Kneel Before Eisner
The Ovitz case gets ruled on.
This is such a great story. I highly recommend DisneyWar by James B Stewart. The whole Eisner-Ovitz episode is a great lesson for business. Never hire your best friend when you are going to have to be their boss. These two guys were very close for years. Then Eisner decided to make Ovitz president of Disney and it all went down the shitter. Their styles clashed, Eisner's monkey boys wouldn't show Ovitz any respect, and Ovitz had this thing about buying expensive gifts with company money for talent he was going after. That's how he did things when he was a Hollywood superagent, but you can't do that at Disney.
It was funny reading the book, because I didn't know about this whole Ovitz thing beforehand. I didn't know how bad it eventually turned out. But you could just tell that the whole thing was doomed from the start. Anyone who is going into business should read that book. Even if you aren't, you can learn a lot about how pettiness and dishonesty can fuck over any workplace, even the Magic Kingdom. There are so many little lessons that you pick up on. It's stuff that seems obvious but then you realize how simple it is to fall into the same trap that the Disney folks did.
And no, I'm not going to tell you any of that stuff. Just read the friggin book.
This is such a great story. I highly recommend DisneyWar by James B Stewart. The whole Eisner-Ovitz episode is a great lesson for business. Never hire your best friend when you are going to have to be their boss. These two guys were very close for years. Then Eisner decided to make Ovitz president of Disney and it all went down the shitter. Their styles clashed, Eisner's monkey boys wouldn't show Ovitz any respect, and Ovitz had this thing about buying expensive gifts with company money for talent he was going after. That's how he did things when he was a Hollywood superagent, but you can't do that at Disney.
It was funny reading the book, because I didn't know about this whole Ovitz thing beforehand. I didn't know how bad it eventually turned out. But you could just tell that the whole thing was doomed from the start. Anyone who is going into business should read that book. Even if you aren't, you can learn a lot about how pettiness and dishonesty can fuck over any workplace, even the Magic Kingdom. There are so many little lessons that you pick up on. It's stuff that seems obvious but then you realize how simple it is to fall into the same trap that the Disney folks did.
And no, I'm not going to tell you any of that stuff. Just read the friggin book.
