Eisner's Sickbed Musings on a Successor Find Their Way Into Court - New York Times, 9/20/04 (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/business/media/20disney.html?ex=1096257600&en=11da6c272e8650c0&ei=5006&partner=ALTAVISTA1)

Mr. Eisner's wishes - which take the form of stream-of-consciousness musings - are found in an unfinished memo about succession he wrote to a board director, Ray Watson, in January 1995. The memo, sent to Mr. Watson nine months later, was recently released in connection with a shareholder lawsuit regarding the $140 million severance package paid to Mr. Ovitz, who was later named Disney president and whose 14-month stint upended the company.

I read this article. I think the NY Times is just "piling on" Eisner and the Disney company. It reads more like juicy dish than anything else. But I think Barry Diller would have made one heck of a Disney CEO, however. Diller could have done it alone, Eisner needed the late Frank Wells to help him and when Wells died, that was the beginning of Eisner's unravelling.

Can a company have two CEOs? Is that what Eisner and Wells did?

Disney's Biggest Fan, the back story is in a book called "Storming the Magic Kingdom" which is now out of print but might be available in public libraries, or on SaveDisney.com archives where they address some of the back story. Basically Eisner was the creative-Hollywood insider and Frank Wells was the better known on Wall Street. They were never co-CEO officially or by corporate title, but it was a kind of Walt-Roy governance relationship. Eisner always had the top billing of the two men, but Wells knew corporations and business much better than Eisner did.