“It’s been barely a week since Disney CEO Michael Eisner announced that he would be stepping down when his contract runs out in two years. However, even though he has seemingly tapped his successor, a lot can happen between now and September 2006,’ Rick Aristotle Munarriz writes for The Motley Fool.
Munarriz gives Steve Jobs odds of 3-to-1 to become Disney CEO and writes, “There are more than a few Disney purists — I among them — who would like to see Apple Computer’s Steve Jobs get a crack at running Disney. As a charismatic visionary with a knack for quality, he may very well be this generation’s response to Walter Elias Disney. Thanks to Apple’s dominance in digital music and his majority stake in the world’s new animation leader — Stock Advisor recommendation Pixar — Jobs is already in deep when it comes to entertainment. While awkward, this would also open the door for Disney and Pixar to find some form of working relationship beyond 2005. Whether it’s a simple distribution agreement or a total buyout, all roads to Pixar lead through Jobs, who may fall to the persuasion of running the world’s leading family entertainment powerhouse with a bent for the future.”
Munarriz also gives John Lasseter odds of 25-to-1, writing, “As the genius mastermind behind Pixar’s streak of box-office gold, Lasseter’s chances would be much higher if Disney wasn’t bent on growing its network business over its own animation prospects. And, yes, he has a long-term contract with Pixar, and if he was ever a viable candidate, it would be under terms in which Jobs and Disney were on good terms — which would make Jobs the more likely helmsman.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Who would run Apple? Can Jobs really do Disney and Apple and Pixar all at once? We don’t know quite how he manages to run both Pixar and Apple now. Something(s) would probably have to give (or merge) for anything like this to happen. If Jobs would be offered the chance to run Disney, it would be very tempting for him, we’d imagine.
