By Beth Kowitt | Updated on Oct 08, 2026 at 12:30 PM
Bob Chapek and Bob Iger may no longer run Walt Disney Co., but lately the two former CEOs have been doing the company a favor.
Disney has just undergone its third round of layoffs since Josh D’Amaro took on the top job in March. Yet instead of all eyes being on Disney’s most recent cost-cutting efforts as the company contends with the continued shift to streaming, Iger and Chapek have managed to redirect the focus to their ongoing feud. As Vulture put it , “The Girls (Disney CEOs Named Bob) Are Fighting.”
This new front in the war of the Bobs has been reignited by the publication of Chapek’s memoir — nearly four years after the board fired him and reinstated his predecessor, Iger , into the job. In the book, Chapek details all the ways he believes Iger undermined him and set him up to fail. The claims range from Iger never giving up the CEO’s office because of its private shower to being blindsided by a piece from then-New York Times columnist Ben Smith in which he says Iger effectively reassumed control of the company.
And Iger is slagging Chapek too, although not by name. The same day that the Wall Street Journal published an interview with Chapek tied to the book’s launch, Harvard Business Review put out its own with Iger. In it, Iger says that the board wasn’t as thorough as it should have been during its succession process and that it “discounted” some of his successor’s weaknesses.
This is just the latest embarrassing installment in what’s been an ongoing saga of embarrassments. It’s embarrassing for the Bobs, and it’s embarrassing for how it reflects on Disney. Chapek left the company with a $20 million severance package , and Iger made more than twice that in total compensation his final full year as CEO. Yet now they are publicly relitigating what in some cases comes across as petty slights. Meanwhile, hundreds of regular Disney employees who never enjoyed eight-figure paydays are in the process of losing their jobs.
One anecdote that captures the tenor of Chapek and Iger’s clash: the infamous briefing binder on the flight to the annual meeting in 2020. The New York Times reported in 2024 that Iger offered to brief Chapek during the flight, only for Chapek to say he’d read the binder and would ask Iger if he had any questions. The way Chapek tells it in his book: Iger informed Chapek that he would have to handle the Q&A during the meeting. When Chapek reminded him he’s only been in the job for two weeks, Iger told him, “Well you have a binder. Study it.” Years later, we’re still rehashing which CEO of one of the world’s biggest companies was rude to whom over a binder.
There’s a reason that CEO coach Bob Mintz once likened departing CEOs to acting like “little boys on the playground.” The shifting of all that power and influence is tough on the ego. (In addition to Disney, see Starbucks Corp. and Lululemon Athletica Inc .) But that can also make former CEOs uniquely unreliable narrators. They’re closely attuned with the inner workings of the company, and yet they’re also deeply incentivized to tell us that everything conveniently blew up only after they stopped running the place.
That’s why sometimes the best thing a former CEO can do is just go away. Advising your successor when they ask is great. So is coaching other CEOs behind the scenes. By all means, join a few boards. Write the inevitable leadership and management book if you must. But save the complaints for your family and closest friends. And don’t meddle (ahem, Bob I.), publicly gripe or undermine. And certainly don’t do it in a memoir (looking at you, Bob C.) that was designed to rehabilitate your image.
Chapek has said the goal of his book is to set the record straight, but instead it’s most successful in reminding everyone of his rocky tenure just when we’ve all moved on. It’s clear from the start that he has a chip on his shoulder. Unfairly or not, he was always cast as the straight-laced exec who didn’t have the finesse or creative skills to deal with Hollywood talent. Somehow, he thinks that calling himself a disruptor throughout the book will convince his readers otherwise. (A sampling: “That’s the thing about being a disruptor — you can’t be afraid to challenge the status quo.” “I had become the Hollywood disruptor.” “When I was a child, long before I became a disruptor, I was an improviser.”)
To be fair, Chapek had far from an easy start. He took over Disney at the start of the pandemic, when lockdowns accelerated the shift to streaming. He also faced an untenable governance structure . The board allowed Iger to set the timeline for his departure and continue to run the company’s creative efforts. It also acquiesced when he demanded Chapek report to both him and the board.
But Chapek also oversaw plenty of mistakes: his flubbing of the company’s response to Florida’s so-called Don’t Say Gay bill , the mishandling of a lawsuit filed against Disney by Scarlett Johansson for breach of contract when it sent her film “Black Widow” to streaming, and his underplaying a $1.5 billion quarterly loss in its streaming business on an earnings call. In the book, he takes responsibility for little of it. He always seems to have an excuse. “My abrupt dismissal hurt my reputation, leaving those close to me, outsiders, and some within the kingdom trying to figure out what I did wrong. The answer, again, is nothing,” Chapek writes.
The winner in the battle of the Bobs may end up being D’Amaro, who Chapek takes credit for discovering in his book. The new CEO’s talent may be the one thing that both Bobs can agree on. Better yet for D’Amaro, both former CEOs may be too busy with their own feud to meddle in his tenure.
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