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Builders + Strategy

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Company deep-dives: Apple, NVIDIA, LVMH...

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Disney's Business History: Flywheel to Streaming

Disney's business model is a flywheel: make a beloved story once, then sell it forever through parks, merchandise, and reissues. This episode traces how Michael Eisner and Bob Iger rebuilt that flywheel twice, first with animation and ESPN, then with Pixar, Marvel, and streaming, and asks whether the flywheel still turns.

August 10, 2026 · 7 min read

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Walt Disney's IP Flywheel Business Model Explained

Walt Disney built the first intellectual property flywheel: create beloved animated characters, saturate distribution, then feed merchandise, TV, and theme parks off that IP without cannibalizing it. After a devastating 1928 betrayal cost him Oswald the Rabbit, Disney invented Mickey Mouse and never let a distributor own his characters again.

June 22, 2026 · 6 min read

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