The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 18 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Levy argued with Steve Jobs to underprice Pixar's IPO
“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 i…”
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…”
Levy: Pixar's top decision was refusing executive interference with creatives
“So the most important decision that we made at Pixel was basically to trust the creatives and not interfere with what they're doing.”
Levy: Business leaders can succeed without being jerks, though it is harder
“You don't have to be a jerk to succeed, but it's harder, because you can be a jerk and succeed.”
Levy: Pixar did not view itself as an entertainment company in 1994
“If you did research at that time, which I did, you would have discovered they were really a graphics company. So Pixar had really set out to change the world of high-end computer graphics, and they made an imaging computer. They'd made some short films that ha…”
Levy: Disney was sole historical success in feature animation
“Because only one company in history had ever done it. That was Disney, and they had only succeeded at it for a few years, from 1939, when they released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
Levy: I fought building Pixar into an independent studio
“So the notion that you could build an independent, standalone animated feature film company was one that I basically fought every step of the way because it seemed impossible.”
Levy: Jobs and Pixar leadership never fought despite frequent disagreement
“It is, because we never fought, but we didn't always agree. There was this healthy... Debate, I would call it. One pushing the other, always pushing the other you know.”
Levy: Jobs rushed Pixar to IPO as symbol of his comeback
“I think when Steve began to see that an IPO was possible for Pixar, he couldn't get there fast enough. Because that IPO was really the symbol of his comeback. He was rushing toward that faster than I was.”
Levy: Animated story mistakes cost Pixar $5M to $10M to fix
“They come to you and say, we made a mistake in the story, right? You can't fix that. Like the next day. That's usually a five or ten million dollar mistake.”
Levy: Executive challenge is accurately assessing talent, not having creative answers
“Not everybody in a startup company, you don't have to have John Lassar, but you have to be very discerning about the level of talent that you have. And I think that's the challenge for executives, not to think that they know, but to be able to Make a real asse…”
Steve Jobs cold-called Lawrence Levy in 1994 after seeing his photo
“Imagine that I'm sitting in my office at the company I was at then, which was Electronics for Imaging, and I was sitting at my desk, and the phone rings, and I pick up the phone, and on the other end of the phone, I hear this voice that says, Hi, this is Steve…”
Levy: Rendering a single frame of animation took a day
“At that time, just to render a single frame could take a day.”