Bob Iger: Apple and Disney would have merged if Steve Jobs lived longer

Disney Chairman Bob Iger is leaving the company at the end of the month. Iger sat down for an exclusive interview with CNBC’s David Faber in which he noted that he never spoke with Steve Jobs about a potential merger of Apple and Disney, but he believes the deal likely would have “gotten there” had Jobs had more time.

Iger said that in recent years, he’s felt himself become increasingly dismissive of other people’s ideas, which he took as a sign that he should let someone else lead Disney.

CNBC:

Iger credited his ability to get founders to sell him assets to his intense focus on building personal relationships. Iger said he spent months personally getting to know Apple and Pixar founder Steve Jobs, Star Wars’ creator George Lucas, former Marvel Chairman Ike Perlmutter and Fox controlling shareholder Rupert Murdoch. Disney acquired the majority of Fox’s assets in 2019.

“It’s development of a relationship,” Iger said. “I didn’t do the deal myself, but it was singular in terms of the pursuit — one on one in some cases — being as candid as I possibly could be, and I think as authentic as I could be, and developing a relationship, even if it was developed over a relatively brief period of time.”

With Jobs, Iger said he “was never disappointed” with Disney’s integration of Pixar.

“Once we did the deal, in fact, in the months before he died he came to — he and his wife, Laurene, came to our house. And Laurene and Steve and [Iger’s wife] Willow [Bay] and I sat down at a dinner, and he toasted to the deal we had done some years earlier, convinced that it was the right thing to do for Disney and for Pixar.”

MacDailyNews Take: Beyond Disney and a potential merger, there’s really no telling what would have happened had Steve Jobs lived longer.

Steve’s untimely death was an immeasurable tragedy. We’re all still feeling the effects of it today, over a decade later.

As we wrote back in April 2017:

We can think of worse mega acquisitions Apple could make.

With Disney, Apple would gain not only content, but tremendous leverage in many areas, including “television.” With Disney, Apple would own ESPN, for example. Not to mention ABC, A+E, Marvel, Lucasfilm, The Muppets, Pixar (Steve Jobs’ babies unite!), 30% of Hulu, and much, much more.

Spin off the theme parks or deck them out with Apple technology and use them to showcase Apple products. The sky’s the limit!

As we wrote earlier in April 2017 in response to reports Apple was attempting to put together a plan to sell a premium skinny bundle consisting solely of HBO, Showtime and Starz:

Yawn.

You know what would really send a message?

Buying Disney.

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Such an acquisition would certainly jibe with some whispers we’d heard prior to the coronavirus outbreak of a major Apple acquisition possibly being in the works. Such an acquisition would of course be quite an undertaking as Apple would have to bring the parts of Disney that are unique (think theme parks) into the fold (or keep them as an Apple subsidiary). On the positive side, Apple TV+ would immediately become a massive streaming entity as Disney+ content rolled into Apple’s streaming service would be an instant juggernaut. – MacDailyNews, March 16, 2020

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Here’s a snippet of the interview:

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