Steve Jobs once told Bob Iger not to stay at Disney too long

The story, which was published Sunday, looked at the circumstances behind Iger’s decision to step down as CEO in February 2020 and his eventual return in November 2022.

Representatives for Iger at Disney did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours.

In his 2019 memoir The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, Iger said he became good friends with Jobs after the latter sold his Pixar animation studio to Disney .

In addition to joining the company’s board in 2006, Jobs was at one point Disney’s largest individual shareholder. Jobs, Iger wrote in his memoir, was instrumental in Disney’s 2009 acquisition of Marvel.

“I asked him if he would be willing to get in touch with Ike Perlmutter, Marvel’s CEO and majority shareholder, and vouch for me,” Iger said of Jobs’ involvement in the Marvel deal.

“Later, after we closed the deal, Ike told me he still had doubts and the call from Steve made a big difference,” Iger recounted. “‘He said you were true to your word,'” Ike said. I was grateful that Steve was willing to do it as a friend, really, more than as the most influential member of our board.“

However, Iger probably won’t be taking Jobs’ advice on retirement anytime soon.

In July 2023, Disney stated that Iger’s tenure as Disney CEO would last until 2026. Iger’s contract was originally set to expire at the end of 2024, before being extended for two more years.

In particular, Iger said his return to Disney was inspired by Jobs’ return to Apple.

Jobs was fired from Apple in 1985, but unexpectedly returned as CEO after Apple acquired his computer company, NeXT.

“The person I believe in the most, who I’ve been fortunate enough to have observed very closely, is Steve Jobs,” Iger said of Jobs in an April 2023 Time magazine interview.

Jobs, Iger told the magazine, returned to Apple under “very different circumstances” than when he founded it. Iger said he “took a lot” from Jobs’ experience.

“One of them is that when you’re brought back and you agree to come back, you have to do it with incredible enthusiasm and without an ounce of hesitation,” Iger said.

“And then you have to know very quickly what you are expected to achieve and what you can achieve. And then you go at it with incredible determination, incredible zeal and incredible energy.”