Love him or hate him, I'd like to see anyone here emulate what Steve did between his inglorious exit from Apple and his death. Forget Apple for a moment, forget NeXT : he turned PiXAR from a struggling animation company into the creator of one of the biggest franchises in movie history, and a huge shot in the arm for the animation industry.
Toy Story was the highest grossing domestic film in 1995, beating Batman Forever and Apollo 13 (also starring Tom Hanks).[66] At the time of its release, it was the third highest grossing animated film after The Lion King (1994) and Aladdin (1992).[18] When not considering inflation, Toy Story is 96th on the list of the highest grossing domestic films of all time.[67] The film had gross receipts of $191,796,233 in the U.S. and Canada and $170,162,503 in international markets for a total of $361,958,736 worldwide.[1] At the time of its release, the film ranked 17th highest grossing film (unadjusted) in domestic money, and worldwide it was the 21st highest grossing film.
I dont want to focus entirely on the dollar signs, but that it precisely how much of the world measures 'success' in business.
Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm before it was acquired by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in 1986. The Walt Disney Company bought Pixar in 2006 at a valuation of $7.4 billion; the transaction made Jobs the largest shareholder in Disney.
Bear in mind that we are talking a little over 12 months to go from a massive fall from grace to being the largest shareholder in an American icon and entertainment giant (albeit one with problems of its own). One commentator claimed that the closest parallel in creative terms was Howard Hughes, but Jobs didnt retreat into his shell the way Hughes did. He picked himself up, then he picked
Apple back up from suits who had taken it to the precipice of bankruptcy.
I don't agree with several of the big decisions Jobs made during his time at Apple, and I own very few of their products, but when he strode out onto that stage to announce something new and 'insanely great', you knew you were watching a one-in-a-billion thinker. Even when the reality didn't match the hype, you could be assured of a master class in marketing. You only needed to watch 10 minutes of Steve Ballmer to see just how good Jobs was at his job.
The question now is whether Apple have something more than gifted engineers and designers - whether they have another forward thinker who can find the next-big-thing before the rest of us even realise we
need that thing
