Walt Disney Co. Bob Iger’s Memoir On Apple: “If Steve (Jobs) Were Still Alive, We’d Have Combined Our Companies”
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Walt Disney Co. chairman and CEO Bob Iger found out 10 minutes before announcing the Walt Disney Company’s $7.4 billion acquisition of Pixar that Steve Jobs’s cancer had returned with a vengeance.
That’s just one of the revelations in his new Random House memoir, with the first excerpt appearing today on Vanity Fair’s website. The memoir, The Ride of A Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, comes out later this month.
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In the Vanity Fair excerpt, Iger talked about his conversation with Jobs, which left him stunned just minutes before the deal was set to be announced. But Iger had a close relationship with Jobs, and believed the deal could go forward even with the mercurial Jobs struggling with his disease.
He also talked about how, if Jobs had lived, Disney may have eventually merged with Apple, a somewhat surprising take, given that the two are now streaming media rivals, with Iger resigning from the Apple board last week to avoid a conflict.
“I believe that if Steve were still alive, we would have combined our companies, or at least discussed the possibility very seriously,” said Iger in Vanity Fair.
He also noted that the relationship between the two companies was frayed before he came on board, with Jobs at one point vowing that he would never deal with Disney again.
“Among his many frustrations was a feeling that it was often too difficult to get anything done with Disney,” Iger writes.
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