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Comment by birdyrooster | Hacker News Reader

Buying Disney would be a huge mistake for Apple by creating a massive distraction from the platform services that must be top notch. Adding Disney's executives and staff to the roster would dumb down Apple to a degree which is unacceptable.

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Sorry but the idea that Disney's execs would dumb down Apple is just ridiculous. I'd thoroughly recommend you look up what analysts think of Disney's performance as a company. They kick butt. Just because they run theme parks and make movies instead of producing little blocks of aluminium and glass doesn't make them stupid.

They may not be dumb, but culturally, the companies are miles apart. Disney is incredibly bureaucratic and is does a very poor job of developing and deploy technology. Most of the impressive displays of tech you associate with Disney were licensed or acquired, with a Disney label slapped on them. There is a permanent cold war between VP-level execs who seek to undercut each other.

Source: former mid-level technology manager in IT at Disney Parks and Resorts who had a weekly audience with VPs and SVPs.

I've heard similar stories from other Disney IT employees. It does seem like the tech coming out of the Research divisions continues to be extremely impressive though. Curious to get your thoughts on that.

https://www.disneyresearch.com/

Tech isn't really their core business, their core business is making movies and theme parks. It may be true that they don't develop or use innovative technology (it may not be true as well, I've truly got no idea). If that doesn't translate into negative impacts on their core business, then it doesn't translate to any legitimate criticisms of their executives.

Agreed, some very smart and ruthless people sell packaged tap water

Theoretically, and JUST for the sake of argument. Apple could buy Disney, give themselves a perpetual license to all content, and then immediately spin off the parts of Disney they don't want (including any executives, theme parks, etc).

Disney's brand is a huge driver in the value of the company, and each of Disney's parts would lose a huge chunk of value if separated from the brand.

These sorts of liquidations aren't going to make economic sense for a massively successful brand and corporation

I'm inclined to agree. I suspect this was also the thinking the prevented them from pursuing a merger with Netflix. They seem to target their big acquisitions towards things where their own "Apple-ish" culture and philosophy guides the core technologies. They're not going to want to muddy that by having execs from Netflix or Blackberry or Bose in on it. Like, they bought Beats, but mostly because Beats was basically just a brand that they could do whatever they wanted to under the hood.

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