Bob Wright's Next Move

In an exclusive sit-down with Fortune, the outgoing chairman of NBC Universal talks about the future of the network, his old boss Jack Welch, and his new quest: the fight to cure autism.

By Tim Arango

March 23, 2007

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You lost out on the DreamWorks deal when Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg decided to move their company to Paramount in December 2005. What went wrong?

It was a disappointment to me. There was investor pushback at GE, because they just saw rich guys getting richer who were going to sell us poor guys in suits a very expensive property that probably wouldn't work. But having said that, we went ahead and tried to do it. We reached an agreement relatively quickly with the DreamWorks principals, with Geffen being the principal person in the negotiating. The problem was, there was still hesitation here at GE. We had to hold off on entering into an agreement. I think David Geffen thought this was some sort of scheme to wear them down. So I gave them the right to go and negotiate freely with other parties.

The announcement that Jeff Zucker would be taking over your job wasn't exactly a surprise, but the timing seemed sooner than planned. What happened?

I had made a commitment to stay here through my 65th birthday, which is next year. My expectation was never that I'd leave as CEO, but that I'd turn that over sometime beforehand. The question was when. The time we had arrived at was later this year. So we're really talking about the difference between six and eight months. What changed was that Jeff Immelt became convinced that it was the right time for Jeff Zucker to do it. And he also became convinced that it was the right time for him, Jeff Immelt, to take a major leadership position with NBC Universal.

What's the state of your relationship with your old boss, former GE chairman and CEO Jack Welch? You guys were very close.

He just went into a different world. And I think Jack just wanted to distance himself as much as he could from the things he was doing when he was chairman. He got involved in this very messy divorce with his wife. He moved to Boston, and he did a whole bunch of other things. He changed his life around 180 degrees. And that's fine. I see him occasionally—I just don't see him like I used to see him.

Have you spoken to him since you announced your retirement?

No, I haven't talked to him since then.

Tell me about how your grandson has affected your plans for the future.

Not long after he turned 2, Christian went through some really odd behavior. We had him diagnosed at Columbia Presbyterian [in New York]. I'm on the board up there, so we get up there and this little boy goes through these three days of testing, including being unconscious for one series of tests. They're administering [anesthetics] to him that you wouldn't expect to have in your entire life. Then, at the end of three days, they say, "Okay, well, we don't see any treatable medical condition, but he's autistic." The translation was "We can't help you at this stage."

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