In the early ’90s, Pixar was in the middle of creating its first movie, Toy Story, but the company was in disarray. It was bleeding cash and floundering around looking for a business model.
To help turn it around, Steve Jobs hired Lawrence Levy, a former corporate lawyer, to help figure out how to make Pixar a real business.
In this week’s episode of Kahney’s Korner, I talk to Levy about how exactly he and Jobs made Pixar into one of the most successful movie studios in history.
Levy this week published To Pixar and Beyond, his fascinating memoir of working for Jobs as Pixar’s CFO. It’s one of the best books about how Steve Jobs worked — full of fascinating detail that gives real insight into how he operated. (Hint: It’s not all tantrums and sudden flashes of genius; just the opposite, in fact.)
But initially, Levy thought he’d made a terrible mistake. Soon after Jobs talked him into joining Pixar, the money man suffered buyer’s remorse. The company was in much worse shape than he had imagined.
In fact, Pixar looked hopeless. Jobs was an absentee owner. The company was losing money hand over fist. It had no business model. It was limping along, making commercials and selling animation software. But the worst thing was a potentially disastrous contract with Disney that would cripple the company even if its movies became successful.
Jobs and Levy doubled down on Toy Story, Pixar’s amazing-looking-but-unfinished feature. For the company to survive, Toy Story had to be a gigantic blockbuster; Pixar had to have a successful IPO; and the company had to get out from under the terrible Disney contract.
Listen to the podcast to hear Levy tell how Pixar did it.
About Kahney’s Korner
Kahney’s Korner is a weekly podcast about the world of Apple. It’s a big Apple world out there, and there are tons of great, fascinating stories to tell.
This week’s sponsor
[contextly_auto_sidebar]
Thanks to TunnelBear for supporting this episode of Kahney’s Korner. TunnelBear is by far the easiest VPN to use. It’s so easy, my mom uses it. Go to www.tunnelbear.com/korner/ and create a free trial account. If you use that URL, TunnelBear will know we sent you.
Episode
Kahney’s Korner #7: What it was like to work for Steve Jobs, with Lawrence Levy, former CFO of Pixar. Subscribe to Kahney’s Korner on iTunes or Google Play.
If you liked the podcast, please leave a rating on iTunes and thumbs up in apps like Castro, Pocket Casts or Overcast. Many thanks. See you next week.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
