The Imagineering Rebirth Blog takes us back to a 1966 interview with Walt Disney. In it he discusses the motivations behind building Disneyland and reveals the tenants of his business philosophy.
The comments are an interesting read too with some long well thought entries A few point out that The Walt Disney Company is a very different beast than it was back then. In today’s parlance, Walt Disney was constantly reinventing and bootstrapping (wikipedia) his own company. He was often putting everything he owned into making the company better. That kept him ahead of the curve, but sometimes volatile. You don’t see today’s executives doing that.
Not getting a few bonus checks is a totally different motivation than losing your house, car, and business, if your idea fails. You really have to buy into the idea and want to do it absolutely right to do it the second way, the Walt way. I don’t see many companies operating this way today, can you name a few? Google (well before the IPO, at least)?