Bob Chapek's pathetic revenge tour

Edited: September 25, 2026, 4:49 AM

I have some thoughts regarding Bob Chapek's revenge tour that he is on now against Bob Iger and Disney's board.

First of all I don't want to discount anyone's feelings because anyone who has worked in corporate America knows its full of politics/BS/drama and all that, and people don't always act in moral and ethical ways. So I understand that Bob Chapek is a human who has feelings, and sure maybe Bob Iger didn't always treat him with the respect that he felt he deserved, but that being said this revenge tour that Chapek is on right now validates that he was clearly not the right person for the job.

I always felt that Bob Iger promoted Chapek because of the experience businesses financial success while Chapek was running it, and for no other reason. For whatever reason it didn't work out with Tom Staggs and Chapek was just kind of there, the parks/hotels/cruise line were doing really well while the rest of the company was struggling, so I felt that Chapek was named CEO as the de-facto candidate. There was nothing else about Bob Chapek that indicated he was going to be a great CEO, he was not a creative or visionary leader and while I know he hated being called this, he was definitely "meet the metrics" guy. He was ruthless with the way he ran the business aspect of the parks.

What I mean by that was that he was always a "I meet my numbers" kinda guy and never really cared about anything else. This led to the parks doing really well financially when he was running them, however the constant BS he was doing to make profit in the short term came at making the parks worse and pissing everyone off, including all of the Disney fans. I worked for Disney at the time and remember when he was put in charge of the parks, it was like someone flipped a light switch, all of a sudden the only thing that was important were the quarterly numbers. This is why everyone in the company hated him and eventually it led to his ouster from the company. Obviously people like Bob Iger & Josh D'Amaro are seasoned corporate executives whose top priority is maximizing profit (you can't get to the top of a giant megacorporation any other way), but they also have situational awareness, charisma, and understand how to navigate the minefield of making investors happy while also keeping up the image of the company. Bob Chapek had none of this, he was just a guy who cared about meeting numbers and that was about it. Even though he tried to put on the face, every time he would go out and do a public interview and it came across as not authentic and "cringe." Behind the scenes he personally oversaw major cuts to projects and he was obsessed with upcharging. He was always demanding people to come up with new ways to rip customers off and never talked about creativity and innovation or anything like that. While I was in the parks this directly led to the management:
-Cutting park hours and creating more upcharge events, including ones that were really bad and hastily thrown together like Harambe Nights.
-Creating an upcharge bus service that takes the already understaffed bus transportation department give better service to people who pay more...which of course inevitably created a situation that made transportation worse for regular people because we didn't have the resources to take on a whole other project.
-Eliminate PM EMH and replace it with an After Hours upcharge event for people willing to pay more (because paying extra to stay on property apparently wasn't enough).
-Eliminate Magical Express.
-Put upcharge tents in Tomorrowland, which stuck out like a sore thumb and looked completely ridiculous, so there can be a premium cabana experience in the theme parks.
-TBH I think some form of paid Fastpass was inevitable, however I will say that they went way overboard with the upcharge one-shots while they were out of VQ for major rides. It created a situation of "you can literally only go on this ride if you're willing to pay $20 extra per person...you don't even have the option to wait in line." Which is insane...like why would you do that? Just say you're full and don't offer it at all if that's what you're gonna do. The whole way they went about paid Fastpass was absurd.
-And probably most egregious of all, take what should have been a slam dunk with Marvel/Avengers at the Disneyland Resort, and make it underwhelming. Cars Land and Avatar Land, which were not even close to Marvel/Avengers and Star Wars in popularity, got way better reviews.
-Publicly saying they were cutting the quantity of food, increasing the price, and then making fun of the fans for being fat (okay he didn't say this personally, but the fact that they said they were cutting food and raising prices publicly was a stupid thing to do to begin with).
Those are just a few examples of the stuff the parks management was doing to try and make Bob Chapek happy when he was running things.

But now to some of the complaints Chapek has lodged against Bob Iger in recent articles.

Chapek said that Iger told him that he wanted to retire because he was sick of dealing with the investors and all that BS. But then on the first earnings call after he was named CEO, Chapek felt that Iger set him up to fail by not helping him during the earnings call. According to Chapek, he asked Iger who was going to handle what during the earnings call, and Iger basically said "its all you." Chapek complains that Iger knew he had no experience in TV, but the first question was about ABC having a liberal bias, but since Iger didn't help during the earnings call he felt Iger left him out to dry.

This is a completely absurd complaint. First of all you just said Iger specifically told you he was sick of dealing with investors, and now you're all triggered that you have to deal with [what TBH what was a pretty basic] question about ABC. You are the CEO of the biggest media company in the world and you can't answer a basic question about bias in the news...and you're mad at Bob Iger about it? Dude you are the CEO! You are complaining that Bob was trying to undermine you, but then also complaining that Bob didn't step in and rescue you...you've got to be kidding me. No wonder Iger didn't think he was up for the job.

Another ridiculous complaint Chapek has is that Iger retired on his own timeline and didn't make him CEO quick enough. He said that Iger basically gaslight Jay Rasulo, Tom Staggs, Kevin F, and himself by staying with the company so long. He even went on to say at one point Iger said he needed to talk to him and he thought he was gonna get promoted, and Iger said "I'm buying Fox and staying for three more years," and apparently Chapek was devastated by this and felt he was cheated out of being named CEO. Dude...you're running the whole Disney Parks/Resorts/Cruise business and making millions of dollars...I understand you may have been personally disappointed, but you look like a total clown by complaining about this in a book. You are not personally entitled to become CEO of the largest entertainment company in the world on your own timeline. To me this was just incredibly petty. There are millions of people all across the country who want to be promoted, who think they deserve to be promoted, but don't get promoted on the timeline they think they are entitled to.

Another complaint he had about Iger was after he was named CEO they did an interview together on CNBC where he felt Iger was cold and standoffish towards him, and after the interview the reporter even told him he felt weird vibes from Iger. He said that he felt he was sucking up to Iger during the interview to keep him happy and Iger was still cold. Uhhh...for curiosity I just rewatched the interview...I mean, again, you're entitled to your feelings, but no one watching that interview was thinking that. They wanted to see you say something that would give them confidence the company was in good hands and you just sat there and praised Iger while Iger sat there. You are the CEO, you call the shots now, have some confidence in yourself. Take the reins and go inspire your people and Wall Street. Instead you were trying to make Bob Iger happy and it didn't work. He also complained about getting the job abruptly and there not being an orderly transition over the span of several months that involved Bob Iger introducing him to investors and media and stuff. I don't know about you, but if I were CEO i'd want to take over and start doing things my way as soon as possible. Again putting this in the book shows that Chapek wasn't the right guy, if I had been working for the company for 30+ years i'd know exactly what I want to do when I take the top job, I wouldn't want or need to go on a world tour with Bob Iger.

Some of the stuff Chapek is proudly championing is just so tone-deaf I had to read it multiple times to believe it. In the NYT article it mentions in the 1990s he proudly championed direct to video sequels, saying it was him, a guy from Indiana and went to state school, who led that initiative, and that the hollywood insiders he worked with called it creative heresy. We all know those movies were universally panned by fans and critics and are widely considered part of a major downfall in Disney animation at that time. And that thing with the chip on his shoulder, again, almost everyone in hollywood is from somewhere else. Nobody cares where you went to college, they care if you do a good job. He even went as far to say he had the guts to raise prices and charge for Fastpass when other people didn't want to "stir the hornets nest."

TLDR: Bob Iger may not have always been nice to Bob Chapek, but the complaints Chapek is lobbying towards Iger are not the reason he was ousted in my opinion. It seems like Chapek was letting personal grievances with Bob Iger dominate his thinking when he should have been running the company better.

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