"His company was now run at its top levels by men who understood themselves to be following his example, without understanding that his example consisted of bold strokes. Thirteen years after Walt Disney's death, the most favored expression of executives seemed to be, "As Walt Used to say..."

- David A. Price, The Pixar Touch


Part 1

The Pixar Touch by David A. Price is something akin to middleware. It is somewhere between Levy's Hackers and Gabler's Walt Disney. Price begins his epic tale looking through the eyes of Lasseter (and to a lesser degree Banks and Bluth) to describe the threadbare and rudderless conditions of the Walt Disney Studios in the years after Walt's death. He also introduces a motley cast of hardcore technologists like Edwin Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith who would move PIXAR from a garage at the New York Institute of Technology to Lucasfilm Ltd. and eventually to Pixar, Inc. c/o Steve Jobs. The story of Lasseter (and Banks) ultimately intersects with Catmull and Smith and the evolution of the company becomes a fascinating tale (and case study).


And while the evolution of PIXAR from a hardware company to a full-fledged animation studio is an interesting story, all the fireworks and drama in this book involve Steve Jobs and Michael Eisner. Following the tragic death of Frank Wells and the departure of Jeffrey Katzenberg, Eisner's leadership is no better than the caretakers who followed Disney. I had forgotten how pathetic the studio(s) releases were post Katzenberg and Wells. What were Chicken Little and the Emperor's New Groove?

It's Roy Disney, Walt's nephew, who starts the first coup to remove then chief executive Ron Miller. Miller is eventually replaced with Michael Eisner and Frank Wells. Ironically, it's a second coup led by Roy a decade or so later to extract Eisner from the company after his [Eisner's] lackluster performance and histrionics. Roy succeeds and Bob Iger is named CEO. Iger has the humility to recognize the "edge of his competency" and reaches out to PIXAR (almost immediately) to repair relations with a jilted Steve Jobs. Hollywood (and the MSM) has done a great job of portraying CEO(s) as soulless bastards but Hollywood is an egalitarian cohort without the open- mindedness to contemplate the skill required to become a CEO. And while some CEO(s) have lent credibility to the characterization/stereotype, the truth/fact remains that it's a pretty lonely job. I love Bob Iger in this book though. His interview with Eisner on CNBC is befitting of a CEO:

"And I felt - one of the things that I learned from you and [Capital Cities/ABC chairman and CEO] Tom Murphy and others is to know the edge of your own competency. And I felt that we had talent in animation. But we also needed great leadership. I didn't think I could provide that leadership in animation. And I believed strongly that the people at Pixar could. Plus they also had tremendous talent."

The history of PIXAR, like any great Disney animated feature, also involves a great cast of heroes and villains. It also has an angel or two in the form of Hayao Miyazaki and Frank Thomas AND some filthy hippies. In the second part of this post I will look at some of the heroes and villains and the elements that make this book such a great case study.

Labels: disney