Disney is the cornerstone of animation. Just about everyone inside and outside of the animation industry knows Disney from Nickelodeon and other studios seeking to compete with the Big Mouse. Now, Bob Iger, who's been in Disney leadership roles since 2000 as its COO until 2005 when he was named Disney's president, is only mere days away from leaving Disney behind for good in favor of activities such as book writing, investing, sailing -- and probably spending more time with family.
In what is probably his last round of interviews with Variety and CNBC before leaving the company, he went about highlighting some of his greatest achievements. He passively mentioned such instances as releasing Black Panther, opening Shaghai Disneyland five years ago, acquiring Lucasarts, and more.
“Black Panther probably being near the top of the list. Cutting the ribbon and opening a theme park in Shanghai and delivering the quintessential Disney theme park experience to the most populous city and country in the world. Signing a contract at this desk in this office with George Lucas to buy Lucasfilm. Standing at Pixar with Steve Jobs and being handed a Luxo Jr. lamp and saying to a thousand people at Pixar that I’m going to use this to illuminate the castle. An incredible moment buying Marvel, of course, is right up there, and gaining access to not only the treasure trove of great characters but so many incredibly talented people who knew so much about the Marvel brand and its storytelling potential."
That being said, the biggest moment in his mind appears to be 2006's Pixar acquision. The big reason behind that being a hightlighted moment for Iger is simple -- it was his first as the CEO of Disney. Seeing the success of Pixar also probably helped out tremendously. He even went as far as blatantly attributing Disney Animation's success on that very acquisition.
"I’m proud of a lot of the decisions that were made, certainly the acquisitions. I’d say of all of them probably Pixar because it was the first and it put us on a path to achieving what I wanted to achieve which is scale when it came to storytelling. That was probably the best."
Taking a shift towards a different means, CNBC decided to ask a different type of question and asked what his biggest moment of failure was. To Iger, it was not going after YouTube. Before Disney he was the leader of ABC, which housed America's Funniest Home Videos.
"I remember when YouTube was sold. One of the things I always rued, because when YouTube emerged, it was the, we didn’t see that first. I’m the one who put America’s Funniest Videos on ABC in 1989, which was user-generated content. It’s kinda funny, which YouTube really started as."
Bob Iger's final day at Disney is December 31, 2021.