• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

We never make animated films for that much, Jeffrey said. Do it for $5 million less.

Steve acquiesced.

Much later, Steve and the Pixar executives learned that Jeffrey had snookered them shamelessly. Disney’s animated features typically cost $10 million more than Steve’s proposed figure! Jeffrey was getting them to make a movie for $15 million less than he would have spent! They had left $15 million on the table because they didn’t know better.

Even so, it was a secret coup for Steve Jobs. He had saved Pixar.

With the financial terms all set, there was one more step toward a green light: Pixar needed to pitch a story premise. John Lasseter began brainstorming. One of his greatest obsessions was toys, the subject of his last two short films. And he liked one of the most reliable Hollywood genres, the “buddy movie.” Why not . . . a buddy movie about toys?

Jeffrey loved the idea. In May 1991, they closed the deal for Toy Story.

Back at Next, Steve went to his vice president of sales, Todd Rulon-Miller.

“You’re not going to believe what I just did!” Steve said. “I just cut a deal to make three movies for Katzenberg!”

Todd couldn’t share the enthusiasm. He remained skeptical.

“Steve,” he said. “Tin Toy was only three minutes long and it took you a year . . .”

Steve wasn’t paying attention. His eyes were glazed over.

• • •

THE SWEETNESS of the Disney deal was offset by the bitterness of Steve’s ongoing struggles, especially as he clashed with two of his most essential and strong-willed executives.

Susan Barnes, Next’s chief financial officer, was preparing to leave in the spring of 1991, becoming the second of Steve’s five cofounders to abandon him. “I’ve done all I can financially,” she told him. “It’s just not working.” She gave him two months notice, saying that she had accepted a position at Richard Blum & Associates, an investment banking firm in San Francisco run by the husband of California senator Dianne Feinstein.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Steve implored her. Before she left, he wanted to carefully craft a press release so that Next would save face. “How do I explain why the CFO quits without it looking bad for the rest of the company?” he challenged her. Then he suggested that Susan should say publicly that she was leaving Next because she wanted to spend more time with her young children. (She had married Next’s software chief, Bud Tribble.) Susan opposed the idea. She wasn’t going to work any less vigorously in her new position. She wasn’t opting out for the “mommy track,” and she wouldn’t lie to the press.

Her new employers had little patience for arguing with Steve over the spin. They didn’t like Steve’s draft of the press release, so they went ahead and put out their own.

Steve was incensed.

Susan went to his office to try to appease him.

“Put me on the board,” she suggested. That would show that she still believed in Steve and his company even while she took a position elsewhere.

“Good try, but no,” he said.

A few moments later, when she got back to her own desk in the other building, her voice mail didn’t work anymore. Her e-mail didn’t work, either. Steve had cut her off.

• • •

STEVE’S CONFRONTATION with Susan Barnes was cordial compared to his rift with Pixar president Alvy Ray Smith. Their explosion came after years of simmering tension. In Pixar’s early days, Alvy felt free to speak back to Steve. “That’s bullshit!” Alvy would exclaim, and Steve seemed to like it that someone stood up to him. But then Alvy began exploring the nebulous border between Steve’s grudging appreciation and his intolerance. An early danger signal came when Steve was working intensely on the Next Cube and Alvy criticized Next for being so far behind schedule. Steve interpreted the comment as a personal affront: “He identifies with the machine,” recalls Alvy, “and when I insulted his machine, I insulted him.”

“Alvy and Steve never got on very well,” says Pam Kerwin. “Alvy is not aggressive like Steve, but they have similar personalities: charismatic. Emotional. They were never really comfortable with each