So did you approach Disney or did Disney approach you?

It's funny actually. Way in the beginning, like literally about a year and a half year earlier, we approached Disney. But at the time it was kind of a lower level individual in the organization and they were pretty focused on Toon Town and some of these others. And then it was about a year and a half later, after Club Penguin had grown pretty significantly, that then they approached us.

Again, it was kind of one those, hey, you may not remember me, but we actually talked about - no, actually I never talked. It's funny, actually, the person who we ended up approaching [early on] was no longer with the company when they finally came back again.

But we spoke with a lot of companies, because we were still self funded. We were fully independent, there was no other outside funding, so we had a lot of folks talking to us and we knew we needed to make a change. We knew we couldn't keep doing it purely independently for - I mean, we could handle it, we could continue to build the infrastructure, but it was going to be at the compromise or at the sacrifice of where we wanted to go creatively. And that was what was terrifying for me because it's like, this is only fun because of the creative experience, not just because of building a new server room and whatever boxes and more code. And more like that to me wasn't fun.

So yeah, when they approached we went on a pretty deliberate process of just making sure that we found the right partner.

We talked to a lot of different companies, but in the end Disney was one of the few who was prepared to embrace us as we were, and they had done a great job with Pixar. We could transition there and clearly we were on a much smaller scale. So we thought, well if we can do the same thing and have the same level of independence but with the support, then it was going to be great.

When Disney called you up and was like, hey, what was your reaction? Did you panic, get excited or…

I'll be honest. I mean, it was always exciting, but it was also… there was an element, I'll be honest, there's an element with anyone who would contact us; a bit of skepticism, a bit of just… well, we were just cautious. I mean, this was our baby. It was very personal to us and so it wasn't something that we were just going to say… we were going to get overly flattered or overly excited by one company or another. And there were a lot of big companies, a lot of big organizations who had contacted us and every one of them was exciting, but at the same time, it was also like okay, how… I have to believe it's a bit like a recruiting experience for a parent who has a gifted athlete or something. When all the colleges come, it's like, are you really looking out for them - what if they get hurt, what if they get injured?

Right. Do you have their best interest at heart?

Yeah, are they still going to get a good education? Are they going to - I mean, there's all these kind of things. And so I'll say it was a cautious excitement.

And so can you tell me a little bit about just how you feel like your role has changed with Club Penguin? Obviously you're not doing everything. But as you shifted into the Disney realm are you moving sort of in the direction that you want to be moving?

A lot of what I focus on right now is kind of the culture and the framework and the teamwork and the camaraderie and things that go into making this world successful that is far more foundational than just the mechanics of when are we going to launch this and what are we going to do here. And I'll get briefed on new features, but I don't even see all of them. There's a lot of stuff that I'll log into one of the sites to actually experience for the first time, sometimes even with my kids, because creatively we have the right people and they know our heart and they know our culture and they know why we do what we do and they know our audience and they follow the values and the pillars and all that. That's all kind of the stuff that I work on now.

And then even holding people accountable to those things as well and making sure that we have the right people in the right roles. And my goal is never to try and do everyone's job for them unless it feels like they're widely off-track and so let's step here, lets kind of help navigate this back on. I was probably more hands-on when I first came on board than I am now because a lot of the culture is shifted around and there's so much similarity now between all of the studios. It's fun. I feel like I can't wait now for the audience to start to participate and see the results of where we are internally. You know what I'm saying? It's like externally tends to reflect what's going on internally and we're in a really good place internally and so I'm excited about where we're going to, how that's going to show now as the worlds continue to involve.