The Ride of a Lifetime

This is an amaxing book. It was like visiting a parallel universe, to travel alongside Robert Iger during his years at the helm of a corporate behemoth like Disney. I just found it so eye-opening, and in many ways, terrifying. When a company gets that large, the decision making process can be really centralised - which is something Iger successfully changed. Learning how Iger and Steve Jobs collaborated to fix the fallout between Pixar and Disney was fascinating, and the friendship between Jobs and Iger was beautiful. Iger seems like an incredible person and I am in awe of him.

Business books tend to be stuffy and over technical, but Iger’s book was the model I was going after when writing my own book. Iger shares the hits and misses (but mostly hits) of his time running one of the most prestigious brands the world has ever seen. But even though they’re mostly showbiz and Disney-focused, any human can relate and learn from his stories.

Stepping in to helm an already successful company seems like a walk in the park (pun intended)…but being able to read about how Iger turned an already successful business into an even more successful corporation through growth strategies, mergers, and acquisitions of other highly successful studios (Twentieth Century Fox) and IP (Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars) was just exhilarating. To read about his thought process in his own words was both educational and inspiring.