In a thoughtful post on the absence of a magic formula for business success, coupled with some useful critiques of business writing, Steve asks:
As far as I can tell, Eisner today is the same micro-managing, lack of clear successor, where's the spotlight, don't get me angry at you executive that he was when he first started at Disney. If his style is such a problem, then how does one account for Disney's earlier successes? At the same time, if it was his strategy and his implementation that was responsible for Disney's part successes, then what's going on now?
Actually, I think there is an answer to that question. At the same time Disney hired Eisner, the firm also hired Jeffrey Katzenberg. Also, Frank Wells was appointed as Disney's President. According to a lot of accounts, Wells was the only guy who could tell Eisner no. When Wells died in a 1994 helicopter crash, there was nobody left to restrain Eisner's tendency towards micromanagement and his imperialistic instincts. Shortly thereafter Eisner and Katzenberg (who gets most credit for reviving Disney's moribund animation department) fell out and Katzenberg left to co-found Dreamworks. In short, Eisner's successes could be attributed to a trio of which he was an admittedly key part. Once he was on his own, however, successes were a lot fewer and farther between.