a deal. Twitter’s board supported the sale, and on a Friday afternoon in October, our board gave their approval to finalize a deal. Then, that weekend, I decided not to go through with it. If earlier acquisitions, especially Pixar, were about trusting my instinct that it was the right thing for the company, the acquisition of Twitter was the opposite of that. Something inside me didn’t feel right.
“I know why companies fail to innovate,” I said to them at one point. “It’s tradition. Tradition generates so much friction, every step of the way.” I talked about the investment community, which so often punishes established companies for reducing profits under any circumstances, which often leads businesses to play it safe and keep doing what they’ve been doing, rather than spend capital in order to generate long-term growth or adapt to change.
As he pondered the future of his company in such a disrupted world, he concluded the smartest thing to do was to sell and give his shareholders and his family a chance to convert its 21st Century Fox stock into Disney stock, believing we were better positioned to withstand the change and, combined, we’d be even stronger.
We would have three content groups: movies (Walt Disney Animation, Disney Studios, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, Twentieth Century Fox, Fox 2000, Fox Searchlight), television (ABC, ABC News, our television stations, Disney channels, Freeform, FX, National Geographic), and sports (ESPN).
Ask the questions you need to ask, admit without apology what you don’t understand, and do the work to learn what you need to learn as quickly as you can.
Optimism emerges from faith in yourself and in the people who work for you. It’s not about saying things are good when they’re not, and it’s not about conveying some blind faith that “things will work out.” It’s about believing in your and others’ abilities.