Ex-Disney CEO Bob Iger Is Taking Mickey Mouse to the Metaverse

There's a lot of hype surrounding the metaverse, including from the investing world. In this clip from "The Virtual Opportunities Show" on Motley Fool Live, recorded on March 15, Motley Fool contributors Demitri Kalogeropoulos, Travis Hoium, Jose Najarro, and Rachel Warren discuss the recent moves and investments by Disney's (DIS -0.83%) former CEO into the metaverse.

Demitri Kalogeropoulos: Disney's former CEO, who was CEO from around 2005 to late 2020, is getting into the metaverse. He is joining the board of a small company called Genies, and that's his first big career move after retiring from Disney. It is a small company that makes tools that help you make virtual characters, clothing, and accessories that are going to be backed by NFTs, non-fungible tokens. Apparently, Iger met with about two dozen start-up companies before he landed on this one, and he is really excited. He is quoted in the piece saying, "Imagine letting someone buy a Mickey Mouse avatar and customizing it in a way that, not only would we never allow before, but was hard to do in the physical world." I'm trying to imagine what he means by that second part, but I can't exactly think of that. He must have something in mind, but I can't think of it. I'm sure there's a lot of cool things in that way. I just want to get your thoughts on this, guys. There's a lot of hype around the metaverse, especially in the investing world, which doesn't have a whole lot of usage yet today, but a lot of seasoned executives in big companies are excited about it, including Nike (NKE 1.55%) and now Disney. So, I'm curious what you think about this move by Disney's former CEO.

Travis Hoium: I think one thing about this is that this is part of a number of moves. It sounds like he's made about a half dozen investments in smaller companies. You think about leaving a company like Disney, Iger doesn't seem like the person who is just going to buy an island in the Caribbean and enjoy mai tais the rest of his life. He was up at four in the morning working out when he was CEO of Disney. It's not surprising to hear that he is going to be on the board of directors of some smaller companies that have maybe some related products to what Disney did. He was always interested in where Disney is going, not where they are today. This makes a lot of sense to me. Diving into metaverse, NFTs, I think makes a lot of sense for an executive like Iger. He can bring a lot of experience to the board. He has that taste-maker quality to him. He seems to really know the strategy well in this space, so I like it.

Jose Najarro: Travis, one thing I enjoyed about this is, Iger was obviously at the forefront of Disney, a company that's huge in numerous IP markets or products. For someone that has been at the forefront of that market, and to now be focusing in things like the digital collectible worlds to NFTs, I think that speaks volumes. This is someone who, in my opinion, is intellectual in the matter of digital assets, not in NFTs, but in forms of animations, and he's trying to bring that into this other world. I think that just shows that, hey, this is probably something that we should be keeping an eye on, maybe not investing in, but it's something that the big people are definitely seeing and that there's a future to it at the moment.

Rachel Warren: What's interesting about this is, we see so much back and forth about, does the metaverse have staying power? Is this just a fad? Will NFTs actually be around? I feel, when you see a move like this by a guy like Bob Iger, it gives a lot of legitimacy to these technologies and industry trends. There was an article on CNBC (CMCSA -0.33%) that had a couple of really interesting quotes from him about this move to be on this company's board of directors. One was, he was saying, "I've always been drawn to the intersection between technology and art, and Genies" which I guess is the name of the company, "provides a unique and compelling opportunity to harness the power of that combination to enable new forms of creativity, expression, and communication." The other thing that was interesting was that he was stressing this idea that there isn't just going to be one metaverse. It's not just going to be, Meta's (META -1.12%), for example, iteration of the metaverse but that there's going to be all of these different digital worlds that you can explore and that those avatars, such as what this company enables people to create, are going to be a really important tool to be able to transition apparently between metaverses and go from one to the other. I'm curious how traveling the metaverse works. But all that to say, this is fascinating. If anything, it lends more legitimacy to this space. I think people are skeptical when you see something like this. It makes you pause and think, maybe there's actually much more of a long-term durable trend here, and I, for one, am really fascinated by this concept of floating between metaverses and not just being in one. What is that going to look like?