The Second Coming of Steve Jobs - Alan Deutschman [87]
Eisner knew that John Lasseter was the golden goose—and Steve Jobs had him.
Through the stock deal, Steve had made John a multimillionaire. More importantly, John ran his own fiefdom at Pixar, a company he built in his own image with people he had picked himself, a place where he was the crown prince. If John had switched over to Disney, he might have been just another talented animator there.
John was the trump card for Steve to play at the right moment. When Michael Eisner balked at Steve Jobs’s proposal of a fifty-fifty partnership, Steve threatened that he would make a deal with another studio as soon as Pixar finished the two films that it owed Disney. John’s seven-year employment contract only obligated him to work exclusively with Disney for another three years. Then Pixar would be free to collaborate with Eisner’s bitter archrival, Jeffrey Katzenberg at DreamWorks, or with any of the other studios.
Steve’s ego made him hard to deal with, but the smooth, diplomatic Lawrence Levy played good cop to Steve’s bad cop in the talks with Disney, and the strategy succeeded.
Michael Eisner acquiesced. Steve got exactly what he wanted: the fifty-fifty partnership, the equal billing. Pixar agreed to make five feature films for Disney over a ten-year period. John Lasseter was awarded creative control, and any other new Pixar director who made a blockbuster film would then have control over his or her movies in the future.
Hollywood insiders were shocked that Disney had given away so much. Steve had challenged the most fearsome negotiators in American business—and won. The other Pixar executives marveled at his extraordinary chutzpah and what he had done for them. “There was no way Disney would treat another tiny company the way they treat Pixar,” says Pam Kerwin. “It’s because of Steve. Pixar wouldn’t have made it without Steve. He made huge contributions.” Looking back at Steve’s foresight about the public stock offering and the power it would give him with Disney, Ralph Guggenheim says: “Steve is a truly visionary guy who sees directions and eventualities.”
Such were Steve’s invaluable roles at Pixar: banker, negotiator, wheeler-dealer. For those virtues he was greatly appreciated there. But as Steve redoubled his efforts to immerse himself in the company’s day-to-day management and the creative process of making movies, his presence was viewed as an unwarranted and disruptive intrusion.
“There was great apprehension when Steve tried to take over the running of the company,” recalls Pam Kerwin. “But a funny thing happened. Steve’s charisma and his ’reality distortion field’ didn’t work at Pixar. We were too mature to get hooked in.”
When Steve brought one of his own people from Next to work at Pixar, the transplanted executive soon felt befuddled. “I don’t get it,” he said. “At Next, Steve said ’Jump’ and we said ’How high?’ At Pixar, they say, ’Oh, it’s Steve.’”
Every Friday, Steve would assemble the entire Pixar staff in the lunchroom, with the crowd overflowing onto the lawn, and he would deliver a speech, trying to assert his leadership. But the hearts and minds of the Pixarians belonged to John Lasseter. “People were not moved by Steve,” says Ralph Guggenheim. “You could see that it was hard for Steve, sharing the spotlight with John. Both Steve and John loved the spotlight. It seemed like a competition for whose DNA would be imprinted on the company’s culture.”
Steve was in danger of strangling the golden goose.
Luckily, it was too late for him to change Pixar. John’s personality was already infused throughout the place. Pixar became a weird cross between an artists’ colony and a teenagers’ clubhouse, holding yoga classes in the morning and tai chi at lunch and poker games at night. Only John could inspire something as wonderfully quirky as Pixar University, the three-month training program for new hires, which culminated in formal graduation