Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek on his legacy being erased by Iger

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Brian Sozzi (0:30)

You guys are close friends, long flights together, joking, laughing, partying.

Bob Chapek (0:34)

Until the day I got the job and then everything changed.

Brian Sozzi (0:37)

Did you give Bob Iger a gold coin for a sailboat?

Bob Chapek (0:39)

I did.

That was to be laid inside the mast. And I just thought it was right. Even though I was being abused, you know, disrespected. I'm like, no, you know what, let's do the right thing. I have no idea if he actually used it or not.

Brian Sozzi (0:54)

But have you, A, talked to him since? B, if he sees this and says, you know what? I need to mend fences here. What would you tell him?

All right, welcome to a new episode of Power Players. I'm really excited for my next guest, a really, really, I would say an amazing career and a really, really good book talking about that career. His name is Bob Chapek. Behind the Castle Walls is the book. It's good to see you, Bob.

Bob Chapek (1:25)

Nice to see you as well.

Brian Sozzi (1:27)

Who is Bob Chapek? I feel as though just reading the book from page to page, you have been completely misunderstood.

Bob Chapek (1:35)

I think so. I think to a large extent, I'm a fish out of water in the, let's say the media business slash Hollywood business. I grew up right outside Chicago in sort of the Gary East Chicago, Hammond area of sort of a blue-collar rust belt, as it's called sometimes area. And I grew up really with great support of parents in a great community. But the idea of going to work at a Disney, I mean, that was mythical, right? No one actually goes to work at Disney. Or frankly, for most of the people that I went to high school with, even going to college, was not, I mean, you went to the oil mill, you went to the steel refinery, I mean, the steel mill or oil refinery, or you worked at the soap plant, or you worked at the corn processing plant. Those were the types of jobs that you did, and it was an extreme unique situation for someone to go to college, graduate, and then move out. And I think that has left an imprint on me that isn't necessarily consistent with the way most of the people that I've grown up in my career have had.

And I think it makes me a little more gritty.

I believe in willpower. People say, you know, what's kind of the one thing? I'm like, willpower. You just, it's amazing what a human can do if they will themselves to achieve a goal, whether it's a personal goal in terms of health, whether it's a personal goal in terms of financial, or just trying to build a family. So I think I am a bit of an oddity in the world that I've actually practiced my 40-year career in. But I celebrate that, and as you can tell in the book, it's something I'm proud of.

Brian Sozzi (3:26)

Is that grittiness what got you out of that town?

Bob Chapek (3:31)

One thousand percent. One thousand percent. I recant in the book, a brief interaction when I was a high school freshman. I sat with my guidance counselor and I said, okay, I want to go to college. Okay.

Tell me what classes I should take. And she essentially scoffed at it. She goes, you know, be a man, be like your grandfather, be like your father, go work in the oil refinery, retire at 52 and have a good life. Why do you want to go to college? Why do you want to waste your parents' money?

And to me, that was my spark. That was my catalyst to say, okay, I've got to do this on my own. You know, they were more than happy to give you your fourth semester of, you know, metal shop. But, you know, physics and chemistry, they had it, but very small classes. I was one of them sitting there absorbing it.

Brian Sozzi (4:27)

I mean, you didn't leave college and go to Disney.