1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,643
Of all the characters
in all the Disney films

2
00:00:03,667 --> 00:00:06,958
the one I love the most
is Jiminy Cricket from "Pinocchio."

3
00:00:07,708 --> 00:00:09,768
My favorite scene in the movie

4
00:00:09,792 --> 00:00:12,809
is when the blue fairy
is saying to Pinocchio,

5
00:00:12,833 --> 00:00:15,476
"Always let your conscience
be your guide."

6
00:00:15,500 --> 00:00:17,851
Pinocchio asks, "What are conscience?"

7
00:00:17,875 --> 00:00:20,476
and Jiminy Cricket
is scandalized by the question.

8
00:00:20,500 --> 00:00:21,809
"What are conscience!

9
00:00:21,833 --> 00:00:23,309
What are conscience!

10
00:00:23,333 --> 00:00:27,309
Conscience is that still, small voice
that people won't listen to.

11
00:00:27,333 --> 00:00:29,875
That's just the trouble
with the world today."

12
00:00:30,708 --> 00:00:34,143
I love the way Jiminy Cricket
is always there

13
00:00:34,167 --> 00:00:37,226
with a nerdy, ethical thing

14
00:00:37,250 --> 00:00:41,184
just as Pinocchio's coming up
with some kind of good plan.

15
00:00:41,208 --> 00:00:44,143
I think of him as speaking
truth to puppet.

16
00:00:44,167 --> 00:00:46,643
I always wondered what it was
about Jiminy Cricket

17
00:00:46,667 --> 00:00:48,101
that made me love him so much

18
00:00:48,125 --> 00:00:49,393
and one day it hit me.

19
00:00:49,417 --> 00:00:51,583
It was because he sounds
like my grandfather.

20
00:00:52,667 --> 00:00:55,809
My grandfather was
a very sweet and cuddly man,

21
00:00:55,833 --> 00:00:58,292
and I loved him to the moon and back.

22
00:00:59,417 --> 00:01:02,143
But I shared him with a big, wide world.

23
00:01:02,167 --> 00:01:03,893
His name was Roy O. Disney,

24
00:01:03,917 --> 00:01:06,518
and together with his younger
brother Walt Disney,

25
00:01:06,542 --> 00:01:10,393
he came from a very humble
upbringing in Kansas

26
00:01:10,417 --> 00:01:14,792
and started and ran one of the most
iconic businesses in the world.

27
00:01:15,833 --> 00:01:18,726
Two things I remember the best
about going to Disneyland

28
00:01:18,750 --> 00:01:20,101
with my grandfather.

29
00:01:20,125 --> 00:01:23,559
The first thing was
he always gave me a stern warning

30
00:01:23,583 --> 00:01:26,268
that if I ever sassed
anybody who worked there,

31
00:01:26,292 --> 00:01:28,667
I was in deep doo-doo when we got home.

32
00:01:30,250 --> 00:01:32,351
He said, "these people work really hard --

33
00:01:32,375 --> 00:01:33,768
harder than you can imagine,

34
00:01:33,792 --> 00:01:35,792
and they deserve your respect."

35
00:01:36,750 --> 00:01:40,809
The other is that he never
walked by a piece of garbage,

36
00:01:40,833 --> 00:01:42,976
inside of Disneyland or anywhere else,

37
00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:45,309
where he didn't bend over to pick it up.

38
00:01:45,333 --> 00:01:48,708
He said, "no one's too good
to pick up a piece of garbage."

39
00:01:50,083 --> 00:01:51,434
In Grandpa's day,

40
00:01:51,458 --> 00:01:53,958
a job at Disneyland was not a gig.

41
00:01:54,917 --> 00:01:57,184
A person could expect to own a home,

42
00:01:57,208 --> 00:01:58,809
raise a family,

43
00:01:58,833 --> 00:02:01,434
access decent health care,

44
00:02:01,458 --> 00:02:05,184
retire in some security without worrying

45
00:02:05,208 --> 00:02:08,184
on just what he earned there at the park.

46
00:02:08,208 --> 00:02:10,559
Mind you, Grandpa fought the unions,

47
00:02:10,583 --> 00:02:11,958
and he fought them hard.

48
00:02:12,583 --> 00:02:14,559
He said he didn't like to be forced

49
00:02:14,583 --> 00:02:17,143
to do something
he wanted to do voluntarily.

50
00:02:17,167 --> 00:02:21,518
That was rank paternalism of course
and maybe even a tiny bit of BS.

51
00:02:21,542 --> 00:02:23,125
He wasn't an angel,

52
00:02:23,917 --> 00:02:27,059
and everyone wasn't well
and fairly treated across the company,

53
00:02:27,083 --> 00:02:28,542
something that's well-known.

54
00:02:30,208 --> 00:02:35,101
But I think in his core
he had a very deep commitment

55
00:02:35,125 --> 00:02:39,542
to the idea that he had a moral obligation
to every human being that worked for him.

56
00:02:40,417 --> 00:02:44,667
That actually wasn't such an uncommon
attitude for CEOs of the day.

57
00:02:45,542 --> 00:02:49,059
But when my grandfather died in 1971,

58
00:02:49,083 --> 00:02:51,518
a new mindset was beginning to take hold

59
00:02:51,542 --> 00:02:55,125
of the American and eventually
the global imagination.

60
00:02:55,875 --> 00:02:59,934
Jiminy Cricket got shown the door
by economist Milton Friedman,

61
00:02:59,958 --> 00:03:01,226
among others,

62
00:03:01,250 --> 00:03:04,250
who popularized the idea
of shareholder primacy.

63
00:03:05,167 --> 00:03:10,333
Now, shareholder primacy is a pretty
reasonable idea when you think about it.

64
00:03:11,125 --> 00:03:12,934
Shareholders own the company,

65
00:03:12,958 --> 00:03:17,226
shareholders want profits and growth,

66
00:03:17,250 --> 00:03:20,559
so therefore you prioritize
profits and growth.

67
00:03:20,583 --> 00:03:22,434
Very sensible.

68
00:03:22,458 --> 00:03:26,976
But unfortunately, shareholder primacy
was an idea that became a mindset

69
00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:29,559
and then that mindset jumped the rails,

70
00:03:29,583 --> 00:03:32,684
and it came to fundamentally
alter everything

71
00:03:32,708 --> 00:03:35,184
about the way companies
and even governments

72
00:03:35,208 --> 00:03:37,167
were led and managed.

73
00:03:38,333 --> 00:03:41,726
Milton Friedman's pivotal op-ed
in the "New York Times"

74
00:03:41,750 --> 00:03:47,559
was followed by decades
of concerted organizing and lobbying

75
00:03:47,583 --> 00:03:49,518
by business-focused activists

76
00:03:49,542 --> 00:03:54,434
along with a sustained assault
on every law and regulation

77
00:03:54,458 --> 00:03:59,083
that had once held businesses'
worst impulses in check.

78
00:03:59,917 --> 00:04:01,226
And soon enough,

79
00:04:01,250 --> 00:04:04,518
this new mindset had taken hold
across every business school

80
00:04:04,542 --> 00:04:06,042
and across every sector.

81
00:04:06,917 --> 00:04:10,893
Profits were to be pursued
by any means necessary,

82
00:04:10,917 --> 00:04:13,184
unions were kneecapped,

83
00:04:13,208 --> 00:04:14,518
taxes were slashed,

84
00:04:14,542 --> 00:04:15,851
and with the same machete,

85
00:04:15,875 --> 00:04:17,976
so was the safety net.

86
00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:20,268
I don't need to tell you
about the inequality

87
00:04:20,292 --> 00:04:22,375
that's been the result of these shifts.

88
00:04:23,042 --> 00:04:25,018
We all know the story well.

89
00:04:25,042 --> 00:04:28,976
The bottom line is that everything
that turns a gig into a livelihood

90
00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:32,018
was stripped away from an American worker.

91
00:04:32,042 --> 00:04:33,351
Job security,

92
00:04:33,375 --> 00:04:34,684
paid sick days,

93
00:04:34,708 --> 00:04:36,018
vacation time --

94
00:04:36,042 --> 00:04:37,309
all of that went away

95
00:04:37,333 --> 00:04:42,518
even as the wealthy saw their net worths
bloat to unprecedented,

96
00:04:42,542 --> 00:04:45,393
and yes, unusable levels.

97
00:04:45,417 --> 00:04:48,851
Although if you're Scrooge McDuck
you could change it all into gold coins

98
00:04:48,875 --> 00:04:50,167
and backstroke through it.

99
00:04:51,125 --> 00:04:53,625
So let me just address
the Dumbo in the room.

100
00:04:54,667 --> 00:04:58,458
Yes, I am criticizing the company
that bears my family's name.

101
00:04:59,542 --> 00:05:01,708
Yes, I think Disney can do better.

102
00:05:02,375 --> 00:05:06,559
And I believe that many of the thousands
of magnificent people

103
00:05:06,583 --> 00:05:08,809
who work at the Walt Disney Company

104
00:05:08,833 --> 00:05:11,958
wish that it would do better
just as much as I do.

105
00:05:12,833 --> 00:05:14,684
For almost a century,

106
00:05:14,708 --> 00:05:16,809
Disney has turned a pretty profit

107
00:05:16,833 --> 00:05:20,601
on the idea that families
are a kind of magic,

108
00:05:20,625 --> 00:05:22,851
that love is important,

109
00:05:22,875 --> 00:05:24,667
that imaginations matter.

110
00:05:25,208 --> 00:05:27,393
That's why it turns
your stomach a little bit

111
00:05:27,417 --> 00:05:30,934
when I tell you that Cinderella
might be sleeping in her car.

112
00:05:30,958 --> 00:05:33,875
But let's be very clear:
this is not just about Disney.

113
00:05:35,167 --> 00:05:38,268
This is structural and this is systemic.

114
00:05:38,292 --> 00:05:41,851
No single CEO on his own is culpable

115
00:05:41,875 --> 00:05:45,434
and no single company
has the wherewithal to buck this.

116
00:05:45,458 --> 00:05:46,976
The analysts, the pundits,

117
00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:48,309
the politicians,

118
00:05:48,333 --> 00:05:51,143
the business school curricula
and the social norms

119
00:05:51,167 --> 00:05:54,476
drive the shape
of the contemporary economy.

120
00:05:54,500 --> 00:05:57,059
Disney is just doing
what everybody else does,

121
00:05:57,083 --> 00:05:59,018
and they're not even the worst offender.

122
00:05:59,042 --> 00:06:03,601
If I told you how bad it was for workers
at Amazon or McDonald's or Walmart,

123
00:06:03,625 --> 00:06:07,143
or any one of a thousand other places
you've never heard of,

124
00:06:07,167 --> 00:06:11,726
it's not going to hit you as viscerally
as if I tell you that 73 percent,

125
00:06:11,750 --> 00:06:15,393
or three out of four of the people
who smile when you walk in,

126
00:06:15,417 --> 00:06:18,059
who help you comfort that crying baby,

127
00:06:18,083 --> 00:06:21,684
who maybe help you have the best
vacation you ever have,

128
00:06:21,708 --> 00:06:24,167
can't consistently put food on the table.

129
00:06:25,167 --> 00:06:27,458
It's supposed to be
the happiest place on earth.

130
00:06:28,583 --> 00:06:31,851
And the people who work there
take incredible pride

131
00:06:31,875 --> 00:06:34,559
that they pursue a higher purpose.

132
00:06:34,583 --> 00:06:35,851
It's a higher purpose

133
00:06:35,875 --> 00:06:39,851
that both my grandfather
and great-uncle very intentionally built

134
00:06:39,875 --> 00:06:44,333
when they made it a place that honors
an interaction over a transaction.

135
00:06:45,625 --> 00:06:48,601
Now, I know that a word like magic
makes you wonder

136
00:06:48,625 --> 00:06:50,500
if I've taken leave of my senses.

137
00:06:51,417 --> 00:06:55,268
I know it's hard to imagine
that something as ephemeral as love

138
00:06:55,292 --> 00:06:58,351
can support a brand as big as Disney,

139
00:06:58,375 --> 00:07:00,184
and I know that it's hard to imagine

140
00:07:00,208 --> 00:07:04,851
that things as unquantifiable
as moral obligations

141
00:07:04,875 --> 00:07:06,518
should have any call on us

142
00:07:06,542 --> 00:07:09,917
when we seek to deliver
value to our investors.

143
00:07:10,958 --> 00:07:14,875
But accounting and finance
don't run the world.

144
00:07:15,750 --> 00:07:17,226
Beliefs,

145
00:07:17,250 --> 00:07:18,601
mindsets --

146
00:07:18,625 --> 00:07:21,143
those are what drive business ethics.

147
00:07:21,167 --> 00:07:24,559
And if we're going to change
those mindsets and belief systems,

148
00:07:24,583 --> 00:07:27,768
we're going to have to use the most
Disney superpower out there.

149
00:07:27,792 --> 00:07:30,476
We're going to have to use
our imaginations.

150
00:07:30,500 --> 00:07:33,750
You're going to have to invite
Jiminy Cricket back to the party.

151
00:07:35,125 --> 00:07:38,375
Now, Jiminy Cricket might start
with some low-hanging fruit,

152
00:07:39,333 --> 00:07:41,601
like, greed is not good,

153
00:07:41,625 --> 00:07:45,601
like the world is not divided
into makers and takers,

154
00:07:45,625 --> 00:07:47,226
and that nobody ever,

155
00:07:47,250 --> 00:07:48,518
without any help,

156
00:07:48,542 --> 00:07:50,809
pulled themselves up
by their own bootstraps --

157
00:07:50,833 --> 00:07:53,958
if you know anything about physics
you'll understand why that is.

158
00:07:55,208 --> 00:07:59,018
Jiminy might remind us that every
single person who works for us,

159
00:07:59,042 --> 00:08:00,851
without exception,

160
00:08:00,875 --> 00:08:02,851
whether they fill out the spreadsheets

161
00:08:02,875 --> 00:08:04,601
or change the bedsheets,

162
00:08:04,625 --> 00:08:08,601
deserves the respect
and dignity of living wage.

163
00:08:08,625 --> 00:08:10,458
It's as simple as that.

164
00:08:10,917 --> 00:08:14,559
And Jiminy might wonder
how managers and employees

165
00:08:14,583 --> 00:08:19,184
could possibly have any kind
of empathy for each other

166
00:08:19,208 --> 00:08:22,851
when their workplaces
have become so segregated

167
00:08:22,875 --> 00:08:25,143
that it seems normal and natural

168
00:08:25,167 --> 00:08:28,809
that an executive needs
an especially swanky place to park

169
00:08:28,833 --> 00:08:30,893
or eat or go to the bathroom

170
00:08:30,917 --> 00:08:35,059
or that an executive is too good
to pick up a piece of garbage.

171
00:08:35,083 --> 00:08:40,250
We are, after all, just the one species
living together on just the one planet.

172
00:08:41,292 --> 00:08:45,684
Jiminy might ask us
to question some of our dogma.

173
00:08:45,708 --> 00:08:50,518
Does a CEO really need to be paid
as much or more than every other CEO

174
00:08:50,542 --> 00:08:52,976
or is that just creating
a competitive dynamic

175
00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:55,250
that's driving numbers
into the stratosphere?

176
00:08:56,208 --> 00:09:00,351
He might wonder if boards really do know
all that they really need to know

177
00:09:00,375 --> 00:09:03,542
when they don't have frontline workers
ever at their meetings.

178
00:09:04,708 --> 00:09:07,833
He might ask if there's such a thing
as too much money.

179
00:09:08,750 --> 00:09:12,226
Or he might wonder
if maybe we can make common cause

180
00:09:12,250 --> 00:09:14,268
with consumers, with workers,

181
00:09:14,292 --> 00:09:16,184
with companies, with communities,

182
00:09:16,208 --> 00:09:18,018
for all of us to come together

183
00:09:18,042 --> 00:09:21,893
to redefine this incredibly narrow idea

184
00:09:21,917 --> 00:09:24,958
of what the purpose
of a company really is.

185
00:09:26,458 --> 00:09:31,351
Jiminy would want us to remember
that nobody works in a vacuum,

186
00:09:31,375 --> 00:09:33,768
that the men and women who run companies

187
00:09:33,792 --> 00:09:38,184
actively cocreate the reality
we all have to share.

188
00:09:38,208 --> 00:09:40,393
And just like with global warming,

189
00:09:40,417 --> 00:09:44,393
we are, each of us, responsible
for the collective consequences

190
00:09:44,417 --> 00:09:47,125
of our individual decisions and actions.

191
00:09:48,417 --> 00:09:51,768
I believe that the most profitable
business ecosystem

192
00:09:51,792 --> 00:09:53,143
in the history of the world

193
00:09:53,167 --> 00:09:54,434
can do better.

194
00:09:54,458 --> 00:09:58,226
I believe we can take
just a little bit off of the upside,

195
00:09:58,250 --> 00:10:02,601
take a tiny bit of pressure off
the speed at which things are happening.

196
00:10:02,625 --> 00:10:05,518
I believe that everything
we lose in the short-term

197
00:10:05,542 --> 00:10:07,351
will more than make up for itself

198
00:10:07,375 --> 00:10:13,000
in an expanded landscape of moral,
spiritual and financial prosperity.

199
00:10:13,875 --> 00:10:16,143
I know what the cynics say, and it's true:

200
00:10:16,167 --> 00:10:18,184
you can't eat your principles.

201
00:10:18,208 --> 00:10:20,726
But you can't breathe
a basis point either,

202
00:10:20,750 --> 00:10:22,208
and neither can your children.

203
00:10:23,125 --> 00:10:26,726
I know I idolized my grandfather
probably too much.

204
00:10:26,750 --> 00:10:28,934
He worked in very different times

205
00:10:28,958 --> 00:10:31,309
and those are times
none of us want to go back to

206
00:10:31,333 --> 00:10:33,684
for all kinds of good reasons.

207
00:10:33,708 --> 00:10:36,934
I know there are a lot of CEOs today
who are just as well-meaning

208
00:10:36,958 --> 00:10:39,726
and just as decent as my grandfather was,

209
00:10:39,750 --> 00:10:42,893
but they're working at a time
with very different expectations

210
00:10:42,917 --> 00:10:45,250
and much more cutthroat context.

211
00:10:45,958 --> 00:10:47,643
But here's the good news.

212
00:10:47,667 --> 00:10:51,309
Expectations and contexts are made

213
00:10:51,333 --> 00:10:53,559
and they can be unmade, too.

214
00:10:53,583 --> 00:10:56,559
There is so much to learn
from the simple integrity

215
00:10:56,583 --> 00:10:59,792
of how my grandfather
understood his job as CEO.

216
00:11:00,625 --> 00:11:03,976
Behind every theme park
and every stuffed animal,

217
00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:06,958
a handful of principles
governed everything.

218
00:11:07,750 --> 00:11:11,917
Every single person
deserves respect and dignity.

219
00:11:13,042 --> 00:11:16,768
No one is too good
to pick up a piece of garbage,

220
00:11:16,792 --> 00:11:19,958
and always let conscience be your guide.

221
00:11:20,792 --> 00:11:24,518
We could all do worse
than listen to Jiminy Cricket.

222
00:11:24,542 --> 00:11:25,792
Thank you.