posthuman's Reviews > The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company

The Ride of a Lifetime is an inspiring and optimistic yet largely colorless account of Bob Iger's 45-year career in television and media. Disclosure: Bob was my boss's boss for several years, and it was probably a lot more entertaining to read due to personal memories of some of the office politics.

A potentially fascinating subject for this sort of book, perhaps the greatest entertainment industry leader of our time, shares insight into how he tackled impossible challenges coming up in the business. In the course of reading it, however, it felt like he glossed over a lot of the character flaws and personal demons that make a good memoir great.

The book opens with an electrifying account of a 24-hour period in which Iger kept multiple balls in the air dealing with Chinese officials and all the complex moving pieces of launching Shanghai Disneyland, while simultaneously responding to the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando where Disney cast members counted among the victims. Just before the ribbon cutting ceremony in Shanghai, he learns Disneyland House of Blues was the terrorist's original target. Then he is told an alligator has killed a 2 year-old boy at the park in Florida and immediately reaches out to the parents.

He compartmentalizes in order to deal with these simultaneous dilemmas, and this habit of compartmentalization might have made for a much more interesting lens through which to view his personal and career setbacks. Unfortunately, the rest of the book doesn't explore any of this, nor does it live up to the frenetic pacing of the opening chapter. It's a largely aseptic narrative that reads like his publicist and his lawyer went over everything with a fine-toothed comb.

Of course Bob Iger is no Walter Isaacson, but there are a number of riveting, raw business memoirs like Horowitz's The Hard Thing About Hard Things that dare to expose some of the author's worst shortcomings and as a result feel more authentic and exhilarating. I found it a delightful read, but perhaps this has more to do with knowing some of the people described and having been present at some of the events.

Running any large organization is an imperfect, messy endeavor and The Walt Disney Company is no exception. Iger's account is far too neat and tidy. There is a lack of personal crises depicted here and to make matters worse, the prose is watery and limp. I doubt The Ride of a Lifetime would be a particularly enjoyable read for most unless the author's lessons have some relevance to your own experiences.