Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
newstatesman.com
Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
1–10 of 31 posts
Re: Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
#2I 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.
Re: Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
#3I 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. Dis…
> 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.
Re: Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
#4I 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. Dis…
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.
Re: Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
#5I 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. Dis…
> 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 wi…
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
Re: Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
#6also about Iger's Disney https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/its-time-to-break-up-disn...
Re: Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
#7also about Iger's Disney https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/its-time-to-break-up-disn...
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.
Re: Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
#8I 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. Dis…
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.
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.
Re: Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
> 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.
Re: Bob Iger, the man who animated Disney
#10I 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. Dis…
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.
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.