Conversations From the Corner Office

FULL INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

The Walt Disney Co. President and CEO Bob Iger talks with Kai Ryssdal

KAI RYSSDAL: Bob Iger, welcome to the program.

BOB IGER: Thank you very much.

RYSSDAL: What's your first memory, ever, that you can think of, about the Walt Disney Company?

IGER: Well, I was an avid fan of the "Mickey Mouse Club." I was born in 1951 and I remember vividly watching a black-and-white television in my house, you know, back before I was 5 years old. So I certainly, I'd say, remember that more than anything. But I also remember being taken to the movies by both my parents and my grandparents to see "Peter Pan," "Cinderella," "Snow White." All memorable.

RYSSDAL: What is the Walt Disney Company for you? Is it an entertainment company? Is it a technology company? Is it now some hybrid of the two?

IGER: No, I don't really think it's either. I think clearly we're in the entertainment business and we use technology for a variety of means which I hope to get a chance to discuss with you — very important components, really, of our business. But people make a connection to Disney at early ages, as I did, watching television and going to the movies, in some cases, if you're fortunate enough visiting our theme parks, and the connection is profound and typically memorable, and I think because of that, Disney is much more than just an entertainment company or a technology company.

RYSSDAL: When you got this job, bearing that in mind, when you got this job was there a little element in the back of your head that said, "Oh, man, don't mess this one up?"

IGER: Well, no, not really, not quite in those words, but so I certainly was . . .

RYSSDAL: Something close?

IGER: . . . very, very aware of the very special place that Disney occupied in people's lives in society and culture, and I had a strong sense of responsibility.

RYSSDAL: It's not like running an office supply company or a car company.

IGER: Well, I never have. So I can't compare it at all, although I imagine if you're running General Motors or Ford or something that's so part of people's lives and culture that there might be some similarities that . . . Disney is very special. When you mention Disney to people they typically have an immediate reaction that's visceral that is typically just something that is just the case with me, they remember experiencing as a child.

RYSSDAL: I'm not sure what this says, actually, but when I told my kids I was going to come talk to you (I have three little boys) and they were all a little bit gaga over "the guy who runs Disney." Is . . . does that make you sort of stop and go "wow?"

IGER: It does, it does. You know I . . . as I said, I take the responsibility very seriously. I consider myself incredibly fortunate, not just to have the opportunity to be the CEO of a large company, but to have the opportunity to run the Walt Disney Company, to be a part of a group of people today, and in the past, that create experiences and entertainment that is just truly memorable.

RYSSDAL: Are you having fun?

IGER: I am. I'm having a lot of fun.

RYSSDAL: You are still really kind of a new CEO when you think about it; it's not even been yet two years. Do you think . . . where does that put you on the scale of experience? You've been around Disney and ABC for a long time.

IGER: I have. I started at Disney with their acquisition of Capital Cities/ABC over a decade ago, and I started at ABC 33 years ago, so many of the businesses and the fabric of this company is sort of very much a part of my own life from a business experience perspective.

But what I like about it is there's still a newness to it because the businesses are so dynamic, because while the fundamentals remain the same, there's also a lot of change in these businesses and so even though I've been around for 33 years, there's something very fresh about the experience.

In terms of being CEO, what I've found most interesting is how much there is to learn, still, and I like that very much, so even though I've been at this now for almost two years, which may be . . . in some respect is a long time, there's still so much about it that's learning experience for me, and I like that.

RYSSDAL: You made a couple of moves right off the bat that generated a lot of attention, a lot of interest, and made people say look at Disney and Iger and what he's doing. And I'm talking about the deal you made to get your programming on the iPod. And the fact that you now stream, online, some of your most valuable properties. Did you come up with those ideas, or did that sort of bubble up from the business development types in the shop?

IGER: Well, a lot of these sort of big, strategic moves are the result of my articulating a strategic direction, or a vision, and then a lot of very experienced, very talented people figuring out ways to fulfill that vision. And it becomes very much a joint effort in that regard.

One of the things that becomes very, very important for a CEO to accomplish is a strategic vision, and then to enable people by creating the right environment to carry it out. And it becomes also important to articulate that vision often because it won't get carried out unless it's both clear and well-spoken.

In those instances, they were very much the result of the strategic vision that was outlined, which in those cases was to use technology to reach more people, more often, in more convenient ways, to really think of the consumer and the power and the authority the consumer has in today's digital world and serve the consumer better.

And so in both cases I was certainly a driving force behind those moves, but not the sole force or the sole developer of the ideas.

RYSSDAL: Did you pick up the phone one day and call Steve Jobs over at Apple and say listen, Steve, I have a great idea?

IGER: No, he actually called me months and months before and he wanted to talk about the notion of creating a television-like side to iTunes, a place that people could go to find TV shows on top of music. And coincidentally I said to him, well we've been thinking about possibly creating the same thing, that it was complicated, but very much something that we wanted to accomplish. And he said, well, let's talk.

And then one thing led to another, including my becoming CEO, and the discussion on Pixar, which was actually totally unrelated, but when I was named CEO-elect, so to speak, Steve and I talked a lot about the future of the relationship between Pixar and Disney and we got to know each other better and that actually helped advance the dialogue on the Apple side, as it relates to iTunes as well, and vice versa, interestingly enough.

RYSSDAL: When you increase the consumption of your programs, there are a lot more people who want a finger in the compensation pie. How do you satisfy everybody from advertisers and marketers to writers and directors? I mean, they're all going to want a piece of the revenue that you guys get from streaming and from iTunes.

IGER: Typically in these businesses when you do the right thing, which means when you make the right product and you do the right thing in terms of the consumer, and you distribute it effectively, whether it's in a movie theatre, or on sale at retail DVDs, or you're making it available in new digital platforms, there is ample room and ample ability in a way to sort of feed the mouths of the many entities that actually go into the creation of great stuff, great content.

So while there are different issues that we need to tackle as the world moves more digitally, in the end I'm very confident that the industry and Disney will figure out how to accommodate basically all the people that actually created value in the first place by creating the content.

RYSSDAL: Do you think you put Disney in the early adopter category of people who are acknowledging the consumer power that exists in the marketplace today?

IGER: Disney acknowledges the consumer power in the marketplace today. Where that puts us in terms of the rest of the world or the industry I'm less concerned. It was a real priority of ours to focus on the consumer. What digital technology has done, it's created a huge power shift, or authority shift, from the creator and the distributor, the old world, to the consumer, the new world.

And while the creator and the distributor still have ample say in how things are made and how they're distributed, the fact is that the end user, the consumer, has a lot more say than ever before, a lot more authority.

And if you ignore that change, or you ignore the consumer, you get a result like the music industry results, which is that a lot of content lost value because of the way the consumer was accessing it and entities emerged. In this case really iTunes and Apple, where value actually shifted from the creator and the distributor to a completely new entity, the creator and the old distributor.

RYSSDAL: Right, but you're at a touchy space now where you're moving toward distribution on, just as an example, iTunes. People pay $1.99 a pop to get "Desperate Housewives," right? But . . .

IGER: Not a bad deal.

RYSSDAL: Not a bad deal, but a single night's broadcast of "Desperate Housewives" probably gets way more revenue for you than you're ever going to get at $1.99 from a million and a half downloads.

IGER: Correct. And . . .

RYSSDAL: How do you . . . where's that balance, right?

IGER: Well . . . since you used "Desperate Housewives" as an example . . .

RYSSDAL: Not that I watch. I'm just . . .

IGER: A successful TV series will produce between 22 and 25 episodes each season. And the committed or the avid viewer of that series, in a given year, will probably watch somewhere in the neighborhood of a third of all those episodes.

RYSSDAL: Hmm.

IGER: Because of other choices, other choices lifestyle-wise, meaning you're busy, you've got other obligations or other choices in terms of consuming media or spending your time. And if we could figure out ways, which we are starting to do, thanks again to digital technology, to engage these people more often, to get them to consume more, because we're creating either convenience or a different price to value relationship or making use of a new technology, then we actually will grow our business instead of in any way decreasing or diminishing our business.

So a lot of these initiatives, the one you just cited, iTunes and the $1.99 episode, or one you mentioned earlier, streaming on ABC, are actually designed to create incremental consumption, to give people who may not have a chance to watch as many of these programs as they once did, to watch more instead of to shift their viewing from the I'll call it the initial airing that creates the most value on ABC, to a secondary consumption form that may create less value. And so far, while the results are still relatively new to us because this has only been going on for about a year, what we're seeing is in fact incremental consumption and not a cannibalization of the initial form of consumption.

RYSSDAL: Let me get back to the other big deal that you made happen shortly after you took the CEO's job in this company; the acquisition of Pixar. I heard a great quote from you, it was a video clip, and you said, "The company was fully valued when you bought it." You paid $7 ½-ish billion for that company and we don't really know, yet, how it's going to work out for you. How's it going so far?

IGER: So far it's been great. We in buying Pixar brought into this company a treasure-trove of talent. A group of very talented people, from directors, to animators, to technicians, to storytellers, to John Lassiter and Ed Catmull; and that talent infused this company with not only more talent, but a creative energy that it really needed, and we're seeing a real increase in both creativity and the energy that's needed for creativity to flourish at Disney.

It in many respects was a shot in the arm, a transfusion of sorts, for Disney, creatively; it's ignited this company. Also, from an integration perspective (because when you buy a company there are always integration issues that you have to contend with) it's been very, very smooth. Both Pixar's continuing operations as our animation company up north and then the Disney animation group down here in Burbank, which is now under the leadership of Ed Catmull and John Lassiter which is seeing, I think, a real renaissance in many respects in terms of its animation and its approach to that business.

RYSSDAL: You were smiling when you said this; is "energy" a euphemism for tension and a little bit of competition within animation at Disney? IGER: No, actually . . . well, I . . . there's an interesting school of thought when it comes to creativity that it takes tension or it takes competition. Pixar's approach is really different in that it uses the energy that collaboration creates. It uses many voices to create a perspective and a level of collaboration to actually increase the quality of the creativity and I think ultimately the energy.

And so the collection of directors, for instance, at Pixar have always had a say of sorts, or have been able to give perspective on the work of one director, so a director puts his work up in front of other directors and gets a level of feedback that is very, very valuable.

And without really a tension or a competition because it just becomes a way of life. And we're doing that now at Disney; we have a film coming out in a few weeks called "Meet The Robinsons" and the director, Steve Anderson, showed "Meet The Robinsons" in an earlier stage to a dozen Pixar directors. Not a dozen, sorry, half a dozen . . . Pixar directors and got very valuable input. And that crated an energy with Steve, both an energy that comes from, in effect, affirmation or endorsement of what he was doing but also an energy that comes from a form of criticism from your peers that can be when articulated well very valuable.

RYSSDAL: You are the man responsible for the financial health of this company, yet you depend on a creative staff who's job it is to basically come out of, come up with, ideas out of thin air to generate that financial health. How do you keep an eye on the creative staff, while at the same time maintaining this company and going forward in a profitable direction for a shareholder?

IGER: Well, it takes a balance.

(Laughter)

RYSSDAL: He says, smiling again.

IGER: Well, I like that dynamic, or kind of combination of responsibilities. I remember when I became president and chief operating officer of then Capital Cities/ABC back in 1994, and Tom Murphy, who was my boss at the time, introducing me to the board of directors told the board that I was "comfortable in the boardroom and the control room" because I had spent a good part of my career working at ABC Sports under Roone Aldredge and then running ABC Entertainment in prime time.

And I had exhibited, in that period of time, at least in Tom Murphy's eyes, some real instincts creatively, but I also spoke the creative language in many respects. I was comfortable in creative processes, I was comfortable in the creative world, while at the same time balancing good business judgment and an interest in business and also accepting the responsibility that's incumbent upon people in jobs such as mine today, or my job back then.

And in many respects I bring that same balance to this job at the Walt Disney Company. If you were to take a look at my calendar on a given day, you'd see a real blend of interaction with business and creativity. Today being a great example of that.

RYSSDAL: Well, let's talk about that . . . what's your average day?

IGER: Well, the nice thing is that there's no such thing as truly an average day in the sense that no two days look alike, but I guarantee they will be filled with a variety of subjects, partially because of the variety of businesses that we're in, but again because of the nature of a job like this where you're . . . the real steward of a brand, for instance, and the responsibility incumbent in that position, the taste and the creativity and the definition of product that bears the Disney name, in effect, so subject matter or a position that I find myself in quite often. While at the same time, making big business decisions, and I'll be going from this interview to a meeting about creative direction, some new creative ideas for a theme park.

RYSSDAL: Do you find yourself refereeing in the creative process?

IGER: No, I don't look at it as refereeing because that suggests a contest or a fight in some form. Instead, I view myself as someone who vets other creative ideas. We often make decisions in jobs like this about how to allocate our capital is probably one of the primary responsibilities of a CEO. Where do we spend our money, and decisions have to be made from a capital allocation perspective in terms of what creativity to spend it on, for instance, and I do find myself at times rendering opinions, or making decisions in that regard, but I wouldn't call it a referee at all.

RYSSDAL: What's the worst part of your job? What do you wake up in the middle of the night thinking?

IGER: I actually sleep well. I think that's probably the result of being confident that this company is really run by a collection of very able-bodied, very talented, very committed people, and in effect I know the Disney Company is in good hands. In effect, I'm in good hands in a way. So I don't lose sleep over anything, really. I would say that the most important thing for this company to achieve is a level of constant high-quality, creative output and if there's any stress or any concern it's always that you're making great stuff on a regular basis and really that's it.

I don't think there's anything else that I really worry about.

RYSSDAL: From what I read, you don't sleep much. Did I read some place that you get up at 4:30 in the morning to exercise?

IGER: I do. I get up on a daily basis at 4:30, because I like to both get my exercise in and do some reading, mostly for pleasure, before I basically "hit the books." And by getting up early it enables me to manage those interests and desires and also give me time to spend running the Walt Disney Company and time to spend with my family.

RYSSDAL: You have two young boys. What are the limits on their consumption of Disney Entertainment at the Iger household? Because my kids . . . it's an hour on Saturday morning.

IGER: Well, we put limits on how our children spend their time, so they don't get to watch much TV during the week. We have let them recently use their computers more often, which has been a learning experience for kid and parent alike in the Iger household because I'm struck by the fact that they're turning to their computers more and more for entertainment than certainly I was aware. But there are limitations, less so on weekends, but they're not big TV viewers during the week because of the time constraints that are created by their parents.

RYSSDAL: If you had to pick a part of this company that its reputation rests on, going forward for the next 10 or 15 years, what would it be?

IGER: Oh, I'm not sure that there's really one. Anything that bears the Disney name, whether it's a movie or a major division, bears also a very, very high level of responsibility with it, because we take the Disney name very seriously, what it evokes when you say Disney is something that has created real value in the past and will continue to.

So I don't think it's about one business, but I'd say the Disney brand is probably the most valuable, most important asset that we have.

RYSSDAL: Do you view yourself as a guardian of that brand? Does that come with the keys to the executive suite?

IGER: Very much so. Very much so.

RYSSDAL: What don't you know right now about the entertainment industry in the next 10 or 15 years?

IGER: A lot.

RYSSDAL: Yeah, it's a tricky question.

IGER: Well it . . . I'll tell you what I do know. What I do know is that quality counts, that there's probably nothing more valuable than quality. And in a world that continues to provide more and more choice for people in terms of how they spend their leisure time or their money on leisure activities, I think that avenue is only going to grow, meaning will become more apparent and choice will proliferate.

I think a flight to quality or the importance of quality will only grow. So I know that. That's not going to disappear; I think it will become more important.

I also know that no matter how the world changes, people will still want to be entertained, and I'm smiling a bit because in 1955 Walt was asked to write some words to be put into a time capsule in a building in New York, and he was asked to at that point project what the world might look like 50 years from then.

So in 1955 he jots down a few thoughts . . . we're not sure whether it ever ended up in the time capsule, but we have those thoughts and in 2005, 50 years later, they were given to me and he talked about this very point, and that is that no matter what the world looked like, no matter what was available to people, they still would want to be entertained, to essentially take them out of their daily "frets," he used the word "frets" as a for instance . . . I think at the end he actually said they would want to be entertained and "refreshed," he used that word.

I think at that point he was actually thinking about the park experience (Disneyland opened in 1955) I guess he thought about refreshments as well. But I think that will be true 50 years from now, that no matter what the world looks like, people will have a daily grind and daily frets and daily challenges and issues and entertainment will remain a vital part of people's lives, as it was 50 years ago, and 150 years ago, and probably 1,000 years ago.

RYSSDAL: Do you have to run this company with an eye on the past while you're thinking about life in a world of ones and zeros?

IGER: I think the past creates value, but I don't think you necessarily run a company with an eye on the past. Actually, I think there's a danger in doing that. I think you learn from your experiences, so the extent that the past creates value is to enable you to learn from your hits and your misses, really. Your successes and your failures. But because the world is changing, there's more of a need to be forward-thinking, to look to today and look to the future, than to look back. Looking back for us is important because it's important for us to respect the name Disney, what created all the value, the place that Disney has in the hearts and minds of people around the world.

But to look back in a way that might be more reverent or to look back in a way that in effect has you focusing more on what was instead of what is and what will be; I'm not sure that's necessarily productive.

RYSSDAL: What do you do to unwind other than to wake up at 4:30 in the morning and have some Bob Iger time?

IGER: Well, I like the movies, I like to watch TV, I like to listen to music, you know, I like to take advantage of the various entertainment that's available to us. I also unwind exercising and have a few hobbies here and there, too. I also have children that enable me to unwind in different ways.

RYSSDAL: So are you one of those guys who props himself in front of the TiVo at Thursday at 9:00? Or do you get those in advance so that . . .

IGER: "Grey's Anatomy" is on Thursday's at 9 . . .

RYSSDAL: I know.

IGER: I have access to getting a lot of product in advance.

RYSSDAL: Uh-huh.

IGER: So much of it that it's almost impossible to watch everything and it's certainly impossible to watch everything in advance, so I tend to varying degrees to watch things as they occur. "Grey's Anatomy" is one that my wife and I particularly enjoy watching together to the point where if we're not in the same town when it airs we figure out a way to get a copy of it or we stream it on ABC.com and we watch . . .

RYSSDAL: There . . . you see, there you go.

IGER: . . . or we watch it on iTunes and like to watch it together so last night's a good example; we watched "Grey's Anatomy" from last Thursday night last night. Because we were not together last Thursday.

RYSSDAL: So you take care to avoid all the spoilers, right?

IGER: Yes, I . . . exactly, I don't ask questions. Please don't tell me, I don't want . . .

(Laughter)

RYSSDAL: How much do you worry about Wall Street?

IGER: I don't worry about Wall Street. I focus on delivering shareholder value and I . . . as you'd expect. There are many constituents that someone in my position has to be in touch with. Either in touch communications-wise or just in touch in terms of having a sense for what they want or what they need. Our cast members as we call them, our employee base is one such constituency, investors is another. But I don't worry about Wall Street, per se, nor do we manage the company with a worry in our mind about Wall Street. We manage the company to create great product and grow shareholder value.

RYSSDAL: Do you worry about losing that creative edge? Because it seems to me that in a creative company like this, the one thing that could do you in, really, is a wholesale creative collapse. It won't happen tomorrow, but you might just . . .

IGER: Well, we have so many different businesses and so many different creative processes that it's very, very unlikely that we'd have a whole scale kind of loss of creative edge. But as I said earlier, the one thing that I probably want more than anything is for a constancy of sorts or consistency of high quality creative output. But I don't worry, really, about losing it.

RYSSDAL: Life's pretty good, then?

IGER: Life's been great. The company is in very good shape. There are constant challenges and goals that we've created that are yet fulfilled but the company is . . . I'm proud to say and certainly glad to say is very strong as our fiscal 2006 results indicate.

RYSSDAL: Was this you sitting in that chair and running this company, was this part of the Iger plan?

IGER: No, not at all. Not at all. I had a real desire to have a successful career. I started out really wanting to be a television newscaster and spent some time before I joined ABC in 1974 as a weatherman and a feature newscaster and concluded quickly, thankfully that I wasn't good enough at it to have the, or achieve the, kind of success that I felt I wanted, and so I redirected and ended up at ABC in a production role.

But I've never been one that really planned my career out years in advance; I've always believed that you show up for work willing to work hard, you treat people well, you exhibit a passion for what you do, and a commitment, and you succeed and I'm fortunate that over the years I have been given incredible opportunity both at ABC and at Disney that far exceeded even my wildest dreams, but I certainly never established the goal of becoming CEO of the Walt Disney Company at least until I have been president and COO of the company and knew that the job would be opening. Clearly, decided to go for it.

RYSSDAL: Entertainment is a notoriously fickle business, yet you followed a guy in this job who was here for 20-something years, had all kinds of success and all kinds of turmoil. Where do you see yourself 5, 10, 15 years from now?

IGER: Well, 15 years from now hopefully I see myself on a beach. Enjoying life. But I don't look that far ahead. We've established a number of goals for this company and hopefully we're on the right path to fulfilling them and I haven't created a long-term plan at all. My hope for the Walt Disney Company is that it continues to prosper and that we only grow in terms of the great position that we occupy in people's hearts and minds around the world but other than that I don't have a clear picture of what either my life might look like or the world's will look like that far out.

RYSSDAL: Let me get back to the Pixar deal for just a minute. Pixar has had an unbelievable string of success. Seven for seven I think it is. The next one is coming out this summer, "Ratatouille" about a rat, basically, in France. What happens if that film . . . IGER: Ah, not just any rat.

RYSSDAL: Not just any rat, right, some gourmand of a rat. What happens if somehow now that Disney owns Pixar that that film isn't as good as the other seven?

IGER: Well, it is. It's not going to happen.

(Laughter)

"Ratatouille" is a great film.

RYSSDAL: Well, you know, what if it doesn't break the records? What if it doesn't have the run that "Monsters, Inc." and "Cars" and "Toy Story" and all those films had?

IGER: The earth isn't going to in any way fall or whatever the expression is; it's not going to stop its movement around the sun. I think the world of "Ratatouille" and so it's sort of a . . . it's a difficult question to ask because knowing the movie the way I know it, and seeing people's reaction to just the pieces of the film that they've seen convinces me that it's going to be eight for eight.

RYSSDAL: I don't even know if it's done yet. Have you seen the whole thing?

IGER: I have not seen the whole thing in it's most . . . in it's absolute finished state because it doesn't exist, but momentarily it will.

RYSSDAL: What is the best creative thing you've ever done? The thing you're most proud of creatively?

IGER: Wow. That's a very difficult question. I've had the luxury over the years of being involved in a lot of creative successes and creative failures. I'm not sure I could single it out. I think that what's most interesting for me, creatively, is the opportunity to work with some of the world's most creative people over time. Having a chance to talk animation with John Lassiter is a for instance. Or sports program production with a Roone Aldredge. Or to work with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas. I mean, the list is pretty long, as you'd expect, but I don't know that there's one thing that I could single out.

There've been a lot of things I've been involved with over the years that have been incredibly satisfying.

RYSSDAL: Is there been one thing that sort of made you as a creative person that people said oh, wow, Iger did that. Let's hire him.

IGER: Well, the one thing that I recall people mentioning, they mention because of my willingness to take creative risks and when I was programming ABC back in the early '90s at programming in prime time we'd had a lot of success with some real commercial product, great comedies, "Roseanne" was on the air and ultimately "Home Improvement." "America's Funniest Home Videos," for instance.

And the network was prospering largely because of shows like that and then we put on a show called "Twin Peaks," which interestingly enough ended up being a failure, although in my mind it'll always be chalked up as a real success because it was an example of trying something new. In a way it's really what I think is probably what's most important about creative processes and that is there's no such thing as absolute failure. You know, when you're involved in creative processes there's bound to be failure, there's bound to be things that don't work, but in a lot of cases if you really try valiantly; if you try with something that's good and something that's different and it hasn't worked, in a way that's more success than failure.

RYSSDAL: You get credit for trying.

IGER: That's what "Twin Peaks" was.

RYSSDAL: Was there something about you that made the board of this company two years ago say you're the guy?

IGER: Well, it wasn't my hair.

(Laughter)

You'd have to ask the board that question. They had a rather thorough, and of course in my case it's easy for me to say, effective succession process which gave them access to a number of candidates and gave them a chance to make the decision based on a lot of factors, and in my case they knew me because I'd been president and COO of the company for five years, and I certainly had an opportunity to talk to them about my vision and my thoughts regarding the future of the Walt Disney Company.

I doubt it was one thing; I'm sure it was the combination of factors.

RYSSDAL: Was there ever a time in that long process you thought about chucking it and saying forget it; it's not worth it?

IGER: As I said at the beginning, having the opportunity to run the Walt Disney Company is rather special life experience and at the point as the succession process unfolded, I considered the possibility of getting this job very seriously and with great enthusiasm even though it certainly was not a foregone conclusion and so no, there was never a time. I was close enough to it to really want it and with that desire came basically an unwavering pursuit of it, even though it was thorough which I guess in some cases is a euphemism for long. No, there was never a time I thought about chucking it all. It was too good an opportunity not to really go for it to the fullest.

RYSSDAL: Bob Iger is the president and CEO of the Walt Disney Company. Mr. Iger, thanks a lot for your time.

IGER: Thank you very much.

[NOTE: The text above is an extended excerpt of the interview and may have been edited. It should not be taken as a verbatim record.]

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