The Walt Disney Company

Show Notes

The Walt Disney Company is the most successful enterprise ever created for monetizing human nostalgia. Today it’s the king of global entertainment, holding the intellectual property rights to the childhood memories of billions of people (including, likely, all of you) and is a reliable, predictable profitable business. But it didn’t start that way.

During Walt’s era, Disney operated like an unhinged moonshot factory, blowing its finances on one seemingly crazy project after another, like the very first feature-length animated film or a theme park inspired by Walt's fascination with model trains (spoiler: Disneyland). Walt’s relentless ambition to bet the company over and over again not only created some of the most monumental artistic achievements of the 20th century (Snow White, Fantasia, Disney Imagineering), but also resulted in the accidental invention of the modern “flywheel” business model. In this episode, we tell the story of the ultimate marriage of art, commerce, and engineering — The Walt Disney Company: Walt's Era.

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The Acquired Disney Companion PDF
Our Disney column in WSJ
The original 1958 WSJ “Flywheel” article"
Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler
The Animated Man by Michael Barrier
Walt Disney: An American Original by Bob Thomas
Building a Company: Roy O. Disney and the Creation of an Entertainment Empires by Bob Thomas
The Disney Version by Richard Schickel
PBS American Experience: Walt Disney
Disneyland Handcrafted
Walt's 1966 EPCOT pitch video
Worldly Partners' Multi-Decade Disney Study
The Walt Disney Family Museum
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00:00 Start
01:10 Intro
06:03 Walt's Early Life & Artistic Calling (1901-1919)
12:22 From Commercial Art to Laugh-o-grams (1919-1923)
23:05 Hollywood, The Alice Comedies & Oswald's Loss (1923-1928)
43:27 Mickey Mouse & The Synchronized Sound Breakthrough (1928)
01:01:21 The IP Flywheel & Mickey Merch Explosion (1929-1933)
01:09:57 Flywheel Terminology Unpacked
01:18:53 Snow White: Walt's $1.5M Folly (1934-1937)
01:52:01 The Burbank Studio, Debt & Strike (1938-1941)
02:04:28 The Animators' Strike & Walt's Disillusionment (1941)
02:15:43 WWII, The Vault & Creative Slump (1941-1950)
02:24:27 Post-War Slump to Cinderella's Comeback (1945-1950)
02:33:48 Walt's Obsession: Model Trains to Disneyland (1950-1952)
02:38:44 Financing Disneyland: ABC, SRI & Davy Crockett (1953-1955)
03:17:05 Disneyland's Grand Opening & The Evolving Flywheel (1955-1958)
03:41:55 The Florida Project & Walt's Last Dream (1961-1966)
03:54:26 Walt's Untimely Death & Roy's Legacy (1966-1971)
03:57:57 Roy Finishes Walt Disney World (1966-1971)
04:01:09 The Post-Walt Slump & Corporate Raiders (1970s-1984)
04:09:44 Analysis: Why No Other Disney Flywheels?
04:17:15 7 Powers
04:20:45 Quintessence
04:23:50 Carve-Outs + Outro

‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.