The Ride of a Lifetime

I went into this knowing nothing about Bob Iger aside from the fact that he was the CEO of the Walt Disney Company and I was pleasantly surprised! It was really interesting to get a behind-the-scenes look of the aquisitions that Disney made during his time. It also felt pretty candid and authentic, and included some good nuggets of advice throughout the book. It was engaging (and short) enough that I ended up finishing it over the course of a weekend.

I went into this knowing nothing about Bob Iger aside from the fact that he was the CEO of the Walt Disney Company and I was pleasantly surprised! It was really interesting to get a behind-the-scenes look of the aquisitions that Disney made during his time. It also felt pretty candid and authentic, and included some good nuggets of advice throughout the book. It was engaging (and short) enough that I ended up finishing it over the course of a weekend.

I enjoyed Ride of a Lifetime, it was short and direct which I appreciate in business books - a fascinating look behind the thinking from Iger and team to build Disney into a modern media empire. Amazing to see Iger set the right strategy, and carried forward an ambitious plan over years to grow Disney. Iger recalled some topics he had to address directly, and I would have liked more candor around the emotion and day-to-day of running a company like Disney, and perspectives on closing deals worth billions where they were presented more like dry facts.

A well-written and equally entertaining combination of Ray Dalio's Principles and Phil Knight's Shoe dog. The book has a few essential lessons on leadership and life in general. He talks a great deal about humility, empathy, respect, innovation and luck, which explains most of his and Disney's success, however at times it's a bit difficult to believe that he's as humble and empathic as he thinks he is, a clear example of that being the way he disregarded George Lucas completely in the new Star Wars series (which are quite shit in my opinion and made me lose all interest in Star Wars, having been a fan previous to that). Also, being close friends with Steve Jobs, who is known for anything but humility or empathy, makes his character a bit questionable.
Although he mentioned he will not be running for POTUS, I can definitely see this book as being part of his pre-announcement campaign. I'm not saying that he would be a bad president, but the timing is curious and the ‘very democratic' vibe of the book would make one think he's seriously considering running.

Well written and full of great insight into one of the best CEOs of our time. I've heard about him from multiple other sources (Jobs' bios, Creativity inc,...), and it's super interesting to hear the same stories from Bob's perspective.

The book has many businesses advices but mostly it's a story of how great mentors can get you wherever you want to go. And Bob tries to be the mentor for the reader of this book.

Highly recommended!