What if Apple Computer, Inc. acquired Disney-ABC Enterprises in 1997?

In 1986, Jobs funded the spinout of The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm's computer graphics division for the price of $10 million, $5 million of which was given to the company as capital and $5 million of which was paid to Lucasfilm for technology rights.

The first film produced by Pixar with its Disney partnership, *Toy Story* (1995), with Jobs credited as executive producer, brought financial success and critical acclaim to the studio when it was released. Over the course of Jobs's life, under Pixar's creative chief John Lasseter, the company produced box-office hits *A Bug's Life* (1998), *Toy Story 2* (1999), *Monsters, Inc.* (2001), *Finding Nemo* (2003), *The Incredibles*(2004), *Cars* (2006), *Ratatouille* (2007), *WALL-E* (2008), *Up* (2009), *Toy Story 3* (2010), and *Cars 2* (2011). *Brave* (2012), Pixar's first film to be produced since Jobs's death, honored him with a tribute for his contributions to the studio. *Finding Nemo*, *The Incredibles*, *Ratatouille*, *WALL-E*, *Up*, *Toy Story 3*, and *Brave* each received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, an award introduced in 2001.

In 2003 and 2004, as Pixar's contract with Disney was running out, Jobs and Disney chief executive Michael Eisner tried but failed to negotiate a new partnership, and in January 2004, Jobs announced that he would never deal with Disney again. Pixar sought a new partner to distribute its films after its contract expired.

In October 2005, Bob Iger replaced Eisner at Disney, and Iger quickly worked to mend relations with Jobs and Pixar. On January 24, 2006, Jobs and Iger announced that Disney had agreed to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. When the deal closed, Jobs became The Walt Disney Company's largest single shareholder with approximately seven percent of the company's stock. Jobs's holdings in Disney far exceeded those of Eisner, who holds 1.7%, and of Disney family member Roy E. Disney, who until his 2009 death held about 1% of the company's stock and whose criticisms of Eisner—especially that he soured Disney's relationship with Pixar—accelerated Eisner's ousting. Upon completion of the merger, Jobs received 7% of Disney shares, and joined the board of directors as the largest individual shareholder. Upon Jobs's death his shares in Disney were transferred to the Steven P. Jobs Trust led by Laurene Jobs.

After Jobs's death, Iger recalled in 2019 that many warned him about Jobs, "that he would bully me and everyone else". Iger wrote, "Who wouldn't want Steve Jobs to have influence over how a company is run?", and that as an active Disney board member "he rarely created trouble for me. Not never but rarely." He speculated that they would have seriously considered merging Disney and Apple had Jobs lived. Floyd Norman, of Pixar, described Jobs as a "mature, mellow individual" who never interfered with the creative process of the filmmakers. In early June 2014, Pixar cofounder and Walt Disney Animation Studios President Edwin Catmull revealed that Jobs once advised him to "just explain it to them until they understand" in disagreements. Catmull released the book *Creativity, Inc.* in 2014, in which he recounts numerous experiences of working with Jobs. Regarding his own manner of dealing with Jobs, Catmull writes:[*page needed*]

In all the 26 years with Steve, Steve and I never had one of these loud verbal arguments, and it's not my nature to do that. ... but we did disagree fairly frequently about things. ... I would say something to him and he would immediately shoot it down because he could think faster than I could. ... I would then wait a week ... I'd call him up, and I give my counterargument to what he had said, and he'd immediately shoot it down. So I had to wait another week, and occasionally this went on for months. But ultimately one of three things happened. About a third of the time he said, "Oh, I get it, you're right", and that was the end of it. And it was another third of the time in which [I'd] say, "Actually I think he is right". The other third of the time, where we didn't reach consensus, he just let me do it my way, never said anything more about it.

In 1996, Jobs's former company Apple was struggling and its survival depended on completing its next operating system. After failed negotiations to purchase Be Inc., Apple eventually came to a deal with NeXT in December for $400 million; the deal was finalized in February 1997, bringing Jobs back to the company he had cofounded. Jobs became *de facto* chief after then-CEO Gil Amelio was ousted in July 1997. He was formally named interim chief executive on September 16. In March 1998, to concentrate Apple's efforts on returning to profitability, Jobs terminated several projects, such as Newton, Cyberdog, and OpenDoc. In the coming months, many employees developed a fear of encountering Jobs while riding in the elevator, "afraid that they might not have a job when the doors opened. The reality was that Jobs's summary executions were rare, but a handful of victims was enough to terrorize a whole company." Jobs changed the licensing program for Macintosh clones, making it too costly for the manufacturers to continue making machines.

With the purchase of NeXT, much of the company's technology found its way into Apple products, most notably NeXTSTEP, which evolved into Mac OS X. Under Jobs's guidance, the company increased sales significantly with the introduction of the iMac and other new products; since then, appealing designs and powerful branding have worked well for Apple. At the 2000 Macworld Expo, Jobs officially dropped the "interim" modifier from his title at Apple and became permanent CEO. Jobs quipped at the time that he would be using the title "iCEO".

The company subsequently branched out, introducing and improving upon other digital appliances. With the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, and the iTunes Store, the company made forays into consumer electronics and music distribution. On June 29, 2007, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a multi-touch display cell phone, which also included the features of an iPod and, with its own mobile browser, revolutionized the mobile browsing scene. While nurturing open-ended innovation, Jobs also reminded his employees that "real artists ship".

Jobs had a public war of words with Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell, starting in 1987, when Jobs first criticized Dell for making "un-innovative beige boxes". On October 6, 1997, at a Gartner Symposium, when Dell was asked what he would do if he ran the then-troubled Apple Computer company, he said: "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders". Then, in 2006, Jobs emailed all employees when Apple's market capitalization rose above Dell's. It read:

Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve.

Jobs was both admired and criticized for his consummate skill at persuasion and salesmanship, which has been dubbed the "reality distortion field" and was particularly evident during his keynote speeches (colloquially known as "Stevenotes") at Macworld Expos and at Apple Worldwide Developers Conferences.

Jobs usually went to work wearing a black long-sleeved mock turtleneck made by Issey Miyake, Levi's 501 blue jeans, and New Balance 991 sneakers. Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson "...he came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, both because of its daily convenience (the rationale he claimed) and its ability to convey a signature style".

Jobs was a board member at Gap Inc. from 1999 to 2002.

In 2001, Jobs was granted stock options in the amount of 7.5 million shares of Apple with an exercise price of $18.30. It was alleged that the options had been backdated, and that the exercise price should have been $21.10. It was further alleged that Jobs had thereby incurred taxable income of $20,000,000 that he did not report, and that Apple overstated its earnings by that same amount. As a result, Jobs potentially faced a number of criminal charges and civil penalties. The case was the subject of active criminal and civil government investigations, though an independent internal Apple investigation completed on December 29, 2006, found that Jobs was unaware of these issues and that the options granted to him were returned without being exercised in 2003.

In 2005, Jobs responded to criticism of Apple's poor recycling programs for e-waste in the US by lashing out at environmental and other advocates at Apple's annual meeting in Cupertino in April. A few weeks later, Apple announced it would take back iPods for free at its retail stores. The Computer TakeBack Campaign responded by flying a banner from a plane over the Stanford University graduation at which Jobs was the commencement speaker. The banner read "Steve, don't be a mini-player—recycle all e-waste".[*citation needed*]

In 2006, he further expanded Apple's recycling programs to any US customer who buys a new Mac. This program includes shipping and "environmentally friendly disposal" of their old systems.

The success of Apple's unique products and services provided several years of stable financial returns, propelling Apple to become the world's most valuable publicly traded company in 2011.

Jobs was perceived as a demanding perfectionist who always aspired to position his businesses and their products at the forefront of the information technology industry by foreseeing and setting innovation and style trends. He summed up this self-concept at the end of his keynote speech at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007, by quoting ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky:

There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been". And we've always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very, very beginning. And we always will.

On July 1, 2008, a $7 billion class action suit was filed against several members of the Apple board of directors for revenue lost because of alleged securities fraud.

In a 2011 interview with biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs revealed that he had met with US President Barack Obama, complained about the nation's shortage of software engineers, and told Obama that he was "headed for a one-term presidency". Jobs proposed that any foreign student who got an engineering degree at a US university should automatically be offered a green card. After the meeting, Jobs commented, "The president is very smart, but he kept explaining to us reasons why things can't get done . . . . It infuriates me".

But in the alternate universe, what if Apple Computer, Inc. acquired Disney-ABC Enterprises in 1997.

This theory is interconnected to What if DreamWorks Pictures was founded in 1980 as The Geffen Film Company?

## Changes

* The acquisition would've been announced in December 20, 1996 and completed in February 7, 1997.
* Disney-ABC Motion Pictures Group via Walt Disney Pictures would've become a subsidiary of Apple Inc. "formerly Apple Computer, Inc." in 1997.
* Walt Disney Pictures would've still use its full name for post-2011 releases instead of simplify to just Disney.
* Apple Studios would've never existed, with it's films and shows being released by Disney-ABC Releasing Corporation via Walt Disney Pictures and Disney-ABC Television Entertainment via Disney Television Studios.
* Apple TV+ would've never existed, with it's original contents being streamed on Disney+.