Where this was said
Intro
At 5:07 · chapter starts 0:50
Ben and David open with a rapid-fire litany of the Walt Disney Company's staggering scope: Mickey and Minnie, Ariel and Simba, the Avengers, ESPN, ABC, the Simpsons, Avatar, National Geographic, 10 Broadway musicals, Industrial Light and Magic, a private island in the Bahamas, and — for a time — an NHL team, a baseball team, and a 1936 British ocean liner. The catalog is simultaneously absurd and awe-inspiring. Against that backdrop, they lay out the central strategic tension Disney faces: a company that built its extraordinary profitability on cable affiliate fees, home video, and theatrical blockbusters is now watching all three of those structural advantages erode simultaneously, while trying to build a Netflix competitor from scratch. The episode promises to trace exactly how this sprawling empire came to be, and to answer whether the future can possibly match the past. Sponsors Sierra and Sentry are briefly introduced before the history begins.
In 1984, Disney's stock had crashed from $82 to $52 and the company was worth more if sold for parts than kept running. Corporate raiders had live offers to sell the film library to MGM and the parks to hotel operators. The only defense was to dilute shareholders by handing 25% of the company to Texas oil money.
