In the fall of 2019 Bob Iger’s memoir The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company hit the shelves, followed shortly after by Iger being named as Time's businessperson of the year. You couldn’t scroll through Twitter or stand in line for coffee without seeing Iger’s face looking back at you from book covers and iPhone screens. Everyone was eager to hear the story behind one of the world’s most successful executives and, more than that, peek behind the curtain of one of the most iconic and beloved brands ever built. 

On page one of the book, Iger makes it clear that his book is not a memoir (but what else do we call it?) but more so a collection of qualities and habits that are “the result of purposeful decisions” he made throughout his career. These purposeful decisions were often precipitated by his propensity to say yes, starting with the opportunity that landed him his first job at ABC. 

I came to ABC thanks to my uncle Bob’s bad eyesight. My mother’s brother, whom I adored, spent a few days in a Manhattan hospital after eye surgery, and his roommate was a lower-level ABC executive, who for whatever reasons wanted my uncle to believe he was a big network mogul… Before he was discharged, my uncle mentioned to his roommate that his nephew was looking for a job in television production in New York. The guy gave him his number and said, “Tell your nephew to give me a call.” (pg. 7)

Iger did, in fact, give him a call and, while the ABC executive was a little confused and surprised by the follow through, it ultimately landed Iger his first role in television production.

The position paid $150 per week and was about as low as you could go on the ABC ladder… The job description was pretty simple: Show up whenever they needed me, for whatever task… It was the opposite of glamorous but I learned the ins and outs of all those shows. I spoke the lingo. I got to know all of the people who made a TV show work. (pg. 8)

The same fall The Ride of a Lifetime was hitting bookshelves, the Permanent Equity team was headed to beautiful South Bend, Indiana, to speak to students in Notre Dame’s Institute for Global Investing (NDIGI) program. At the end of the group discussion with approximately 50-60 juniors and seniors, Brent offered up an invitation welcoming anyone who wanted to to join our team for dinner at a restaurant on campus. Only one student actually took us up on the offer. There is sometimes a natural assumption that when people offer up things like “have your nephew call me” or casual invites to dinner, they’re just being polite or blowing smoke. In our experience, these seemingly casual offers are genuine, and there is almost always nothing but upside to be gained from pursuing them. 

My instinct throughout my career has always been to say yes to every opportunity. In part this is just garden-variety ambition. I wanted to move up and learn and do more, and I wasn’t going to forgo any chance to do that, but I also wanted to prove to myself that I was capable of doing things that I was unfamiliar with. (pg. 32) 

Thoughtful open mindedness to new opportunities is how half of the Permanent Equity team ended up in their roles today. It’s the guiding principle behind how we look for talent and the reason we believe so fully in our Orbit network. The Orbit gives us a framework around which we can give people opportunities to say yes, even if that yes is just to have a cup of coffee. 

In 1985, ABC’s founder decided to sell the corporation to a much smaller company, Cap Cities, for $3.5 billion. After seeing several high ups he respected make the decision to leave ABC, Iger was convinced he should follow suit. On the same day he was coming in to announce he was leaving for a new role at IMC, he was offered a promotion to stay at ABC. 

There are moments in our careers, in our lives, that are inflection points, but they're often not the most obvious or dramatic ones. I wasn’t sure I was making the right decision. It was probably the safer one, really, to stay at the place I knew. But I also didn’t want to leave too impulsively, because my ego had been bruised or because I had some feeling of superiority… (pg. 27)

Sometimes saying yes means saying yes to what you’re currently doing. Yes, I’m on the right path. Yes, I’m doing something I love that is fulfilling to me. Ultimately Iger’s decision to stay with ABC led to the “ride of a lifetime,” and it influenced his approach to bringing talented people onto his team.

Tom and Dan were the perfect bosses in this regard. They would talk about valuing ability more than experience, and they believed in putting people in roles that required more of them then they knew they had in them. It wasn’t that experience wasn’t important, but they “bet on brains,” as they put it, and trusted that things would work out if they put talented people in positions where they could grow, even if they were in unfamiliar territory. (pg. 32)

We have a similar “bet on brains” philosophy at Permanent Equity. Maybe it stems from the fact that we’re a group of operators that stumbled sideways into private equity or that our CFO went to school to be a playwright not an accountant. In all reality, it’s because we know the power of saying yes to new opportunities and putting yourself in a position to grow and do more than you knew you could.  

By Kelie Morgan
Book Referenced: The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger

More recommended reading from the Permanent Equity Team":

Bringing Your Funny to Work in “Humor, Seriously”

Lululemon’s First Private Equity Process in “Little Black Stretchy Pants”