Disney, Plus
Acquired
Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
4.8 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 25 November 2019
⏱️ 136 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Flywheel is strong with this one. We dive deep into the origins of one of the boldest business strategy decisions of our time: Disney CEO Bob Iger’s attempt to buck the Innovator’s Dilemma - and forego billions of dollars in cashflow from Netflix and pay TV providers - in order to establish a direct distribution relationship with its customers for the first time in the company’s history. Is this the force awakening within the house that Walt built, or a phantom menace that will drag Disney to the dark side of unprofitability? Tune in to find out!
Sponsors:
Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
Statsig: bit.ly/statsigacquired
Modern Treasury: https://bit.ly/acquiredmoderntreasury
Links:
- https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/2018-Annual-Report.pdf
- https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/wp-content/uploads/q4-fy17-earnings-transcript.pdf
- https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/q4-fy19-earnings.pdf
- The Disney flywheel: https://kottke.org/15/06/walt-disneys-corporate-strategy-chart
Sources:
- The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger: https://www.amazon.com/Ride-Lifetime-Lessons-Learned-Company-ebook/dp/B07PF6XTD8
- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/style/disney-bob-iger-book.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Iger
- https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/bob-iger-bets-company-hollywood-s-future-streaming-1247663
- https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-kevin-mayer-deliver-the-future-of-disney-11573272027
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-11-07/inside-disney-bob-iger-on-star-wars-pixar-and-more
- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bob-iger-the-ride-of-a-lifetime/id1264843400?i=1000451721143
Carveouts:
- David: The Ride of a Lifetime
- Ben: The Imagineering Story on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/series/the-imagineering-story/6ryoXv1e1rWW
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Disney makes it very approachable, but I've just like read all their I R stuff and like it's not it's not hard like it's really |
| 0:07.6 | cogent. I mean it's quite refreshing moving from |
| 0:12.0 | analyzing loss-making fast-growing tech companies to a company like |
| 0:16.7 | Disney that just makes it plain makes it clear it makes a lot of sense yeah |
| 0:20.9 | isn't trying to hide the ball yeah all right makes a lot of sense. yeah. Yeah. |
| 0:23.0 | All right. |
| 0:25.0 | Let's do it. |
| 0:26.0 | Let's do it. Welcome to Season 5, episode 7 of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories behind them. |
| 0:44.7 | I'm Ben Gilbert and I'm the co-founder of Pioneer Square Labs, a startup studio and |
| 0:49.5 | early stage venture fund in Seattle. And I'm David Rosenthal, and I am a general partner |
| 0:54.6 | at Wave Capital, an early stage venture firm focused |
| 0:57.3 | on marketplaces based in San Francisco. |
| 0:59.7 | And we are your hosts. |
| 1:02.0 | This time, it's different. |
| 1:04.2 | These are four very dangerous words that should set off an alarm every time you hear them. |
| 1:09.3 | Bob Eager, the CEO of Disney, is trying to achieve the pipe dream of what has failed so many times before in the media industry |
| 1:16.3 | combining content and distribution under one roof. |
| 1:20.1 | It has been tragic before, famously with AOL Time Warner and recently being tried with Comcast |
| 1:26.0 | NBC Universal and AT&T Time Warner. |
| 1:29.8 | But Disney has to compete against digital disruptors like Netflix who have successfully built their |
| 1:34.6 | own distribution and content in-house. |
| 1:37.9 | So here we are, one week after the ambitious launch of Disney Plus, where Disney will try to attempt the multi-year mission to do just that. |
... |
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