2 man at Disney, a calming influence on both Eisner and Katzenberg, two men whose fiery ambitions often resulted in a clash of personalities. The story of how Moses led his people out of Egypt and into the promised land paralleled neatly with Katzenberg's exodus from Disney following an epic falling out with Michael Eisner after the death of Disney president Frank Wells. Envisioned as a “serious” retelling of the story of Moses and the Ten Commandments, the project became something of an obsession for Katzenberg. The studio’s first animated feature originated from the same place as many other questionable ideas DreamWorks would attempt: one of Steven Spielberg’s whims. Katzenberg oversaw the Disney Renaissance: The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and mega-hit The Lion King all originated under his watch. He brought in live-action screenwriters (like Ted Elliot & Terry Rossio) to script animated features, foresaw the rise of animated musicals, and effectively began the trend of hiring major stars to voice characters like the genie in Aladdin ( Robin Williams). As recounted in Nicole LaPorte’s The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called DreamWorks, under Katzenberg’s tyrannical direction, a staid, lax generation of animators were shown the door. Katzenberg was a hard-charging movie executive who swept through Disney in the 1980s and upended, streamlined, and renewed both their live-action Touchstone wing and their once-dominant animation department.

His legacy as one of the few moguls with ties to Hollywood’s 1970s Golden Age has been somewhat tarnished by the high-profile failure of short-form content platform Quibi, which Katzenberg launched in 2018 alongside former eBay CEO (and failed California gubernatorial candidate) Meg Whitman. Katzenberg was a co-founder of what was originally called DreamWorks SKG, before becoming CEO of DreamWorks Animation LLC, the spin-off company formed in 2004.

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