Benjamin franklin and albert einstein, this is the exclusive biography of steve jobs

Treasure Planet
and 
Brother Bear
, did no honor to the 
Disney legacy, or to its balance sheets. Hit animation movies were the lifeblood of the company; 
they spawned theme park rides, toys, and television shows. 
Toy Story
had led to a movie sequel, a 
Disney on Ice
show, a 
Toy Story Musical
performed on Disney cruise ships, a direct-to-video film 
featuring Buzz Lightyear, a computer storybook, two video games, a dozen action toys that sold 
twenty-five million units, a clothing line, and nine different attractions at Disney theme parks. 
This was not the case for 
Treasure Planet.
“Michael didn’t understand that Disney’s problems in animation were as acute as they were,” 
Iger later explained. “That manifested itself in the way he dealt with Pixar. He never felt he 
needed Pixar as much as he really did.” In addition, Eisner loved to negotiate and hated to 
compromise, which was not always the best combination when dealing with Jobs, who was the 
same way. “Every negotiation needs to be resolved by compromises,” Iger said. “Neither one of 
them is a master of compromise.”
The impasse was ended on a Saturday night in March 2005, when Iger got a phone call from 
former senator George Mitchell and other Disney board members. They told him that, starting in a 
few months, he would replace Eisner as Disney’s CEO. When Iger got up the next morning, he 
called his daughters and then Steve Jobs and John Lasseter. He said, very simply and clearly, that 
he valued Pixar and wanted to make a deal. Jobs was thrilled. He liked Iger and even marveled at 
a small connection they had: his former girlfriend Jennifer Egan and Iger’s wife, Willow Bay, had 
been roommates at Penn.
That summer, before Iger officially took over, he and Jobs got to have a trial run at making a 
deal. Apple was coming out with an iPod that would play video as well as music. It needed 
television shows to sell, and Jobs did not want to be too public in negotiating for them because, as 
usual, he wanted the product to be secret until he unveiled it onstage. Iger, who had multiple iPods 
and used them throughout the day, from his 5 a.m. workouts to late at night, had already been 
envisioning what it could do for television shows. So he immediately offered ABC’s most popular 
shows, 
Desperate Housewives
and 
Lost
. “We negotiated that deal in a week, and it was 
complicated,” Iger said. “It was important because Steve got to see how I worked, and because it 
showed everyone that Disney could in fact work with Steve.”
For the announcement of the video iPod, Jobs rented a theater in San Jose, and he invited Iger 
to be his surprise guest onstage. “I had never been to one of his announcements, so I had no idea 

---

what a big deal it was,” Iger recalled. “It was a real breakthrough for our relationship. He saw I 
was pro-technology and willing to take risks.” Jobs did his usual virtuoso performance, running 
through all the features of the new iPod, how it was “one of the best things we’ve ever done,” and 
how the iTunes Store would now be selling music videos and short films. Then, as was his habit, 
he ended with “And yes, there is one more thing:” The iPod would be selling TV shows. There 
was huge applause. He mentioned that the two most popular shows were on ABC. “And who 
owns ABC? Disney! I know these guys,” he exulted.
When Iger then came onstage, he looked as relaxed and as comfortable as Jobs. “One of the 
things that Steve and I are incredibly excited about is the intersection between great content and 
great technology,” he said. “It’s great to be here to announce an extension of our relation with 
Apple,” he added. Then, after the proper pause, he said, “Not with Pixar, but with Apple.”
But it was clear from their warm embrace that a new Pixar-Disney deal was once again 
possible. “It signaled my way of operating, which was ‘Make love not war,’” Iger recalled. “We 
had been at war with Roy Disney, Comcast, Apple, and Pixar. I wanted to fix all that, Pixar most 
of all.”
Iger had just come back from opening the new Disneyland in Hong Kong, with Eisner at his 
side in his last big act as CEO. The ceremonies included the usual Disney parade down Main 
Street. Iger realized that the only characters in the parade that had been created in the past decade 
were Pixar’s. “A lightbulb went off,” he recalled. “I’m standing next to Michael, but I kept it 
completely to myself, because it was such an indictment of his stewardship of animation during 
that period. After ten years of