Science & Tech Quote by Michael Eisner

Eisner’s line is corporate reassurance dressed up as historical perspective: relax, we’ve been here before. By calling the moment a “wave,” he frames technological upheaval as natural and cyclical, something you ride rather than resist. It’s a subtle power move. If change is inevitable, then the only irrational actor is the one panicking about it. “Angst” is doing a lot of work here, shrinking a complex struggle over jobs, creative control, and revenue into mere mood.

The subtext is managerial: Hollywood’s fear is not just understandable, it’s useful - a predictable emotional spike that executives can outlast, monetize, or discipline. Eisner came up in an era when studios repeatedly faced “end of the business” alarms: television siphoning audiences, VHS and home recording, cable, DVDs, then digital distribution. Each time, incumbents initially fought the medium, then built tollbooths around it. Eisner is signaling that the winning strategy isn’t to stop the tech; it’s to own the channels and the intellectual property that make the tech profitable.

Context matters because Eisner represents the modern CEO-studio boss who professionalized Hollywood into a brand-management machine. His calm tone implies competence and continuity, but it also sidelines the real stakes for everyone below the C-suite: how technology rewrites who gets paid, who gets credited, and who gets replaced. The line works because it’s both soothing and self-serving - a reminder that “nothing new” can be a synonym for “don’t challenge the people who’ve survived every wave so far.”