Levy argued with Steve Jobs to underprice Pixar's IPO
Lawrence Levy · a16z Podcast | The Business of Creativity -- Pixar CFO, IPO, and Beyond! · Jan 2, 2019 · at 18:11
Former Pixar CFO Lawrence Levy details his strategic debate with Steve Jobs over pricing Pixar's 1995 initial public offering.
0:00 / 0:24exact quote · 24.1s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Well, I would say that the pricing of an IPO on the financial side of a company is one of the most important decisions that it will make. And this was also a point of contention between Steve and I about how to price it. I, my thinking about it was that it's important to leave something on the table. It's much more important that early investors be happy and feel like they made money than they'd be disappointed and feel like they lost money.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Lawrence Levy
Pixar's 1991 Disney deal tied up studio profits for 12–15 years
“They had committed to that in a 1991 contract that they went into with Disney. That was a little bit of a Hail Mary in a way, because otherwise Pixar was perilously close to going out of business. Disney came along and said that they would basically front the …”
Levy: Live action film production is a terrible business
“We learned all about the live action film business, but the live action film business is also a terrible business.”
Levy: Jobs had four hardware marketplace failures before Pixar
“Steve had had a series of failures leading up to Pixar. Before he left Apple, there was the Apple Leaser, and there was the Apple Macintosh. After he left Apple, there was the Pixar imaging computer, and then there was the next computer. So those were four pie…”
Levy: Pixar had to insulate itself from studio pressures to innovate
“Sometimes creativity in Hollywood isn't all it's cracked up to be. The big studios have so many pressures. Some of our thinking back then is we have to protect Pixar from those, some of those kinds of pressures in order for it to continue to innovate and do or…”