
Pixar History Revisited: A Corrective (2011) - guiambros
http://alvyray.com/Pixar/PixarHistoryRevisited.htm
======
guiambros
Written by Alvy Ray Smith [1], Pixar co-founder, former Xerox PARC researcher,
and inventor of the HSV color space, alpha channel to represent transparency
in images, and other advancements in computer graphics.

Related read: " _Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley
(As Told by the Hackers, Founders, and Freaks Who Made It Boom)_ " [2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvy_Ray_Smith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvy_Ray_Smith)

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/Valley-Genius-Uncensored-History-
Foun...](https://www.amazon.com/Valley-Genius-Uncensored-History-
Founders/dp/1455559024)

~~~
gilgoomesh
While Alvy Ray Smith's role as Pixar co-founder shouldn't be diminished, the
tone of "Pixar History Revisited - A Corrective" should be regarded
cautiously. Smith hated Jobs and their last encounter was a shouting match
after Smith deliberately provoked Jobs.

From the Wikipedia article you linked:

> Alvy Ray quit Pixar after a heated argument with Jobs over use of a
> whiteboard. It was an unwritten rule that none other than Jobs was allowed
> to use it, a rule Smith decided to break in front of everyone after Jobs
> went "total street bully" on him and they ended up screaming into each
> other's face "in full bull rage".

~~~
larsiusprime
> "in front of everyone * after *"

Your own quote makes it equally arguable Jobs was the provoker? It's not like
it would be out of character given what's publicly known about Jobs. Maybe
what you say is true but this quote could just as easily be taken as someone
standing up to Jobs as "deliberately provoking him".

~~~
chris_wot
It sounds more likely that this is the real story. Jobs, from everything I’ve
read, was the ultimate needler, and quoting over a whiteboard sounds like the
very last action of a series of bullying actions. The fact that there is so
much mythology around Jobs and Pixar that necessitates these clarifications
really makes me believe that this is the case.

~~~
guiambros
Alvy Ray Smith gives his version of the story in the " _Valley of Genius_ "
[1]:

> _" Life with Steve was awful. There was this famous board meeting at NeXT.
> Steve comes in and he’s busting Ed and me for being late on a circuit board
> for the image computer, which we were. And I said, “But Steve, you’re late
> on one of your boards.” Which was true. Now normally that would have just
> been okay. Not this time. He starts insulting me, making fun of my accent,
> playground bully stuff. This was not two intelligent people having a
> conversation or even a healthy debate. This was just sheer bullying. And
> what did I do? I just stood up and went right into him. Now I’m very proud
> of that, but it probably was an insane thing to do. I went right up into his
> face, screaming in rage. I still can’t believe it happened. Just weird, just
> screaming at each other. And at that point I forced my way past him and
> wrote on the whiteboard. I wished I had written something clever. I was too
> insane. I just made a mark. It was a forbidden act, so he said, “You can’t
> do that.” And I said, “What? Write on the whiteboard?!” That was it. He
> stormed out of the room."_

And later:

> _" It was when I looked at the prospectus for the IPO when I first realized
> that Steve lies. He claimed to be the cofounder of Pixar and the CEO since
> its founding. In the prospectus! Cofounder and CEO forever! Bullshit. Both
> of those are wrong: lies. I don’t like this “reality distortion field” idea.
> He lies. But you know his genius was to take the company public on nothing.
> The movie wasn’t even a hit yet, and there was essentially no cash at all.
> But he saw his chance to make his $50 million back. And he did."_

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Valley-Genius-Uncensored-History-
Foun...](https://www.amazon.com/Valley-Genius-Uncensored-History-
Founders/dp/1455559024)

------
ec109685
It’s not totally uncommon to list folks as co-founders that didn’t actually
co-found the company, but had a major influence on its direction, E.g. at
Polyvore:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvore)

Also, he stops footnoting during the final myth:

“Jobs poured more money in to cover the losses each time. It's sometimes
construed that he did this because he saw the long-term potential of the movie
business and held on to "his vision" with further investments. This wasn't the
case at all, however. Jobs kept pouring money into the company so that he
wouldn't have to sustain the embarrassment that his first company - after
being booted from Apple - was a failure.”

I am surprised Steve had no inclination that a studio who had wanted to make
animated film all these years at least had the potential to do so. So clearly
Steve wasn’t _just_ investing into a hardware company.

------
starbeast
Alan Kay's take on Jobs and Pixar is pretty illuminating regarding this -

>Steve wasn’t capable of being friends. That wasn’t his personality. Besides
the Apple stuff, I had a lot to do with his Pixar thing. I was contacted by
the people who became Pixar–I knew them well, and they wanted to get out of
Lucasfilm. They called me up and asked me for advice, and so I said, I can
talk to Steve. I explained very carefully to him who these people were, and
you shouldn’t fuck around with them, like he did with his normal employees. He
did a good job with them. [Pixar] was the most honest billion he ever made,
because he put a lot of his own personal money into nurturing those guys. They
got fabulous. That was Steve’s best hour.

[https://www.fastcompany.com/40435064/what-alan-kay-thinks-
ab...](https://www.fastcompany.com/40435064/what-alan-kay-thinks-about-the-
iphone-and-technology-now)

The whole article is worth reading for Kay's take on a variety of stuff.

------
swivelmaster
All of this is covered in Creativity Inc, Ed Catmull's book that's been out
for four years now. The first section of the book is entirely the history of
Pixar, and it's fascinating. I recommend it.

------
m0zg
Did not expect such a spiteful account from such a respected figure. In some
places he makes statements that can only be true if he could read Jobs's mind,
e.g. he states that Jobs "would have bolted" before Pixar became successful.
You don't repeatedly sink large tranches of your personal fortune into
something you don't believe in or don't care about.

------
daniel_iversen
The article(s) reads quite spiteful, petty and angry - I’m not surprised
learning that it comes from a guy who hates Steve. One example that reads odd
is how the author claims that Steve’s financial backing didn’t save Pixar
(when clearly it seems they’d have gone bankrupt if he hadn’t kept poring
money into it). And in one article he mentions that Steve’s deal with Disney
for Toy Story was a stroke of business genius and in another he says “What
saved Pixar was Disney's asking it to make a movie” as if Steve has nothing to
do with the important/successful details of that arrangement.

~~~
velcrovan
I'm not seeing the spite. The author several times credits Jobs for his actual
contributions (such as the IPO), calling them/him "brilliant". It reads as a
fairly factual and neutral setting-straight of some common misconceptions,
while still giving Jobs plenty of credit for his actual contributions.

------
raverbashing
I'm not sure where these myths are coming from, even The Pixar documentary go
through some of those details

Myth 1 seems to be more about details than simply a myth: George Lucas needed
money

~~~
guiambros
Seems this[1] is the page with "myths" that Alvy Ray is reacting to. Not a
single mention of his name, and Jobs is mentioned as " _having purchased the
computer graphics division from George Lucas and established the group as an
independent company_ " in 1986.

[1] [https://www.pixar.com/our-story-1/](https://www.pixar.com/our-story-1/)

