16 October 1923: Walt and Roy Disney start a cartoon studio
Walt Disney and his brother Roy founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Los Angeles, on the strength of a contract for a series of short films. The young company was often close to broke, and Walt later lost the rights to an early character to his distributor. That lesson about owning your creations led to Mickey Mouse and, eventually, one of the most valuable entertainment empires on earth.
The lesson: Owning the characters, brands and rights you create is where long-term value hides.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Disney at the start of 1990 → $15,714 today, vs $19,429 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 1990, the first year in our price data after the event. That is 15.7 times the money, but $3,714 less than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Disney teaches: Expensive strategic pivots can take years to pay off; a company remaking itself for a new era can leave shareholders waiting a long time.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | $7.00 | $15,714 | $19,429 |
| 1995 | $15.00 | $7,333 | $14,783 |
| 2000 | $30.00 | $3,667 | $4,626 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Disney? Every starting year and the full story →
More Disney history
- 17 July 1955: Disneyland opens, chaotically
- 30 October 2012: Disney buys Lucasfilm and Star Wars
- 14 December 2017: Disney agrees to buy much of 21st Century Fox
- 21 December 1937: Snow White premieres and saves Disney
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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