Bob Iger: Disney, Apple may have merged if Steve Jobs were alive

It’s the kind of merger that could only be dreamt up in the Magic Kingdom.

Disney CEO Bob Iger believes he may have merged with Apple if the late Steve Jobs were still around.

“I believe that if Steve were still alive, we would have combined our companies, or at least discussed the possibility very seriously,” writes Iger, a former Disney board member, in an excerpt of his memoir published in Vanity Fair.

The Disney chief reflected on his personal and professional relationship with the tech visionary.

“That Steve and I were standing on that stage together at all was something of a miracle; before I became CEO, Disney’s relationship with Pixar—and Steve—was in tatters,” he wrote, explaining that Jobs’ relationship with then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner was starting to break down.

In 2004, before Iger was at the helm of Disney, he writes that “Steve made a very public, in-your-face announcement that he would never deal with Disney again.”

Iger proceeds to share his journey in making things right with Jobs and winning him back, and even then there were tense moments in the relationship.

“Among his many frustrations was a feeling that it was often too difficult to get anything done with Disney,” Iger writes. But history shows the two were able to strike many deals, including Disney’s 2006 acquisition of Pixar in a deal worth $7.4 billion.

Iger joined Apple’s board in 2011, but last week, on the day the iPhone-maker touted its own competitive streaming service to Disney’s, Iger informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that he would resign from the board.

The memoir, “The Ride of A Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company,” comes out later this month.