When I look back on Pixar’s history, I have to recognize that so many of the good things that happened could easily have gone a different way. Steve could have sold us - he tried more than once. Toy Story 2 could have been deleted for good, bringing the company down. For years, Disney was trying to steal John back, and they could have succeeded. I am distinctly aware that Disney Animation’s success in the 1990s gave Pixar its chance with Toy Story and also that their later struggles enabled us to join together and ultimately merge.

These guys were Tom Murphy and Dan Burke. Over the years, they’d built Cap Cities, starting a small television station in Albany, New York, acquisition by acquisition. With help from Tom’s close friend Warren Buffett, who backed the $3.5 billion deal, they were able to swallow our much larger company. (As Tom Murphy put it, they were “the minnow that ate the whale.”)

The assets Disney acquired in the merger—especially ESPN—drove growth for years and were a vital buffer for nearly a decade as Disney Animation struggled with a series of box-office disappointments.

The Pixar acquisition served our urgent need to revitalize Disney Animation, but it was also the first step in our larger growth strategy: to increase the amount of high-quality branded content we created; to advance technologically, both in our ability to create more compelling products and to deliver those products to consumers; and to grow globally.

Now that John and Ed were in place, that problem was well on its way to being solved. Once Disney Animation was solid, I was open to other acquisitions, even if they weren’t obviously “Disney.” In fact, I was much more conscious of not wanting to play it safe.