If you know that song, you're probably familiar with Skibbity Toilet. It's the massively popular somewhat bizarre YouTube short series in which men with cameras for heads fight toilets with human heads. Now director Michael Bay is working on a potential Skibbity Toilet movie. That's all thanks to a company called Invisible Narratives that has turned Skibbity Toilet into a global phenomenon. This week on Power User, what the success of Skibbity Toilet tells us about the future of Hollywood.
Hey, I'm Sean Ely. For more than 70 years, people from all political backgrounds have been using the word or wellian to mean whatever they want it to mean. But what did George Orwell actually stand for? Orwell was not just an advocate for free speech, even though he was bad, but he was an advocate for truth and speech. He's someone who argues that you should be able to say that 2 plus 2 equals 4. We'll meet the real George Orwell, a man who was prescient and flawed this week on the gray area.
In February 2020, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that he was finally stepping down as CEO. Well sort of. On the day of the announcement, CNBC sat down with Iger and his freshly named successor. You are signed on to continue through the end of 2021 overseeing all the creative elements of the company. But at the same time, Bob Chepek is going to be running the day-to-day business. Yes, a new Bob would be CEO, a man named Bob Chepek.
But the old Bob would remain as executive chairman of the board, managing nothing major, just all the creative decisions that a company defined by its creativity. CNBC's Julia Borsten asked Iger a simple question about what sounded like a messy arrangement. Well, that create confusion about who's in charge. How do you address those concerns and potential conflict while you're executive chairman? Well, we've worked together extremely well.
In terms of confusion, we're not really concerned about that. The goal here during the period of time that I will be executive chairman is to create a transition process that is smooth and functioning and effective and we're not concerned at all about creating any confusion. But less than two months later, there was confusion. Plenty of it. In April 2020, the New York Times published an article about how Disney was faring one month into the pandemic and nationwide shutdown. The answer?
That Iger had quote, effectively returned to running the company. The article quoted exactly one Disney employee, Bob Iger, who said, quote, a crisis of this magnitude and its impact on Disney would necessarily result in my actively helping Bob Chepek and the company contend with it, particularly since I ran the company for 15 years. Chepek reads the article like anybody else. This is Alex Sherman, who covers the media for CNBC.
He wrote an in-depth piece about what allegedly went down during the Chepek Iger era, including this phone call. When Chepek reads this article, he's furious. And he calls Iger and tells him he doesn't need a savior. He swears at him a few times, he no longer feels like he is on firm footing as the CEO of this company. Given the fact that it appears as though he's sort of being passively taken over by Iger through this article.
Iger would go on to tell colleagues or friends of his that he had never been spoken to like this before, ever in his life by anybody. And both men, Chepek and Iger points to that article in that subsequent phone call as the key fracture point of their relationship. Within two years, Chepek would be out at Disney, and Iger would be back on top with a fundamental question looming over the company. Is there anyone else who can rule the wonderful world of Disney?
Disney has been led by eight different men in its century of existence. But few would object to the idea that only three have really mattered have made a lasting impact on the company. At Disney, it's really much easier to sort of think about their products and their eras, really, as sort of being tied to certain executives. That's Robbie Willen, a media reporter for the Wall Street Journal. He's also currently working on a book about Disney. You've got the Michael Eisner era of Disney.
You've got the Walt Disney era of Disney. You've got the Bob Iger era of Disney to all of them are very different and very tied to the personalities of the men, it's always men in this case, who have run the company. The way each of these guys led Disney is still impressed upon the company's shape today. The company's culture, the kinds of films it makes, and the various interconnecting layers of its business. But how these executives went out also left an important impression on the company.
Each of them is found at hard to leave, and the process made it even harder to find a replacement. This is Land of the Giants and I'm Joe Adalien. Today, the circle of life of a leader at Disney and why it's so hard to let it go. We've got a period of more than 40 years uninterrupted where one man and his force of personality, his vision for creativity, his decisions about who to hire and what stories to invest in, was guiding this company. I'll give you a hint, his first name rhymed with malt.
Here's Gary Wilson, former CFO and board member of Disney. From all the stories I've heard, I've heard many. He was a dictator. Maybe not suitable for an HR department in 2024, but the company overall flourished under Walt. It's Walt's flywheel that is still taught at the Harvard Business School. Who was Walt, who had the idea to expand movies into parks, and it was Walt's daring and exacting vision of animation and film that made them great.
Walt operated like a god at Disney, but unfortunately for the company, he was mortal. When you have a leader with the singularly creative mind and leadership that Walt Disney had, it like goes away and disappears and you're left with a runner in the ship, and they're not very competent people running that ship. You can expect what will happen. Walt was only 64 when he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer and died about a month later.
He left behind a company that was created in his image and ran to his exacting and maybe mysterious standards, but he did not leave a plan of what to do next. And they were in chaos. No one could be Walt, not even his brother Roy, who took over the company after Walt died. His strategy was mostly just to finish up what Walt had started, not to lead Disney into a new era.
When he died in I think 1966, for 20 years the company just had terrible performance because there was no leadership, then it lost its magic. Over that period of time, the CEOs were former friends or family of Walt, people who were used to functioning as extensions of him. Hard Walker, who held the position of CEO the longest, also served as chairman of the board, wielding his veto power to nixings that seemed unwalt.
And so what we had was sort of a posthumous founder syndrome, where even in death, Walt was still looming large over the company. His power was still active. CEOs came and went and were mostly ineffective. Disney was directionless and the flywheel was stuttering. Because you truly cannot have a dead CEO. Steve Jobs still looms large at Apple, but Tim Cook was hot to go with Jobs' blessing. Eventually, Disney found someone who could turn the company around.
Michael Eisner ended the interregnum dysfunction in 1984, and part of his plan, to be like Walt. But not in the living and Walt shadow way. Eisner wanted to absorb some of that legacy for himself. I do think Eisner, having worked with him for years, I think he wanted to be the new Walt Disney. And the singular thing I remember is there was a Sunday night TV show called The Wonderful World Who Disney.
And it used to be that they showed Walt giving the introduction to the show at the every Sunday night. Now, this may seem to be an odd place to open a show, but it's not as bad as it seems. When Walt died, the TV show kept going, but no one dared replace him as host. No one could match his charisma, his authority, the right to host his namesake show. And so Eisner decided that he was going to do that. We all disagreed with that in management, but he did it.
I mean, here was some of the Disney gang, we're getting ready, the Christmas holidays. Hello, I'm Michael Eisner. During the first 10 years of Eisner's term, he really did ascend to a heroic, dare we say Godlike status. Stockprices grew astronomically. The company entered its golden era of animation, and Eisner made the deal of the century by buying capital cities, ABC. Finally, Disney had found someone to replace Walt.
As for his succession plan, for a while that was all neatly taken care of, because his president and CEO was Frank Wells, an excellent number two who could have easily been a number one. Here's longtime Hollywood journalist and editor at the Hollywood Reporter, Kim Masters. Frank could have been a chairman and CEO of Disney, and Michael knew that. And I think that kept Michael somewhat in check or largely in check.
And this didn't seem to bother Eisner, because Wells had achieved something pretty rare. Michael I don't think ever trusted me. I was always very loyal to him, but I don't think ever trusted me. But he did trust Frank. And there was no one who commanded his respect. I think Frank Wells was the only one who really commanded his respect. But in 1994, Wells suddenly died in a helicopter accident. Then Frank died, I think, things started to come apart. All of a sudden there was no number two.
At least no number two suitable to Michael Eisner, someone who could step up to the plate when the time came. Not long after Wells died, Eisner had emergency quadruple heart bypass surgery. He survived, was nurse back to good health, but no one quite lived up to Wells. And so even as the board and others started to get antsy, Eisner put off the succession issue. Michael was not interested in solving that particular problem. In fact, he became an obstacle to creating a plan.
Michael became more and more convinced that everything he wanted to do was right. And it was almost like he was snake bitten. He became to me sort of more isolated, more nixony and kind of sitting there. And I'm in charge. We asked Michael Eisner to speak with us for this episode. He declined the invitation and also declined to comment. One by one, Eisner made it clear to his top executives that they weren't going to succeed him.
Especially, Master says, those who seemed a little too eager to take his place. If you fly too close to that sun, you're going to fall in the ocean and you're going to get your wings will melt. And so maybe this was the other side of being a hero god CEO, craft in the image of Walt Disney. Try for mortality and plan to never leave. Not exactly a great takeaway when the last hero god left the company in chaos when he died.
In 2001, Kim Masters published a book called The Rise of Michael Eisner and the Fall of Everybody Else. I think being in the head of Disney is a very strong drug. You know, very hard to let go. Leaving Disney, it's a big deal. It's a very identity defining thing. It had so much success and he was like this ultimate CEO. Eisner ended up running the company for 21 years, which is basically a biblical lifespan at CEO years. But unlike Walt, it lasted longer than people wanted.
Eisner went from being the savior of Disney to being resented by a lot of people. After years of growth, stock prices started falling. But it wasn't just the whims of Wall Street. In 2002, theme park revenues were down and Disney movies weren't a slump. It started to feel like a Michael Eisner problem. In some inside the company, that it was time for the one group who could check Eisner to do something about it. The board.
But Disney's board had a history of deferring to the CEO and the makeup of the board made keeping the CEO and check hard too. Well, I joined the board in 1985 when I joined the company as a chief financial officer. Good for Wilson, but not necessarily good for corporate governance. From a management perspective, you would like to be on the board. From a governance point of view, I think that's the wrong thing to do. Because the board is responsible for selecting management.
And if, in fact, the management is the board, it's a total conflict of interest. And the chairman of the board, the ultimate check on executive power of Disney, was Michael Eisner. Michael had no curbs, so to speak. His board was weak. He had a rubber stamp board. Because it wasn't just a sea suite that was on the board. Michael had, I think she was principal of his kids' school on the board. And then he also had his architect that he liked and you know, it's all in the family, right?
One corporate governance expert at the time described Disney's board as quote, living in the dark ages. The thing is, all these boardroom no-nose might have got ignored had Disney's shareholder value kept growing. The way it did during the first 10 years of Eisner's term. And by 2002, the stock prices have been falling for two long years. I think Michael Eisner should have stepped out earlier. And the reason he didn't was because he was also the chairman of the board, so he was his own boss.
And he'd appointed most of the board members, so he was a dictator. And if he didn't want to leave, he wasn't going to leave. The king didn't want succession to happen. That's the problem. Many of their Gary Wilson or the rest of the Disney board ever did make succession happen. I've become concerned with the direction in which the Disney company is moving. I believe it's time to take action and we could use your help. That's Roy E. Disney, Walt Disney's nephew.
He served on the Disney board, nearly continuously, from 1967 to 2003. But that year, 2003, he'd had enough and stepped down. Or maybe he quit before he could get fired. Speaking of the declining shareholder value, the unhappiness of employees, the lackluster movies, Roy Disney started to agitate for Eisner to resign as CEO. Eisner didn't like that and planned to remove Roy freaking Disney from the board. I was shocked when I heard that Roy Disney and Michael were at odds.
I thought the Michael I knew would never do something that foolhardy. That was foolhardy. If you're a Disney shareholder, in my view, the best way to help save Disney is to vote no on the reelection of Michael Eisner, George Mitchell. And I remember going to the fateful shareholder meeting in Philadelphia where there was this full-on revolt underway led by Roy. And I could see it align around the block of shareholders.
And these were like literally the old and the young babies and strollers, people with canes, and it looked like it was the opening weekend of Star Wars. And I thought, oh my god, Michael is this trouble, he's really in trouble. Led by Roy, the Disney, the shareholders help remove Eisner as chairman of the board. And by the next year, he was out as CEO.
While Gary Wilson admits that the Disney board, the one he was on, was overly deferential to Eisner, he does give his cohort credit for one thing. We had recruited an enormous amount of talent, people. Thousands of people who might one day take over for Eisner. And then a new guy showed up. I remember people saying to me, you're going places. I think I'm going to say no. Bob Eiger had worked his way up at ABC and came to Disney via the Capital City's acquisition.
Before the acquisition, he was in line to become the CEO of that company. Those dreams were dashed when Disney bought Capital City's ABC. But Eiger still felt like it was his turn to be king. I thought if I played my cards right, if I performed well, I could potentially run the Walt Disney company at some point. But when he got to the Magic Kingdom, he was considered a long shot for the job. Eisner did bad mouth him to some board members once, saying he lacked creative brilliance.
Ouch. But that was fairly mild compared to the fate of other CEO hopefuls of that past. Eiger outlasted them, and Eisner ended up throwing his weight behind Eiger to be a successor. In 2005, when Eisner left, Eiger was named CEO of the Walt Disney company. Here's CNBC's Alex Sherman again. Remember when he was named CEO, there were public reports at the time that were like this guy sort of an empty suit. He doesn't have the requisite experience to run Disney.
His background is running ABC, like Disney so much more than ABC. Can he do the job? Eisner was picked because he'd been a star at ABC and ingratiate it himself to top investors and media executives. And the idea that he was some sort of tech regret? Eiger quashed that right out of the gate. Here's Jessica Reef-Eirlik, longtime media analyst for BFA Securities. When Bob came in, he really surprised the street and the world by being so decisive, very, very quickly. Nobody started coming.
Eiger immediately bought Pixar, repairing damage Eisner had done to that key partnership and attempting to breathe new life into Disney's animation portfolio. He also did something early on in his tenure that was in direct contrast to Eisner and certainly Walt. He started talking about leaving, making a succession plan to prevent the petty tyranny of his direct predecessor and the chaos left behind by the company's founder.
Disney was finally going to get succession right after decades and decades and decades of struggle. So I think that Bob Eiger will go down as one of the great media CEOs and American CEOs in history. At this stage, his one major blemish is succession. When we come back, how good is a CEO who can't or won't be replaced? Work for Land of the Giants comes from Quince. The summer is not quite over yet, but shifting your wardrobe to the colder months could start now, little by little.
You can update your closet without breaking the bank with Quince. They offer a variety of timeless, high quality items. Quince has cashmere sweaters from $50, pants for every occasion, and washable silk tops. And it's not just clothes. They have premium luggage options and high quality bedding too. Quince's luxury essentials are all priced 50-80% less than similar brands. I've checked out Quince for myself, picking up a hand woven Italian leather clutch for my mom.
As soon as she saw it, she commented on how soft and pretty the leather was and told me it was the perfect size for everything she needs to carry out on a quick shopping trip. Make switching seasons of breeze with Quince's high quality closet essentials. Go to Quince.com slash Giants for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash Giants. To get free shipping and 365 day returns, Quince dot com slash Giants. Hey, Sue Bird here.
Megan Rapinoe, Women's Sports are reaching new heights these days. And there's so much to talk about. So Megan and I are launching a podcast where we're going to deep dive into all things sports and then some. We're calling it a touch more. As women's sports is everything, pop culture, economic, politics, you name it. And there's no better folks than us to talk about what happens on the court or on the field and everywhere else too.
And we'll have a whole bunch of friends on the show to help us break things down. We're talking athletes, actors, comedians, maybe even our moms. That'll be a fun episode. Whether it's breaking down the biggest games or discussing the latest headlines, we'll be bringing a touch more insight into the world of sports and beyond. Below a touch more wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Wednesday.
Hi, everyone. This is Cara Swisher, a host of On with Cara Swisher from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We've had some great guests on the pod this summer and we are not slowing down. Last month we had MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on. Then two separate expert panels to talk about everything going on in the presidential race. And there's a lot going on. And Ron Cling, President Biden's former chief of staff. And it keeps on getting better.
This week we have the one and only former speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi. After the drama of the last two weeks and President Biden's decision to step out of the race, a lot of people think the speaker has some explaining to do. And I definitely went there with her although she's a tough nut as you'll find. The full episode is out now and you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.
In March 2017, Bob Iger sat down for a lengthy interview with Willow Bay, former ABC anchor and dean of the University of Southern California's journalism school. So we have just a couple minutes left and we promised a little update on your news. She's also his wife of many years. I thought you were going to be hanging around the house come 2018 and apparently that's not the case. So I announce today that I'm extending a CEO but for one year beyond my tenure.
Iger, as CEO and yes chairman of the board, might have set out to have a succession plan early, but having a plan and executing a plan are two different things. In 2011, only a few years into his regime, the board announced that Iger would retire by 2015. Not because he was doing a bad job, he was doing a great job. Everyone loved him. The idea was that finally Disney would see a CEO step down while on top with a rock solid plan in place. Kim Masters.
I mean, love the company had been through a big public mess so you have to assume let's not do that again. At first everyone applauded the plan. At a 2015 CREP closer, the board signal they weren't ready to let go and extended Iger's contract in 2016. Then they did it again. He leaving 2018. Even with the delays, the coverage was glowing. The New York Times basically congratulated him on the succession accomplishment even before he'd left.
And a Disney insider boasted that the company had an embarrassment of riches of possible successors to choose from when Iger did end up leaving. This was not Michael Eisner's Disney anymore. But right in the middle of those delays, something familiar started to happen. If you look at house, anybody again who flew too close to the Bob Iger son fell into the ocean. The obvious choices for people who could replace Iger, again to, let's say leave the company.
He did this whole thing with Tom Stags and Jay Rasulo and one of them is the successor and they then try to kill each other of course. Tom Stags and Jay Rasulo were the top execs in line to take over. Master says Iger played them off each other until one came out the clear winner. Stags stayed. Rasulo left. It seemed like the problem was finally solved. Iger chosen. No need for Iger to delay retirement any longer. Once again, it did not work. In 2016, Stags abruptly resigned. No more Ira parent.
Not a lot of people left in line after the succession death match, Iger. It kind of looked like Iger had just been a sliver version of Eisner all along. It's kind of a joke at this point how many times Bob has kicked it down the road. Succession is a complicated thing and we felt meaning the board and I felt we could use more time to not only spend on succession but to create a better transition but I'm serious this time around.
This is Iger telling Willow Bay and the world that he would not be retiring in 2018. To be fair, succession at Disney is a complicated matter. It's an enormous, perot company with business interests that span several diverse industries. So he needed a tiny bit more time to get it just right. The time finally came in February 2020. A full five years after he'd originally promised to leave, Iger announced that Bob Chaypeck would take over a CEO immediately.
Right away it was a bit of a head scratcher. Iger had cut a very specific figure as CEO. Bob is an incredibly attractive executive. He's got great demeanor. He's got this kind of cashmere, elegant presence. He's the one. Chaypeck had a different reputation. He doesn't have that charm. He doesn't have that skill with people. He's kind of a ruthless businessman. His whole MO was wrong for the job.
A Disney CEO not only asked to run the business, I have to hobnaw with celebrities and like go to premieres, Alex Sherman. Chaypeck kind of doesn't really look or act like Iger. He doesn't kind of look like a celebrity. He doesn't really know Hollywood. I think it's fair to say. He's just not really all that interested in that side of the business. So it was a challenge, I think, for him to attend all these, you know, from years, for movies and red carpet events. And like Iger loves that stuff.
I mean, eats it up. You know, it's just, it's not what Chaypeck is. And so I think there were some initial concerns right off the bat that like, okay, is this guy like going to be able to fill Iger shoes? Hmm. I wonder why Bob Iger, who reportedly prided himself on being an emotionally intelligent people-oriented CEO, chose someone so ill-cast for the job. Well, Chaypeck had been a Disney for 27 loyal years, most recently with the company's largest and most important business, the Parks.
He'd made a name for himself during the opening of Shanghai Disney when he helped save the company some money and stay on schedule. But Masters has another theory on why Iger picked Chaypeck. First of all, he had gotten rid of anybody who had been considered the successor, right? I have this sort of hypothesis that the board was getting more and more stressed out of what is the plan? What is the plan? You're 70. What is the plan? And I think Bob, and I've asked him this and he has denied it.
I feel like he was in a bit of peak. He said, okay, you want a successor? Have this guy. Knowing, I think that there was no world where Bob Chaypeck would succeed, he says that's not true, but I think that's what he did. That's one albeit cynical interpretation. But we do know that when Iger put forward Chaypeck, he had no plans to fully step aside right away.
Heats day on as chairman of the board for two years, continuing to oversee creative, something that was never defined but understood vaguely as managing talent in the movies and TV shows. So perhaps Iger wanted to choose someone he thought he'd be able to work with. Bob Chaypeck was thought of as a nice guy, kind of mild mannered, had always said yes to Bob Iger, and I think Bob Iger saw him as a steady hand on the company who wouldn't really make too many enemies along the way.
And frankly, would take orders from Bob Iger just like you had done for the last 20 plus years. Whether Iger gave the rest of the board Chaypeck out of spite or he wanted to choose someone he could control, I know amounts to the same thing, which is that it seemed like he was not choosing someone who would break away from Iger and leave his own lasting impression on this storied company.
But Chaypeck did not see himself as playing a supporting role in Iger's multi-part epic, which Bob Iger found out after their fatal phone call. We reached out to both Iger and Chaypeck to see if they'd speak to us for this episode. They declined. We also asked both of them to comment on specifics. Iger declined and Chaypeck did not respond. After the phone call, the relationship sourced, so Iger looked elsewhere to flex his influence.
For instance, he was ready and able to lend a support to other executives at Disney when they balked at Chaypeck's decisions, like splitting business power away from creative leads. Behind the scenes, as these creative leaders are kind of bitching to Iger about the decision, Iger is sympathetic toward that. And it's like, look, I wouldn't do this if I were running the company. But like, I'm not running the company anymore. And eventually, Iger found a use for people outside the company as well.
For a long time, he wouldn't even talk to me at all. And now, it doesn't happen every day, but we do chat and communicate. So I think that when Chaypeck was there, he sort of decided that actually having more friends in the press might be a good idea. So after years of ignoring Kim Masters while he was CEO, Iger suddenly found her number. And he kept it. Even after he made good on his promise to finally, fully leave the company.
Iger stepped down from the board and his kind of shadow management job inside the company at the end of 2021. Chaypeck didn't want his help. Well, now he was really going to have to go it alone. What followed was not a great time for Bob Chaypeck. He made one mistake after another. Each worse than the last. He allowed a contract feud with Scarlett Johansson to mushroom into a lawsuit and then a scandal. And then he failed to respond to a Florida bill nicknamed the Don't Say Gala.
People expected Disney to speak out given it's enormous and influential presence in the state. But Chaypeck didn't. You know who did? Bob Iger. He tweeted out a condemnation that said, if pass, this bill will put vulnerable young LGBTQ people in jeopardy. Masters took that to Chaypeck's chief of corporate affairs. And I go, well, so what are you going to do? And he says, well, why do we have to do anything? And I'm like, you know, Bob Iger just basically put the arrow pointing at Bob Chaypeck.
And he then says, they're going to give me a statement. And he sends me this statement, which is basically, you know, we're not a political company. The statement said Chaypeck was not an activist with a partisan agenda. He was a quote custodian of a unifying brand. I was poised to publish that. And he said to me, so are you happy with a statement? And I was like, oh yeah, I'm happy with it. I'm so sure it's going to work.
But I knew, I knew when we published that story, the match had now met the gas fumes and the explosion was going to follow it. And that's exactly what happened. Many cast members have been doing mini walkouts every day during their breaks. And Bob Chaypeck, Disney CEO and business thumb, then made things worse, put a statement defending Disney's silence on the bill. And aside from the public and internal backlash, this you quickly became a proxy for Chaypeck and Iger's power struggle.
Chaypeck tried to scrape back some cred by taking a swipe at Iger, writing in a company-wide email that Disney's movies and TV shows were their corporate statements. And that they were quote, more powerful than any tweet. It didn't work. Within days, Chaypeck was on clean up duty at the shareholders annual meeting. I know that many are upset that we did not speak out against the bill. I understand our original approach, no matter how well intended, didn't quite get the job done.
In the wake of Chaypeck's mess, Iger was more than happy to graciously step in and give the statesmen like interview to CNN that Chaypeck never could. To me, it wasn't politics. It was what is right and what is wrong. And that just seemed wrong. When you're dealing with right and wrong or when you're dealing with something that does have a profound impact on your business, then I just think you'd have to do what is right and not worry about the potential backlash to it.
There was one guy who looked like a capable CEO in charge of a unifying message through this mess, and it was not Bob Chaypeck. But still, why was Iger cosplaying as CEO at all in this moment? He had left, on purpose, but it sure looked like he hadn't let go. Chaypeck had marched the company into several PR nightmares, but the business was, for the most part, still solid. So the board renewed Chaypeck's contract. But in the midst of the renewal process, Wall Street was changing its mind.
You couldn't just grow your streaming service anymore. It had to be profitable. But as the market made a hairpin turn, Chaypeck kept going straight. Here's Alex Sherman again with what he reported happened next. Chaypeck from what I was told, kind of like either didn't understand or buried himself in the sand a little bit and was like, don't be so doomed in gloom about this.
In September 2022, Chaypeck and Disney's CFO, Christine McCarthy, sat down with the board of directors before an earnings call to lay out the state of the company, particularly how it was doing on streaming. These meetings are usually highly scripted presentations, but McCarthy had different plans. McCarthy goes off script, and she starts saying, this is like the worst quarter I've ever seen in like 10 years of this job.
And she does it to try to purposefully jar Chaypeck back into reality that he needs to pivot here. In front of the board of directors, Chaypeck was totally exposed. He was the CEO of Disney, but it looked like he was doing it all alone, abandoned by his very own CFO. The board starts talking to other senior executives around the company and starts asking them about Chaypeck's leadership. The board meets with the head of the studios, that of the parks, that of TV.
And one after another, all of these senior executives tell the board, we don't have any faith in this guy that's running the company anymore. Like he shouldn't be the CEO. So there's an essence like a behind the scenes coup against Chaypeck. At the time, publicly, people focused on that bad quarter as the reason Chaypeck was fired. That isn't why he was fired. He was fired because the board realized he had lost the faith of all of the other senior executives at the company.
Faith that maybe he never really had to begin with. Faith that Bob Iger undermined from the very start. There's all this thing, oh, he's Chaypeck is Bob Iger's hand-picked successor. I always rolled my eyes when I saw that. Hand-picked, yeah, hand-picked to fail. That was my opinion. And Bob would argue with me, Bob Iger, but I feel like I see what I see. The board fired Bob Chaypeck in November 2022. And then they made an offer to the man who would become the next CEO of Disney.
I think the board feels like the only person that can run this company is Bob Iger. And so that's why we just keep renewing his contract and keep asking him to renew his contract. And the reason that the only person who can run this company is Bob Iger is that Bob Iger sort of engineered this company. And so the reason it is so big today in many ways is Iger was the one that led all of these different acquisitions. Iger can juggle the sprawling Disney Kingdom because he built it.
He has a history of navigating Wall Street curveballs with charm and business acumen. He's a good CEO and he's a good CEO of a multifaceted company with one of the most recognizable brands. A company that has to balance preserving its culture, its identity, while adapting to a quickly changing industry that is increasingly dominated by tech. That's all great for now. Not so great for a future in which Bob Iger is no longer available to run the company.
So the pressure to find a successor is perhaps greater than an ever-hazard. And the person in charge of solving the problem is Bob Iger. So the succession issue is not just on Iger. It's also on the Disney board, but it's connected because Iger basically handpicked everybody on the Disney board and the Disney board has given Bob Iger a carte blanche to just run the company as he sees fit.
But everyone knows now that Disney has not gotten succession right and that the board needs to make sure that it gets succession right. So I do think that while this is still going to be Iger's choice, the board is very involved and the board is going to make sure that they do the right vetting process to make sure that they can cross all their tees and dot all their eyes on this and that it's a much more robust process than shape it.
And part of that has been not giving Iger the chair of the board again. Perhaps a lesson learned, finally, even if he does still wield incredible influence over its decisions. Iger has until the end of 2026 to find a new successor. A few names have been circulated as contenders for the top job. But as we know, succession bakeoffs at Disney tend to be filled with surprises. One thing has changed in the year since Iger announced his foe retirement in 2020. The stakes for him.
I think he knows he has to leave. I do. I will probably lose a bet if I stay. But I think he knows and look, he is concerned about legacy too. Since he's returned to Disney, he's had to face one crisis after another, including a stock price that's been halved since 2021. And now his trouble letting go has put his legacy as one of the great CEOs in jeopardy. You know, his reputation means the world to him.
And if he can pull Disney back from a bad situation, set it on its feet and gracefully find a successor, he will have locked up his legacy and it will be good, you know, and he will have been a hero who came back as opposed to a guy who can't leave. A Disney ending. Finally, a CEO who's happily ever after would come from leaving instead of ruling for life, or until they're kicked out. So far, that's been a fairy tale at Disney. Whether it can become a reality is now up to Bob Iger.
Next time, on land of the Giants, the company that Bob Iger leaves will be fundamentally different than the one he initially took over. In the era of streaming, the entertainment giant is now a tech giant too. But the path to get there wasn't always clearer. We would do these models where we would say, if we were to completely pivot, what would we have to charge and how many subscribers would we have to have? And it was a very scary thing to look at.
And when you looked at it, you were like, hmm, that is not going to happen. Next week, for our final episode, how Disney survives its next 100 years. Land of the Giants, the Disney Delama, is produced by Vulture and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This episode includes clips from CNBC, ABC Nightline, CNN Plus, the David Rubenstein Show, Disney, the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, last week tonight with John Oliver, save Disney.com and Bloomberg TV.
Charlotte Silver is our lead producer. Julie Myers is our editor. Claire Cronin is our fact checker. Brandon McFarlane composed the theme and mixed and scored this episode. Neil Janowitz is the editor in chief of Vulture. Our chung is our showrunner. Nishat Kerwa is our executive producer. And I'm Joe Nallian, if you liked this episode, tell a friend and follow us to hear our next episode when it drops next Wednesday.