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Of all the characters
in all the Disney films

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the one I love the most
is Jiminy Cricket from "Pinnochio."

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My favorite scene in the movie

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is when the blue fairy
is saying to Pinnochio,

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"Always let your conscience
be your guide."

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Pinnochio asks, "What are conscience?"

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and Jiminy Cricket is scandalized
by the question: "What are conscience!"

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"What are conscience!

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Conscience is that still small voice
that people won't listen to,

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that's just the trouble
with the world today."

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I love the way Jiminy Cricket
is always there

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with a nerdy, ethical thing

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just as Pinnochio's coming up
with some kind of good plan.

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I think of him as speaking
truth to puppet.

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I always wondered what it was
about Jiminy Cricket

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that made me love him so much

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and one day it hit me.

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It was because he sounds
like my grandfather.

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My grandfather was a very sweet
and cuddly man

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and I loved him to the moon and back.

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But I shared him with the big, wide world.

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His name was Roy O'Disney,

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and together with his younger
brother Walt Disney,

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he came from a very humble
upbringing in Kansas

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and started and ran one of the most
iconic businesses in the world.

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Two things I remember the best
about going to Disneyland

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with my grandfather.

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The first thing was he always
gave me a stern warning

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that if I ever sassed
anybody who worked there

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I was in deep doo-doo when we got home.

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He said these people work really hard --

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harder than you can imagine,

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and they deserve your respect.

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The other is that he never
walked by a piece of garbage

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inside of Disneyland

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or anywhere else,

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where he didn't bend over to pick it up.

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He said no one's too good
to pick up a piece of garbage.

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In grandpa's day,

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a job at Disneyland was not a gig.

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A person could expect to own a home,

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raise a family,

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access decent health care,

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retire in some security without worrying,

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on just what he earned there at the park.

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Mind you, grandpa fought the unions

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and he fought them hard.

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He said he didn't like to be forced

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to do something he wanted
to do voluntarily.

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That was [rank] paternalism of course
and maybe a tiny bit of BS.

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He wasn't an angel,

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and everyone wasn't well
and fairly treated across the company,

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something that's well-known.

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But I think in his core he had
a very deep commitment

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to the idea that he had a moral obligation
to every human being that worked for him.

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That actually wasn't such an uncommon
attitude for CEOs of the day.

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But when my grandfather died in 1971,

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a new mindset was beginning to take hold

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of the American and eventually
the global imagination.

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Jiminy Cricket got shown the door
by economist Milton Friedman,

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among others,

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who popularized the idea
of shareholder primacy.

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Now, shareholder primacy is a pretty
reasonable idea when you think about it.

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Shareholders own the company,

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shareholders want profits and growth,

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so, therefore, you prioritize
profits and growth.

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Very sensible.

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But unfortunately, shareholder primacy
was an idea that became a mindset

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and then that mindset jumped the rails,

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and it came to fundamentally
alter everything

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about the way companies and even
governments were led and managed.

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Milton Friedman's pivotal op-ed
in the "New York Times"

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was followed by decades of concerted
organizing and lobbying

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by business-focus activists

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along with a sustained assault
on every law and regulation

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that had once held businesses'
worst impulses in check.

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And soon enough,

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this new mindset had taken hold
across every business school

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and across every sector.

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Profits were to be pursued
by any means necessary,

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unions were kneecapped,

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taxes were slashed,

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and with the same machete,

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so was the safety net.

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I don't need to tell you
about the inequality

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that's been the result of these shifts.

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We all know the story well.

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The bottom line is that everything
that turns a gig into a livelihood

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was stripped away from an American worker:

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job security,

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paid sick days,

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vacation time.

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All of that went away

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even as the wealthy saw their net worths
bloat to unprecedented,

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and yes, unusable levels.

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Although if you're Scrooge McDuck
you could change it all into gold coins

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and backstroke through it.

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So let me just address
the Dumbo in the room.

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Yes, I am criticizing the company
that bears my family's name.

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Yes, I think Disney can do better.

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And I believe that many of the thousands
of magnificent people

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who work at the Walt Disney Company
wish that it would do better

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just as much as I do.

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For almost a century,

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Disney has turned a pretty profit
on the idea that families a kind of magic,

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that love is important,

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that imaginations matter.

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That's why it turns
your stomach a little bit

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when I tell you that Cinderella
might be sleeping in her car.

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But let's be very clear:

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this is not just about Disney.

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This is structural and this is systemic.

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No single CEO on his own is culpable,

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and no single company
has the wherewithal to buck this.

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The analysts,

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the pundits,

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the politicians,

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the business school curricula

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and the social norms that drive
the shame of the contemporary economy.

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Disney is just doing what
everybody else does,

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and they're not even the worst offender.

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If I told you how bad it was for workers
at Amazon or McDonald's or Walmart,

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or any one of a thousand other places
you've never heard of,

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it's not going to hit you as viscerally
as if I tell you that 73 percent,

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or three out of four of the people
who smile when you walk in,

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who help you comfort that crying baby,

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who maybe help you have the best
vacation you ever have,

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can't consistently put food on the table.

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It's supposed to be
the happiest place on earth.

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And the people who work there
take incredible pride,

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that they pursue a higher purpose.

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It's a higher purpose

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that both my grandfather and
great-uncle very intentionally built

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when they made it a place that honors
an interaction over a transaction.

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Now, I know that a word like magic
makes you wonder

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if I've taken leave of my senses.

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I know it's hard to imagine
that something as ephemeral as love

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can support a brand as big as Disney,

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and I know that it's hard to imagine

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that things as unquanifiable
as moral obligations

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should have any call on us

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when we seek to deliver
value to our investors.

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But accounting and finance
don't run the world.

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Beliefs,

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mindsets --

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those are what drive business ethics.

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And if we're going to change
those mindsets and belief systems,

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we're going to have to use the most
Disney superpower out there.

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We're going to have to use
our imaginations.

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You're going to have to invite
Jiminy Cricket back to the party.

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Now, Jiminy Cricket might start
with some low-hanging fruit

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like, greed is not good,

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like the world is not divided
into makers and takers,

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and that nobody ever,

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without any help,

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pulled themselves up
by their own bootstraps --

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if you know anything about physics
you'll understand why that is.

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Jiminy might remind us that every
single person who works for us,

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without exception,

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whether they fill out the spreadsheets

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or change the bedsheets,

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deserves the respect
and dignity of living wage.

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It's as simple as that.

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And Jiminy might wonder
how managers and employees

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could possibly have any kind
of empathy for each other

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when their workplaces have
become so segregated

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that it seems normal and natural

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that an executive needs
an especially swanky place to park

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or eat or go to the bathroom,

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or that an executive is too good
to pick up a piece of garbage.

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We are, after all, just the one species
living together on just the one planet.

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Jiminy might ask us to question
some of our dogma.

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Does a CEO really need to be paid
as much or more than every other CEO,

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or is that just creating
a competitive dynamic

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that's driving numbers
into the stratosphere?

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He might wonder if boards really do know
all that they really need to know

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when they don't have frontline workers
ever at their meetings.

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He might ask if there's such a thing
as too much money.

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Or he might wonder if maybe we can
make common cause

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with consumers,

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with workers,

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with companies,

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with communities,

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for all of us to come together

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to redefine this incredibly narrow idea

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of what the purpose
of a company really is.

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Jiminy would want us to remember
that nobody works in a vacuum,

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that the men and women who run companies

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actively co-create the reality
we all have to share.

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And just like with global warming,

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we are, each of us, responsible
for collective consequences

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of our individual decisions and actions.

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I believe that the most profitable
business ecosystem

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in the history of the world

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can do better.

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I believe we can take just a little bit
off of the upside,

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take a tiny bit of pressure off
the speed at which things are happening.

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I believe that everything
we lose in the short-term

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will more than make up for itself

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in an expanded landscape of moral,
spiritual and financial prosperity.

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I know what the cynics say,

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and it's true:

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you [... ... ... ] your principles.

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But you've can't breathe
a basis point either,

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and neither can your children.

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I idolized my grandfather
probably too much.

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He worked in very different times

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and those are times
none of us want to go back to

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for all kinds of good reasons.

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I know there are a lot of CEOs today
who are just as well-meaning

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and just as decent as my grandfather was,

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but they're working at a time
with very different expectations

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and much more cutthroat context.

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But here's the good news:

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expectations and contexts are made

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and they can be unmade too.

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There is so much to learn
from the simple integrity

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of how my grandfather
understood his job as CEO.

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Behind every theme park
and every stuffed animal,

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a handful of principles
governed everything.

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Every single person deserves
respect and dignity.

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No one is too good
to pick up a piece of garbage,

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and always let conscience be your guide.

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We could all do worse
than listen to Jiminy Cricket.

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Thank you.