Pete has bragged for years & years and years about he is treated like a King at Disney. He bragged about getting all types of special treatment. It’s time for Disney to take a stand and decide if the curtain needs to come down if the abuse is as bad as it seems.
PW was the type of fellow who would brag about everything, and much of it felt quite exaggerated. His grand talk never really made sense in relationship to the realities. The studio in the house always looked quite homespun, and the way he would talk about things was so over the top - like the $5,000 drink being made up as content and repeatedly stating that he hadn't drank any of it. I just didn't find it really that believable the way he would talk about his "wealth".
I don't think he's alone in this. I've watched several of these content creators do "tours" of rooms, suites, etc. and they often look like maybe they slipped a nice tip to a steward or hotel staff member to let them in for the purpose of the tour, or maybe coordinated with the company in exchange for more "authentic" publicity. The "glamorous life" is a huge part of the influencer persona after all...
I kind of put those comments about his deep connections to Disney leadership in the same bucket. Oh I'm sure as a person with a
travel agency, and apparently (until recently) a relatively successful one, he was invited to events, and these people would say hello, and maybe even have a secretary offer them a few notes about things to remember about Pete, but at the end of the day he was at best as important as a food critic is to a restaurant or a movie critic is to a movie studio.
I'm interested to know what Pete's "divesture" actually means. We may never know. I'm hopeful that it means that the proceeds will be taken to settle his debt with Amex, and any other debtors. It's safe to say that Amex is not his only debtor - Monera and Disney both come to mind as likely people who are owed more money. Based on what I have read, other employees or people at the firm might be owed money, and the company may be owed money beyond this $800,000+ that is owed. I hope the divesture is speedy, but I suspect we will never know when this divesture is completed or any details around the purchase. This is a very closely held private "company". I put company in quotes because there's so much we don't know about how Pete ran this operation. Were other people employees or just independent contractors? Was this really a company or more of a sole proprietorship etc. etc. Much of this isn't really anyone's business when you think you are dealing with an ethical company, but I think many feel that trust has been broken, and people want to feel good about where they are spending their Disney online time and travel dollars.
I have no idea what the worth of a company like DISboards is, or how you even calculate it. Dreams seems a bit more manageable to find a fair valuation.
We will never know, but I'd be interested to know how the World of DVC purchase of DVC Fan was engineered. I hope it was handled appropriately and professionally. I also hope that Amy and Paul were able to get some ownership interest there, as they seem to really be the ones driving the content, and they seem like relatively nice people who have worked to create some independence from themselves while being adjacent to the PW empire.
It is clear to me, based on Pete's early mispronunciation of Paul's name in early DVC Show episodes (before he appeared on-air regularly), that if there is some distance between PW and the Kriegers it can be found. I honestly think, for their sake, they should issue some kind of statement on a future episode or in writing on the DVC Fan website, which, from what I can tell, does not mention that it is now owned by the World of DVC company.