Disney just created a chief technology officer position. The company is 103 years old. They've been running theme parks with facial recognition and streaming services to 150 million people without anyone in charge of technology at the executive level. Makes you wonder what the f*ck everyone else was doing.
The role reports to CEO Josh D'Amaro. D'Amaro used to run the parks division. Now he runs the whole company and decided tech might matter. Bold stance for 2026.
This is the same company that launched Disney+ in 2019 and somehow forgot to hire a CTO first. They just threw engineers at it and hoped the servers wouldn't catch fire. Worked out fine. Only crashed on launch day in every major market.
The newly minted role suggests Disney has been treating technology like a summer intern treats the copy machine. Just kick it until something prints. No need for executive oversight when you can simply acquire Hulu and MLB's streaming tech and duct tape it to your existing infrastructure.
Every retail trader who bought Disney stock thinking they were investing in innovation just found out the mouse didn't have a technology chief until this week. Your DD was thorough. Really nailed that one.
D'Amaro is expanding the tech push. That's what we call it when a media giant realizes they've been operating like it's 1997. A push. Not a desperate scramble to catch up after Netflix ate their lunch and Apple TV+ hired every showrunner with a pulse.
The position is newly minted. Like a commemorative coin. Collectors item. First ever CTO at a company worth $200 billion that runs on code and cameras and databases tracking which kid threw up on Space Mountain.
Somewhere a Disney engineer just learned his boss finally got a boss and that boss reports to the CEO.
Photo by Thibault Penin on Unsplash
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