Weren't Bob Iger and Steve Jobs close or at least friends?
That kind of echoes Jobs' sentiment about "technology alone is not enough — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.”
Tech to these guys is a means to a goal.
I think more in the early days of film they were more highly regarded for this. Especially among animators. Disney pioneered a lot animation and filmmaking techniques. Though their acquiring and Hmmm 'lifting of source material and content' has always happened. Take a look at Disney's Aladdin vs the Popeye version, the story elements changed from the original story are eerily similar between the two.
Not to mention, Disney is excellent at marketing. Top of their class, I'd say.
They are doing both (creating and buying). They bought Pixar, but are also making movies internally that are comparable in quality like Frozen, Big Hero 6, Moana, and Wreck it Ralph.
Frozen was done after the Pixar acquisition and helmed internally by the same director from Pixar that Disney had sought to have do it when they wanted to do it with Pixar before the acquisition, so, while it wasn't organizationally within Pixar but at Disney Animation Studios, I'm not sure you can really describe it as not independent of the Pixar acquisition.
I don't know. Most people who have an inkling about engineering generally regard the theme parks with nothing short of awe.
Disney doesn’t tend to get enough credit as a tech company because to them tech takes a back seat to entertainment in the public eye. That can be frustrating and humbling as an engineer, at times, but its definitely enlightening.