In honor of the 30th anniversary of Toy Story, the Pixar Animation Studios movie which made history as the first fully CG-animated feature film, the Steve Jobs Archive has released online a never-before-seen interview with Jobs from November 22, 1996, exactly one year after Buzz and Woody first hit the big screen.
The co-founder of Apple, Jobs (1955-2011) was the majority shareholder of Pixar, having acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm in 1986 which was spun off into the now globally renowned animation producer (currently owned by Disney).
In this footage, Jobs reveals the long game behind Pixar’s seeming overnight success. He explains how its business model gives artists and engineers a stake in their creations, and he reflects on what Disney’s hard-won wisdom taught him about focus and discipline. He also talks about the challenge of leading a team so talented that it inverts the usual hierarchy, the incentives that inspire people to stay with the company, and the deeper purpose that unites them all: to tell stories that last and put something of enduring value into the culture.
At Pixar, Jobs collaborated closely with studio president Ed Catmull and refined a management approach centered on creating the conditions for talent to thrive. When he returned to Apple a few weeks after this interview, his experience at Pixar shaped how he saw his role as CEO: building a company on timeless ideas made new through technology.
Read more at stevejobsarchive.com.
