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Bob Iger has had a long career—22 years at ABC, then 23 at Disney (after Disney acquired ABC). He started as a bottom-level crew member on television sets and eventually became CEO of Disney for 15 years. He led Disney through momentous changes in technology, global expansion, and its noted acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm. He still looks back at his career in mild disbelief as an incredible, lucky ride of a lifetime.

This book is a retelling of his professional career, with his leadership principles woven in. You’ll learn why being an optimist is good for your career, how to take big risks, why you should always sweat the details, and how to fire someone respectfully.

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By 1999, Eisner had been straining for years under the load of running Disney by himself, and he started thinking he needed a number two. He’d been CEO for 16 years, and the board was now pressuring him to plan for succession. At the end of the year, Eisner formally proposed that Iger become president, COO, and a member of the Disney board.

Eisner Is Fired

As COO of Disney, Bob Iger was responsible for Walt Disney International, consumer products, and the media networks like ABC and ESPN. Eisner continued to have control over Walt Disney Studios and Disney’s parks.

By this time, Disney was at risk of another decline. When Eisner joined Disney as CEO in 1984, he had revolutionized Disney—he brought in a golden era of animation, leading to hits like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King; this in turn fueled sales of theme park tickets and products. He also led the successful acquisition of Capital Cities/ABC.

But by 2000, Disney had begun another decline. Disney Animation hadn’t produced a major company-defining hit in years. At the same time, Pixar was leapfrogging Disney, and its major owner Steve Jobs was publicly feuding with Eisner over their partnership. Digital technology and the Internet were disrupting media and shifting power, away from the content creators and toward technology companies like Apple and Google. Then September 11th happened, which halted tourism globally and caused Disney stock prices to plummet.

This cocktail of problems led to Eisner’s downfall. Roy Disney, nephew of Walt Disney and a board member, led a very public, years-long campaign to oust Eisner from Disney. The frictions persisted for years until, in a shareholder meeting in March 2004, Eisner received a massive vote of no confidence. It was time for him to go.

In September 2004, Eisner announced to the board that he would step down in 2006 when his contract expired. The board accepted the offer and pushed the timeline faster—they would begin a search for the next CEO immediately and replace Eisner once they found the right person.

Iger Becomes CEO

Iger was not the predestined successor to Eisner. In fact, given Disney’s decline, the board wanted a “change agent” from the outside. As Eisner’s number two for the past 4 years, and a lifelong ABC/Disney man, Iger simply looked like more of the same.

Iger knew he had to prepare a compelling vision of the future, and he focused on three priorities for Disney:

  1. Disney needed to make high-quality content. In an age where content was free and cheap, consumers would continue wanting to spend their time and money on great content. On the other hand, if Disney didn’t like Disney’s content, they wouldn’t visit their theme parks or buy Disney merchandise.
  2. Disney needed to embrace technology. Consumers had more choice than ever, and, to compete, Disney needed to make it easy for consumers to access their content and create high-quality experiences with technology. They needed to see technology as an opportunity and not a threat.
  3. Disney needed to become a global company. They had superficial reach throughout the world, but now they needed to penetrate each country, particularly China and India. This meant thinking about new products that would appeal to people they didn’t currently reach.

Iger had an uphill battle—most of the board members were against or lukewarm about his becoming CEO. But over the course of six months and fifteen interviews, Iger laid out his vision for the future and gradually swayed the swing voters on the board.

In March 2005, the board met to finalize their decision, and Iger got a call after they were done—Iger was to be the next CEO of Disney.

Iger’s Big Moves

Iger began by focusing on his first major priority—making high-quality content. From 2005 to 2012, Iger embarked on three major acquisitions of major media companies, each powerful storytelling brands with passionate fan bases.

  • In 2006, Disney acquired Pixar, producer of animated films like Toy Story and A Bug’s Life, for $7.4 billion.
  • In 2009, Disney acquired Marvel, the owner of a large catalog of superheroes, for $4 billion.
  • In 2012, Disney acquired Lucasfilm, the owner of Star Wars, for $4.05 billion.

While each of the three companies had a distinct storytelling approach and characters, they showed common challenges in selling to Disney:

  • Each company had a strong-minded owner at the helm—Pixar had Steve Jobs, Marvel had Ike Perlmutter, and Lucasfilm had George Lucas. Each owner loved their companies like their own children, and to give them up, Disney would have to set the right price and promise to safeguard each company’s legacy.
  • For each company, Iger assured the owners that Disney had no intention of disrupting what made the company special. In fact, if Disney meddled, it would kill the subsidiary’s creativity and prevent it from producing the hits that Disney wanted.
  • With the prices in the billions, Disney had to make sure the acquisition would be financially prudent, and they projected the value of the content each company would produce as well as the synergies once merged with Disney.

Each of the three acquisitions turned out to be home runs. They each produced blockbuster films that were adored by their fan bases and became global cultural phenomena. They restored Disney’s status to being a beloved brand and a leading storyteller. They also propelled Disney to new financial heights; once on the precipice of a downturn, Disney was now an entertainment juggernaut.

The Start of Streaming

By 2016, Disney had grown considerably, but the technology and media landscape had changed even further. The massive technology companies of the day—Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix—commanded the attention of billions of consumers. All these companies were also investing heavily in creating their own content.

In this climate, Disney had two choices. First, it could simply continue business as usual—it could continue distributing its content through movie theaters, TV, and distribution platforms like Netflix and Apple. However, Disney risked being made a commodity content producer, just one option among thousands. The tech behemoths would continue to gain power and consumer loyalty, and eventually Disney might have no choice but to be on these networks, meaning it’d lose all its negotiating leverage and lose its direct connection to consumers.

The other option was for Disney to control its own distribution to consumers, with no middlemen. This would require developing their own technology platform and severing ties with distributors like Netflix. It would also mean disrupting their own existing businesses in the short-term and losing hundreds of millions in revenue.

In this context, Disney chose the hard route of developing its own streaming services. It acquired the streaming technology company BAMTech and developed what would become Disney+ and ESPN+. At the same time, it took its beloved content off of competitors like Netflix. Now Disney held its destiny in its own hands.

Acquiring 21st Century Fox

Around August 2017, Rupert Murdoch approached Iger about the possibility of Disney’s buying 21st Century Fox, which housed the 20th Century Fox film studio, the Fox television network, and a bevy of other studios and cable channels.

Murdoch bemoaned the threats to their media companies, particularly from big tech companies, and how much scale mattered in surviving in the environment. These threats were exactly what Iger and Disney had been defending against with their acquisitions and their own streaming service. The difference between their two companies, according to Murdoch, was that 21st Century Fox didn’t have scale, but Disney did.

The possibility was intriguing to Iger, but it would represent a deal possibly ten times bigger than Pixar’s $7 billion sale. It would be a company-defining decision.

Over the course of nineteen months, Disney pursued the acquisition of 21st Century Fox. It competed aggressively against rival Comcast, which made competing offers, and it fended off antitrust concerns about the deal. Ultimately, in March 2019, the deal completed—Disney bought 21st Century Fox for $71 billion. Disney was now one of the largest media entertainment companies in the world.

The Future of Disney

In 2019, when the book was published, Disney was at unprecedented heights. Avengers: Endgame became the highest-grossing movie of all time. The streaming service Disney+ launched with projections to gain ninety million subscribers within five years. It had made serious inroads in expanding globally through efforts like Disneyland Shanghai.

Fifteen years earlier, when vying for the CEO job, Iger had laid out a three-point plan—produce high-quality content, embrace technology, and become a global company. Now Iger could see that they had executed beyond their expectations, Disney had become an entertainment giant, and all the hard work was worth it.

Looking back on his career, Iger can’t help reflecting on what a wild ride it was.

Bob Iger’s Management Principles

Throughout the book, Iger shares his management advice behind his career and Disney’s success. Here are the ten major themes:

Optimism: This isn’t about blindly believing things will work out, but rather about believing in yourself and your team’s abilities. In contrast, a pessimistic “everything’s going to fail” attitude leads to defensiveness and risk aversion; plus, no one likes working for pessimists.

  • Example: In the last few years of Michael Eisner’s tenure as CEO, he faced heavy scrutiny from the board and press for poor performance. He would glumly remark that the sky was falling, and this demoralized the team.

Courage: Growth requires risks, and risks require courage. Even the biggest ideas are possible if you work hard and smart. Don’t fear failure, or you won’t take risks. Don’t fear change, or you’ll refuse to embrace the future and go extinct. Instill this in your team—make it acceptable to fail.

  • Example: Iger pursued the acquisition of Pixar when the board and public thought it was a foolhardy idea. He knew that Disney risked becoming obsolete if it didn’t make courageous moves.

Perfectionism: This doesn’t mean being 100% perfect at all costs. Rather, refuse to accept mediocrity. Don’t just make things “good enough”—make them great. Sweat the details because you care—but not so much to the point of stifling micromanagement. And apply the same standards to yourself—you need to do the work and be great yourself.

  • Example: Iger admired how his old ABC Sports boss Roone Arledge had an exacting eye for details and demanded the most from his team.

Focus: Decide what the few most important priorities are and focus on them. Then communicate those priorities repeatedly to your team, so they know how to align their own work with them. “This is where we want to go. This is how we’re getting there.”

  • Example: When becoming CEO, Iger focused on three clear priorities—great content, technology, and global expansion. He then focused the entire company on those priorities.

Decisiveness: Make decisions quickly and deliberately. Don’t muddle; your team will lose sense of direction and get anxious. You’ll never have enough information to reach 100% certainty, so recognize that decisions are risks, and be guided by your instinct.

  • Example: Iger trusted his instinct for major decisions like billion-dollar acquisitions, even if the analysis didn’t prove that it was a surefire home run.

Curiosity: Seek to understand new ideas, people, and the shifting marketplace. Innovation requires learning.

Fairness: Treat people fairly and decently. Even as you enforce high standards, be empathetic; realize how much the creator has put into her work. Give people second chances for honest mistakes. When negotiating, be respectful; disrespect can be very costly.

  • Example: Iger is aware of his position as CEO and finds that at meetings, everyone looks only at him. He makes sure to involve everyone at the table.

Thoughtfulness: Be informed in your opinions. Admit when you don’t know something and learn to close the gap quickly.

  • Example: When first becoming head of ABC, Iger admitted that he knew nothing about picking good scripts and enlisted the help of his lieutenants.

Authenticity: Be honest and don’t fake it. People will trust and respect you, even if they don’t like what you have to say. If you’re explaining a difficult decision, like demoting a friend, explain your thought process honestly. When negotiating, explain clearly at the start what you’re looking for. Don’t create a false expectation and then go back on it later.

  • Example: When first negotiating the Pixar deal with Steve Jobs, Iger could have played it cool and pretended Disney didn’t really need Pixar. Instead, he couldn’t help expressing his admiration for what Pixar was doing and how much Disney wanted it. In turn, Jobs appreciated how enthusiastic Iger was about the deal, and this built trust that Disney wouldn’t ruin Pixar.

Integrity: Know what right and wrong means to you—your values will define the company’s values. Then set a high ethical bar for everything that your company does, big or small. “The way you do anything is the way you do everything.” Your company will be defined by how your people behave. Hire good people, not just people who are good at what they do.

  • Example: After 2017, Disney had a series of scandals involving people behaving poorly, including Pixar head John Lasseter inappropriately touching employees and Roseanne Barr posting racist Tweets. Despite the commercial losses, Iger fired both employees without remorse.

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PDF Summary Prologue

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The Shanghai Disney opening continued as scheduled, but it was the saddest day of his career.

Management Principle: Trust Your Team

Iger confesses that he usually doesn’t feel anxiety when things go bad. He sees a crisis more as a problem to be solved, rather than something he has no agency over.

When emergencies like the shooting and alligator attack happen, he triages the problem, decides the response, trusts his team to do their jobs, and then gets out of the way when he has little more to add. This avoids micromanagement and meddling with little benefit.

Iger’s Principles

Bob Iger has had a long career—22 years at ABC, then 23 at Disney (after Disney acquired ABC). He started as a bottom-level crew member on television sets and eventually became CEO of Disney for 15 years. He led Disney through momentous changes in technology, global expansion, and its noted acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm. He still looks back at his career in mild disbelief as an incredible, lucky ride.

This book is a retelling of his professional career, with his leadership principles woven in.

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PDF Summary Part 1: Learning | Chapter 1: The Bottom

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Later, when Bob became CEO of Disney, he expressed his gratitude to his father. He appreciated his parenting, and he knew he inherited many of his father’s important traits. Bob hoped it would relieve a little bit of his father’s eternal disappointment in himself.

Bob’s Start in Television

After college, Iger worked for a year as a reporter and weatherman for a small Ithaca TV station. He’d once dreamed of becoming a big-time news anchorman, but his mediocrity at the job and the unclear path upward convinced him to try something else.

In 1973, at 23, he moved to Manhattan and got a job as a studio supervisor at ABC. It paid $150 per week and was the very bottom of the totem pole. His job was to do anything needed to get shows ready for airing, including showing up at 4:30 AM to let the stagehands onto the set, checking on catering, and keeping the staff happy however he could.

This was a pivotal experience for the young Bob Iger. He learned how shows of all kinds were made, from soap operas to news shows to game shows. He learned to work with all kinds of television staff, from makeup artists to electricians to carpenters. Most importantly, **the grueling hours and...

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PDF Summary Chapter 2: Being Acquired by Capital Cities

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  • They were respectful and empathetic to their staff. They didn’t pay as much as the competition, but their respect was earnest, and that earned people’s trust.
  • They had strong integrity. They knew what was right and wrong, and they operated by that instinct.
  • They believed in decentralization. Instead of having a central corporate headquarters that controlled every decision, they put smart people at the head of business units and gave them autonomy.
  • When choosing who to promote, they chose intelligence and ability over experience. They trusted that smart people without experience would be able to figure out the job on the fly, and the unfamiliarity would push them to improve more than they thought possible.

Over time, Tom and Dan’s humble values spread throughout ABC and transformed its culture.

Promotions

As part of the acquisition, Tom and Dan asked Roone Arledge, who at the time was managing both ABC Sports and ABC News, to choose one department. Roone chose News, and Capital Cities brought in their own executive to run Sports.

Bob Iger was soon promoted to senior vice president of programming, where he’d be in charge of all sports programming. This was...

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PDF Summary Chapter 3: Twin Peaks and Cop Rock

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Despite his formal inexperience, Bob found that he’d learned plenty from ABC Sports and Roone Arledge about what made for good television—structure, pacing, clarity—and he soon felt more comfortable trusting his instincts.

Twin Peaks

When stepping into the role, Iger knew that big changes were happening in television, and ABC needed to adapt. Network television was no longer the automatic first choice for people’s time—cable television had greater creative license to show edgier content, video games competed for attention, and the VCR changed how freely people could access content. In this environment, ABC needed to change how they thought about television. He kept Roone’s old adage in mind: “Innovate or die.”

One project that came across Iger’s desk was Twin Peaks, a surreal show by filmmaker David Lynch. Upon seeing the two-hour pilot, Iger knew it was unlike anything that had ever aired on television, and that they needed to develop it. Twin Peaks had mediocre showings in test screenings, among ABC execs, and even with the Capital Cities owner Tom Murphy. Everyone thought it was a huge risk to air. But Iger knew the problem wasn’t that it was a bad show;...

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PDF Summary Chapter 4: Being Acquired by Disney

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To negotiate on his behalf, Iger hired a lawyer. Iger wanted to be as close to the top as possible, ideally reporting directly to Eisner and possibly eventually being named second-in-command. Eisner refused, stating he wanted the freedom to name someone else as president, and that Iger would report to that person.

Ultimately, Iger agreed to a five-year contract as head of Disney media. The deal closed in February 1996, with Disney paying $19.5 billion for Capital Cities/ABC.

Adjusting to the Company

To most of Disney and ABC, the acquisition was a complete surprise, and people immediately started wondering how the two companies would work together. In speaking to Capital Cities/ABC executives, Iger was clear that there would be cultural clashes—where ABC had spent years under Tom and Dan becoming humble and embodying classic good values, Disney was aggressive, creative, and deeply rooted in Hollywood.

For example, Tom and Dan had always run Capital Cities/ABC with decentralization. They had a meager corporate headquarters, instead trusting the individual business units to make the best decisions for themselves and the company. In contrast, **Disney was a completely...

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PDF Summary Chapter 5: Second in Command

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Walt Disney International

In 1998, Iger was chairman of ABC Group, overseeing the ABC network, ESPN, and Disney TV. In one of his warmer moments, Eisner asked Iger to head Walt Disney International, a new organization to focus Disney’s international efforts.

At the time, Disney had offices and cultural influence globally, but the efforts were scattered and unfocused. There was no compelling global strategy, the offices didn’t talk to each other, and there were no proactive efforts in the international offices to find local opportunities.

Iger’s job was to form a coherent global strategy, as well as achieve a monumental task they’d sought for decades—build a theme park in mainland China. From his time in ABC Sports, Iger had previous experience in China, and he flew to Shanghai to hash out details with local officials. They chose a property close to Shanghai; it was then an unimpressive rural place, with stray dogs and patches of farmland dotting the landscape, but 20 years later it would be one of Disney’s crown jewels.

ABC’s Downward Slump

By the end of the millennium, ABC television’s momentum had run out. Long-running favorites like NYPD Blue and _Monday...

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PDF Summary Chapter 6: Eisner Is Fired

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  • Pixar, Disney’s partner, was producing major hits like Toy Story and A Bug’s Life, but they were now publicly fighting about the terms of their deal. Pixar had signed an unfavorable deal in the 1990s when they were still a young company, but now they were tired of being treated as a mere hired hand. Now with more leverage, Pixar and its CEO Steve Jobs were arguing for a greater share of profits and more ownership rights, reducing Disney to a mere distributor; Disney and Eisner fought back, but they knew Pixar had the better position now.
  • Digital technology and the Internet were changing media. Notably, copyrighted content could be distributed for free—Apple ran a “Rip. Mix. Burn.” campaign, arguing that once you bought music, you could do whatever you wanted with it. Eisner opposed this publicly, which further annoyed Steve Jobs.
  • In 2001, the September 11th attacks occurred, which halted tourism globally and caused Disney stock prices to plummet.

This cocktail of problems marked the beginning of Eisner’s downfall.

Eisner’s Management Style

In this precarious environment, Bob Iger began training closely under Eisner. Iger notes two management...

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PDF Summary Chapter 7: Iger Aims to Be CEO

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Management Principle: Define Your Priorities

Priorities are an articulation of where you want to go and how you’re going to get there.

If your team members understand the priorities clearly, they can focus their own work in the right direction. They can make individual decisions that support the priorities.

In contrast, a team without priorities is aimless and anxious. They waste time wondering what they should be doing and working on things that don’t help the priorities.

Choose just a few priorities. Communicate them often.

Convincing the Board

Iger had an uphill battle—most of the board members were against or lukewarm about his becoming CEO. But Iger knew there were a few swing voters he could try to persuade.

His first interview was an all-on-one meeting. The tone was pure business; that Iger had been on the board for the past 5 years didn’t give him any favors. Iger laid out his vision for the future, centered around his three strategic priorities. He stated that his goal was for Disney to be “the most admired company in the world” by their consumers, shareholders, and employees.

The interview process continued for another 6 months and another...

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PDF Summary Part 2: Leading | Chapter 8: First Moves as CEO

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Iger felt a blow to his ego when Roy and Stanley challenged his appointment, but he knew the better path was to suck up his pride and repair the relationship.

Iger first called Stanley Gold asking to meet, thinking he’d be calmer and open the door to Roy. Addressing the lawsuit, Iger explained the torturous interview process he’d gone through and that his appointment was legitimate. Iger then asked what could be done about Roy and the lawsuit. Gold suggested that much of the remaining friction stemmed from Roy’s feeling of being disrespected for being kicked off the board over an age technicality. Roy felt he had lost his home at Disney, and the board hadn’t listened to him when he started sounding alarms about Eisner years earlier. Gold issued a proposal: If Iger could get Roy back into Disney somehow, then they could drop the lawsuit.

Iger asked Gold to meet with Roy, and he soon had his wish granted. In their meeting, Roy wasn’t friendly and expressed that he’d continue fighting the company if it was headed in a wrong direction. But Iger also saw a new vulnerability in Roy. It was clear Roy never felt like he got the credit he deserved for his contributions to the...

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PDF Summary Chapter 9: Acquiring Pixar | Steve Jobs

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  1. The most extreme option: Buy Pixar outright. Pixar would inject Disney with the creative energy they needed, and owning Pixar would give total ownership over the content.

Iger knew buying Pixar was a crazy option, and his deputies told him so. There were many reasons: Steve Jobs owned half of Pixar’s stock and was stubborn; he loved Pixar, and he had such a rotten experience with Eisner he wouldn’t possibly sell to Disney; even if he did, he had so much leverage he’d ask for a skyhigh price (the market capitalization of Pixar then was about $6 billion); ultimately, the risk would be too great and the board and shareholders would never go for it.

Still, Iger felt this was the right move. His wife Willow had told him that the average tenure of a Fortune 500 CEO was 4 years. The point was that he had little to lose with taking big risks, and little time to do it.

Management Principle: Take Big Risks, Thoughtfully

Some people self-sabotage, preventing themselves from taking big risks. They think rationally about the odds, then convince themselves not to do it before they even seriously try. But if you don’t take big risks, you won’t get big wins.

Instead,...

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PDF Summary Chapter 10: Acquiring Marvel

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Second, Marvel’s CEO and chairman, Ike Perlmutter, was an unknown entity. He was ex-Israeli military, intensely secretive, and hard to reach. What they knew about his history was that Ike was a shrewd businessman—he had a toy company that had been acquired by Marvel in 1993, and when Marvel filed for bankruptcy in 1997, he acquired control of Marvel. Everything else was a mystery.

Making Overtures

In these circumstances, Disney started approaching Perlmutter however they could. It wasn’t easy, since Ike had no direct lines of contact. Disney reached out for six months with no response.

Desperate, they tried to find someone Ike would trust. They found a contact: a former Disney exec who had joined Marvel to develop their movies. Iger asked the contact if he could meet with Ike. The contact made no promises but since he’d do what he could.

A few months passed with no news. Finally, in June 2009, they got a call to schedule a meeting with Ike at Marvel’s offices in Manhattan.

As with Pixar and Steve Jobs, Iger decided to visit by himself. He felt it was important to approach authentically and not with a corporate army. He and Perlmutter opened the meeting casually, by...

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PDF Summary Chapter 11: Acquiring Lucasfilm and Star Wars

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Upon hearing the news, Iger’s deputies urged him to press forward with the conversation. But Iger knew that, in this case, the action had to come from Lucas himself. So they waited.

Negotiating the Deal

At the end of 2011, seven months later, Lucas called Iger. He was now ready to sell.

In a meeting, Lucas stressed that he wanted “the Pixar deal”—specifically, a deal worth around $7.4 billion, what Disney paid for Pixar. George believed that Lucasfilm was at least as valuable as Pixar. Immediately, Iger knew this was an undoable price. Despite Lucasfilm’s renowned brands, it was in a materially different position from Pixar. Pixar had six movies in the pipeline; Lucasfilm had none. Pixar came with a fully-developed team of directors, technologists, and writers; Lucasfilm was the only director. Moreover, because Lucasfilm wasn’t a public company (unlike Pixar and Marvel), Disney could only guess at its financials and operational information.

Iger asked Lucas for confidential access to Lucasfilm’s operating information to get a better sense of the price they could offer, and George agreed. Disney’s team went to work, estimating the value of possible new Star Wars...

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PDF Summary Chapters 12-14: Acquiring 21st Century Fox and Iger’s End as CEO

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Around the same time, they had looked into BAMTech, a company primarily owned by Major League Baseball. The company had developed streaming services for both MLB and for HBO, and they could do something similar for Disney. Disney thus bought 33% of the company in August 2016 for $1 billion and started making a subscription service for ESPN. Soon, the vision expanded to creating a subscription service for all of Disney’s other content.

At the following year’s annual board retreat, Iger presented the progress to date and the challenge of disruption. He then shared a more aggressive plan to buy a majority stake in BAMTech, then use that to launch what would become Disney+ and ESPN+ within the next two years. Far from being skeptical, the board gave full-throated approval—a few newer board members from Nike and General Motors were acutely aware of the threat of disruption and the need to move quickly. Disney announced its strategy to the public in August 2017, and their stock jumped, an indication of support from investors for Disney’s fight for its future.

Disney was now poised to serve its content directly to its consumers, with no intermediaries. As a result of the public...

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