1
00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:03,199
Speaker 1: Brought to you by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, committed

2
00:00:03,240 --> 00:00:06,280
Speaker 1: to bringing higher finance to lower carbon named the most

3
00:00:06,320 --> 00:00:10,280
Speaker 1: innovative investment bank for climate change and sustainability by the banker.

4
00:00:10,600 --> 00:00:13,920
Speaker 1: That's the power of Global Connections. Bank of America North

5
00:00:13,960 --> 00:00:20,599
Speaker 1: America member f D I C. This is Masters in

6
00:00:20,680 --> 00:00:25,239
Speaker 1: Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. This week on

7
00:00:25,280 --> 00:00:28,400
Speaker 1: the show, we have a really fascinating guest. His name

8
00:00:28,440 --> 00:00:33,000
Speaker 1: is Lawrence Levy. He is the CFO of Pixar, has

9
00:00:33,040 --> 00:00:37,120
Speaker 1: a new book out about his time. They're essentially he

10
00:00:37,240 --> 00:00:41,560
Speaker 1: was recruited by Steve Jobs. He's working in his office

11
00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:45,800
Speaker 1: electronics for Imaging. He's a corporate lawyer from London to

12
00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:51,640
Speaker 1: to Harvard too out into who Silicon Valley. And he's

13
00:00:51,680 --> 00:00:53,880
Speaker 1: working at his desk one day and the phone rings

14
00:00:53,920 --> 00:00:56,720
Speaker 1: and it's Steve Jobs. Hey, I have a company I'd

15
00:00:56,720 --> 00:00:58,760
Speaker 1: like you to come look like to talk to you

16
00:00:58,840 --> 00:01:01,600
Speaker 1: about um. He thought it was gonna be about next

17
00:01:01,680 --> 00:01:05,640
Speaker 1: It turns out to be about Pixar, and he wrestles

18
00:01:05,640 --> 00:01:09,360
Speaker 1: with the idea Jobs. His reputation precedes him, but he

19
00:01:09,400 --> 00:01:11,800
Speaker 1: goes and gets a tour of Pixar, which you know

20
00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:15,440
Speaker 1: is a horrible part of town, across from an oil refinery.

21
00:01:15,520 --> 00:01:18,480
Speaker 1: It looks like a dumping What is why do I

22
00:01:18,520 --> 00:01:20,720
Speaker 1: want to have anything to do with this? On the

23
00:01:20,760 --> 00:01:24,760
Speaker 1: wrong is a long, ugly commuter. There was nothing appealing

24
00:01:24,800 --> 00:01:27,240
Speaker 1: to it. And then he gets inside the building and

25
00:01:27,400 --> 00:01:31,640
Speaker 1: starts to see the magic of of Pixar and just

26
00:01:31,800 --> 00:01:35,600
Speaker 1: the collection of brilliant creative people, both on the technology

27
00:01:35,680 --> 00:01:42,479
Speaker 1: side and the storytelling side, and early version of Toy Story.

28
00:01:42,600 --> 00:01:45,920
Speaker 1: A few minutes he gets to see UM as part

29
00:01:45,920 --> 00:01:47,920
Speaker 1: of his tour, and he's just you know, we take

30
00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:50,880
Speaker 1: it for granted today, how brilliant these movies are. But

31
00:01:50,960 --> 00:01:56,080
Speaker 1: he's just blown away. Imagine you see five minutes of Pixar,

32
00:01:56,200 --> 00:02:00,680
Speaker 1: even of Toy Story, even a rough, un in version

33
00:02:00,720 --> 00:02:03,560
Speaker 1: of it, and it's just mind blowing. It's unlike anything

34
00:02:03,800 --> 00:02:08,040
Speaker 1: ever before um And ultimately wrestles with the question and

35
00:02:08,080 --> 00:02:12,440
Speaker 1: decides to join the company, and he describes bluntly the

36
00:02:12,480 --> 00:02:16,240
Speaker 1: company was a disaster from a business perspective. They had

37
00:02:16,280 --> 00:02:19,480
Speaker 1: all these different lines, none of which could scale, and

38
00:02:19,600 --> 00:02:24,880
Speaker 1: ultimately comes up with a creative business plan in order

39
00:02:24,919 --> 00:02:28,919
Speaker 1: to turn the company into a real business, which really

40
00:02:29,240 --> 00:02:32,360
Speaker 1: relied on all we have to do is shut down

41
00:02:32,360 --> 00:02:35,119
Speaker 1: these three lines of business that aren't scalable and we'll

42
00:02:35,120 --> 00:02:38,920
Speaker 1: never make money, pivot from technology and hardware into the

43
00:02:39,120 --> 00:02:42,880
Speaker 1: entertainment business, and then come out with a series of movies,

44
00:02:43,040 --> 00:02:46,880
Speaker 1: each of which has to be spectacular and record breaking

45
00:02:46,919 --> 00:02:50,800
Speaker 1: at the box office. Easy peasy. How hard could that be? Well,

46
00:02:50,880 --> 00:02:54,280
Speaker 1: it turns oh nps take the company public with a

47
00:02:54,280 --> 00:02:57,680
Speaker 1: mercurial owner who just got tossed out of his previous

48
00:02:57,720 --> 00:03:02,080
Speaker 1: company called Apple, and it turns out that his plan

49
00:03:03,160 --> 00:03:07,079
Speaker 1: worked out really well. All sorts of things come out

50
00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:09,520
Speaker 1: in the book he wrote, called to Pixar and Beyond.

51
00:03:09,960 --> 00:03:11,960
Speaker 1: You learn about all sorts of things you had no

52
00:03:12,080 --> 00:03:16,280
Speaker 1: idea about about Pixar, about the entertainment business, about Apple,

53
00:03:16,320 --> 00:03:19,960
Speaker 1: about Steve Jobs. It's really a fascinating story, and I

54
00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:23,360
Speaker 1: had a great time um speaking with him. As as

55
00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:27,200
Speaker 1: an old mac heead and a huge fan of Pixars films,

56
00:03:27,520 --> 00:03:29,600
Speaker 1: I found it to be just fascinating and I think

57
00:03:29,639 --> 00:03:32,840
Speaker 1: you will too. So, with no further ado, here's my

58
00:03:32,960 --> 00:03:37,760
Speaker 1: conversation with Pixars CFO Lawrence Levy. For those of you

59
00:03:37,920 --> 00:03:41,080
Speaker 1: who are unfamiliar with Pixar, and I can't imagine there's

60
00:03:41,080 --> 00:03:45,560
Speaker 1: anybody listening who is Fourteen of Pixar's films are amongst

61
00:03:45,880 --> 00:03:49,520
Speaker 1: the fifty highest grossing animated films of all time. You're

62
00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:54,200
Speaker 1: familiar with names such as Toy story Finding, Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatui,

63
00:03:54,560 --> 00:03:58,320
Speaker 1: while E Inside Out, Monsters, Cars. It just goes on

64
00:03:58,360 --> 00:04:01,400
Speaker 1: and on. The studios are in sick teen Academy Awards,

65
00:04:01,560 --> 00:04:05,640
Speaker 1: seven Golden Globes, eleven Grammys. He is also the author

66
00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:09,120
Speaker 1: of a new book titled to Pixar and Beyond, My

67
00:04:09,280 --> 00:04:13,640
Speaker 1: Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs. Lawrence Levy, Welcome to Bloomberg

68
00:04:14,080 --> 00:04:16,000
Speaker 1: High Burry. It's a pleasure to be here. So I

69
00:04:16,040 --> 00:04:18,320
Speaker 1: have to tell you I'm almost done with the book

70
00:04:18,320 --> 00:04:22,320
Speaker 1: and I've really been enjoying it. Let's start with you.

71
00:04:22,320 --> 00:04:24,760
Speaker 1: You're born in London. How do you end up working

72
00:04:24,760 --> 00:04:27,440
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley as a lawyer. Well, yes, I was

73
00:04:27,480 --> 00:04:29,760
Speaker 1: born and raised in London. I moved in my late

74
00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:32,320
Speaker 1: teens over to the United States and then I ended

75
00:04:32,400 --> 00:04:35,600
Speaker 1: up in the university. I was at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana,

76
00:04:35,640 --> 00:04:38,000
Speaker 1: where I studied business and accounting that i'd go into

77
00:04:38,080 --> 00:04:40,600
Speaker 1: Harvard Law School and then I started my law practice

78
00:04:40,760 --> 00:04:43,960
Speaker 1: and I was practicing on the East Coast, and I

79
00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:45,839
Speaker 1: was not happy whether this is sort of in my

80
00:04:45,880 --> 00:04:48,520
Speaker 1: mid twenties, um, and I'm like, you know, what do

81
00:04:48,600 --> 00:04:51,320
Speaker 1: I really want to do? And at that time, I

82
00:04:51,400 --> 00:04:54,560
Speaker 1: was married, we had a one year old baby, and

83
00:04:54,600 --> 00:04:56,719
Speaker 1: there was a request in the law firm to represent

84
00:04:56,760 --> 00:05:00,480
Speaker 1: a software company and nobody was interested. This is like

85
00:05:01,760 --> 00:05:05,320
Speaker 1: seven no one was interested in representing software companies. They

86
00:05:05,360 --> 00:05:07,920
Speaker 1: didn't mean anything. And my hand shut up and I

87
00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:10,120
Speaker 1: was like, this is what I'm gonna do, And so

88
00:05:10,200 --> 00:05:12,120
Speaker 1: I did. This is just a tiny little company. I

89
00:05:12,120 --> 00:05:15,119
Speaker 1: don't even remember its name, but I could see that,

90
00:05:15,200 --> 00:05:17,479
Speaker 1: you know, by doing this, that this was sort of

91
00:05:17,520 --> 00:05:21,840
Speaker 1: a land of opportunity and then technology, this technology thing

92
00:05:21,880 --> 00:05:24,600
Speaker 1: is going to go somewhere. Even the law is associated

93
00:05:24,640 --> 00:05:26,640
Speaker 1: with the protection of software and this kind I hadn't

94
00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:28,960
Speaker 1: been sorted out yet. And so but I'm in the

95
00:05:28,960 --> 00:05:31,360
Speaker 1: wrong place, you know, Where shall I go? And we

96
00:05:31,400 --> 00:05:34,120
Speaker 1: had never been to California, We've never really even heard

97
00:05:34,160 --> 00:05:36,760
Speaker 1: of Silicon Valley, but that was the place. So I

98
00:05:36,839 --> 00:05:40,120
Speaker 1: came out to Silicon Valley and I interviewed with the

99
00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:42,599
Speaker 1: biggest law firm out there, and the founding partner of

100
00:05:42,600 --> 00:05:46,320
Speaker 1: that firm Larry Soncini, who's featured in the book Le

101
00:05:47,200 --> 00:05:50,039
Speaker 1: Langendary Law Firm. And I said to Larry, you know,

102
00:05:50,120 --> 00:05:52,680
Speaker 1: I just want to come out here and do technology transactions.

103
00:05:52,720 --> 00:05:55,040
Speaker 1: And he said, you know, we have no one specializing

104
00:05:55,040 --> 00:05:57,160
Speaker 1: in it. It's growing and growing. I'll let you do it.

105
00:05:57,560 --> 00:06:00,280
Speaker 1: And that was the start of what became the rest

106
00:06:00,520 --> 00:06:04,240
Speaker 1: and the biggest technology transactions law practice in in the

107
00:06:04,360 --> 00:06:07,640
Speaker 1: legal business. That's that's worthy of a book. Unto itself.

108
00:06:08,440 --> 00:06:11,000
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the phone call out of the blue

109
00:06:11,040 --> 00:06:14,800
Speaker 1: from Steve Jobs. What was that like? So imagine that

110
00:06:14,920 --> 00:06:17,839
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in my office. By that time, I was

111
00:06:17,880 --> 00:06:20,440
Speaker 1: working for a company called Electronics for Imaging that had

112
00:06:20,480 --> 00:06:22,640
Speaker 1: been one of my clients, and I went to to

113
00:06:22,800 --> 00:06:25,239
Speaker 1: work for them, and I ended up becoming their CFO

114
00:06:25,400 --> 00:06:27,960
Speaker 1: and we took that company public. They're still around. It's

115
00:06:27,960 --> 00:06:31,000
Speaker 1: a great company. And my phone rings, and I pick

116
00:06:31,080 --> 00:06:32,440
Speaker 1: up the phone and I hear on the other end

117
00:06:32,480 --> 00:06:35,120
Speaker 1: of the line, High, this is Steve Jobs. I saw

118
00:06:35,160 --> 00:06:36,839
Speaker 1: your picture in the magazine a couple of years ago.

119
00:06:36,839 --> 00:06:39,159
Speaker 1: I thought we'd worked together. Someday I have a little

120
00:06:39,160 --> 00:06:41,600
Speaker 1: company I want to tell you about. And I immediately

121
00:06:41,640 --> 00:06:44,560
Speaker 1: thought to myself, next, he's talking about next computer. Now,

122
00:06:44,600 --> 00:06:47,680
Speaker 1: this is some context. This was after he's tossed out

123
00:06:47,720 --> 00:06:51,960
Speaker 1: unceremoniously from Apple eight years later. This he's tossed out.

124
00:06:52,880 --> 00:06:55,640
Speaker 1: You know some years before you went to do next computer.

125
00:06:55,880 --> 00:07:00,560
Speaker 1: But two years before next it's shut down. It's hard business,

126
00:07:00,600 --> 00:07:04,000
Speaker 1: which so it was basically rumored to be done. And

127
00:07:04,279 --> 00:07:06,719
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, Okay, he wants some help to

128
00:07:06,800 --> 00:07:09,880
Speaker 1: turn around next And but then he says the company

129
00:07:09,920 --> 00:07:13,520
Speaker 1: is called Pisarre, and inside I'm kind of going, what's

130
00:07:13,560 --> 00:07:16,280
Speaker 1: picks are? And awardly, I kind of said, that sounds

131
00:07:16,280 --> 00:07:17,760
Speaker 1: really cool. I'd love to you know, I'd love to

132
00:07:17,840 --> 00:07:20,080
Speaker 1: learn about it. But you know, it, Picks alway was

133
00:07:20,200 --> 00:07:22,400
Speaker 1: so unknown at that point that you know, maybe you

134
00:07:22,560 --> 00:07:25,320
Speaker 1: sort of barely had heard of it. Um. But that

135
00:07:25,440 --> 00:07:28,119
Speaker 1: was how the that was how everything got started. So

136
00:07:28,120 --> 00:07:32,440
Speaker 1: so let's briefly talk about the genesis of Pixar. George Lucas,

137
00:07:32,480 --> 00:07:35,360
Speaker 1: while working on Star Wars and other films, wanted his

138
00:07:35,440 --> 00:07:39,760
Speaker 1: own facility. Why did he cleave the Pixar portion off

139
00:07:40,080 --> 00:07:43,520
Speaker 1: and keep Skywalker Labs or studios or whatever it's called

140
00:07:43,560 --> 00:07:46,720
Speaker 1: for himself. I think he cleaved it off for the

141
00:07:47,360 --> 00:07:50,520
Speaker 1: because it was very expensive to run, and so I

142
00:07:50,560 --> 00:07:53,920
Speaker 1: don't think he wanted to continue the investment in their

143
00:07:54,160 --> 00:07:58,160
Speaker 1: computer graphics division and so um. And so that's when

144
00:07:58,200 --> 00:08:01,200
Speaker 1: at Katmo av Ray Smith and decided to sort of

145
00:08:01,200 --> 00:08:03,080
Speaker 1: try to take it as a spinoff, and they needed

146
00:08:03,160 --> 00:08:06,200
Speaker 1: an investor to help with that. So Jobs invites you

147
00:08:06,440 --> 00:08:09,720
Speaker 1: to come be the CFO at Pixarar. At that point,

148
00:08:09,880 --> 00:08:12,600
Speaker 1: his reputation wasn't what it was today. He was sort

149
00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:16,200
Speaker 1: of an on front every blow. How concerned were you

150
00:08:16,360 --> 00:08:19,600
Speaker 1: about that before you said yes to join Pixar. I

151
00:08:19,760 --> 00:08:22,640
Speaker 1: was extremely concerned. And that's why the first chapter in

152
00:08:22,680 --> 00:08:24,360
Speaker 1: the book is is cool? Why would you do that?

153
00:08:24,880 --> 00:08:27,200
Speaker 1: Because that's what a lot of people told me. It

154
00:08:27,800 --> 00:08:31,960
Speaker 1: was maybe the lowest point in in Steve's career. You know,

155
00:08:32,120 --> 00:08:35,679
Speaker 1: he'd had a string of basically four failures in the

156
00:08:35,920 --> 00:08:38,360
Speaker 1: you know, the Apple Leasa computer, then the original Apple

157
00:08:38,400 --> 00:08:41,080
Speaker 1: Macintosh computer that had a very hard time finding a market.

158
00:08:41,280 --> 00:08:43,959
Speaker 1: Uh um, the next computer that Pixar Imagine computer. So

159
00:08:44,200 --> 00:08:46,480
Speaker 1: there were books being written about you know him as

160
00:08:46,760 --> 00:08:51,200
Speaker 1: done finished and so I I was very concerned about him.

161
00:08:51,679 --> 00:08:55,280
Speaker 1: So you go to Pixar, You you meet everybody before

162
00:08:55,320 --> 00:08:58,040
Speaker 1: you agree to say yes, what was your impression? Well,

163
00:08:58,280 --> 00:09:00,360
Speaker 1: it's funny, you know, Pixar was at that time in

164
00:09:00,440 --> 00:09:02,719
Speaker 1: Point Richmond, California, which, from the point of view of

165
00:09:02,760 --> 00:09:04,880
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley was kind of like in the middle of nowhere.

166
00:09:05,400 --> 00:09:07,400
Speaker 1: And so and it was in It's across the street

167
00:09:07,440 --> 00:09:10,559
Speaker 1: from an oil refinery, and it's a dumpy building and

168
00:09:10,880 --> 00:09:15,319
Speaker 1: there's nothing remarkable or inspiring about it whatsoever. And so

169
00:09:15,400 --> 00:09:17,640
Speaker 1: I went in there scratching my head, and you know,

170
00:09:17,720 --> 00:09:19,800
Speaker 1: I meet at Cat moll and a couple of other people,

171
00:09:19,920 --> 00:09:23,120
Speaker 1: and then John John Lasseter, and then they take me

172
00:09:23,240 --> 00:09:26,760
Speaker 1: to see this sort of footage of Toy Story, which

173
00:09:26,840 --> 00:09:29,240
Speaker 1: is a year before Toy Story comes out, and it's

174
00:09:29,280 --> 00:09:31,520
Speaker 1: just a few minutes and it's unfinished and there's no

175
00:09:31,720 --> 00:09:33,880
Speaker 1: music and the voices on final and so there's all

176
00:09:33,920 --> 00:09:36,319
Speaker 1: these caveats about what it's going to be. And I'm

177
00:09:36,360 --> 00:09:39,040
Speaker 1: in a screening room that's full of like couches that

178
00:09:39,280 --> 00:09:41,240
Speaker 1: look like they've been picked up from the end of

179
00:09:41,280 --> 00:09:44,400
Speaker 1: a driveway, and I'm like, what's going on here? And

180
00:09:44,520 --> 00:09:46,360
Speaker 1: the film begins to roll and I'm kind of like

181
00:09:46,880 --> 00:09:50,120
Speaker 1: mesmerized by this. I'm looking at this saying to myself,

182
00:09:50,679 --> 00:09:54,040
Speaker 1: somewhere in this building there is magic. I don't know

183
00:09:54,120 --> 00:09:56,520
Speaker 1: where it is or what it is, but something is

184
00:09:56,559 --> 00:09:59,400
Speaker 1: going on here. I'm Barry rid Hultz. You're listening to

185
00:09:59,600 --> 00:10:03,079
Speaker 1: Master in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today

186
00:10:03,280 --> 00:10:07,000
Speaker 1: is Lawrence Levy. He was the CFO of Pixar and

187
00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:09,959
Speaker 1: he is the author of Two Pixar and Beyond, My

188
00:10:10,200 --> 00:10:13,520
Speaker 1: Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs. Let's let's talk a little

189
00:10:13,520 --> 00:10:17,360
Speaker 1: bit about Pixar. When you first arrived there, they seem

190
00:10:17,440 --> 00:10:20,640
Speaker 1: to have a lot of different businesses going on, but

191
00:10:21,400 --> 00:10:24,760
Speaker 1: entertainment was almost an afterthought. Tell us, tell us what

192
00:10:24,960 --> 00:10:27,520
Speaker 1: greeted you when you first joined the company. Yeah, well,

193
00:10:27,800 --> 00:10:30,640
Speaker 1: entertainment wasn't afterthought. You know. Pixar was created as a

194
00:10:30,679 --> 00:10:34,319
Speaker 1: graphics company, and it was hardware, software, software. It made

195
00:10:34,400 --> 00:10:36,920
Speaker 1: a computer called the Pixar Imaging Computer, and so it

196
00:10:37,040 --> 00:10:39,160
Speaker 1: was in these different things that it was making this

197
00:10:39,360 --> 00:10:42,680
Speaker 1: random and software which was rendering these high end graphics,

198
00:10:42,960 --> 00:10:46,000
Speaker 1: uh and creating them into computer images. It was doing

199
00:10:46,240 --> 00:10:49,040
Speaker 1: animated shore films, it was doing commercials. It was doing

200
00:10:49,120 --> 00:10:51,160
Speaker 1: this sort of thing called there's a lot of focus

201
00:10:51,240 --> 00:10:53,599
Speaker 1: on toy story. Um so there was kind of a

202
00:10:53,679 --> 00:10:57,280
Speaker 1: lot going on, and I realized right away, you know,

203
00:10:57,360 --> 00:10:59,920
Speaker 1: I had kind of a lot to learn there, that was.

204
00:11:00,120 --> 00:11:02,520
Speaker 1: And so when I first got there, I was just like,

205
00:11:03,120 --> 00:11:05,480
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not gonna make any decisions. I'm not

206
00:11:05,520 --> 00:11:08,719
Speaker 1: going to do anything. I literally took I got a

207
00:11:08,840 --> 00:11:11,280
Speaker 1: pad of paper and a pen, and I asked, everybody,

208
00:11:11,600 --> 00:11:14,440
Speaker 1: can I just follow you around and and see what's

209
00:11:14,480 --> 00:11:16,559
Speaker 1: going on? And I literally did that. You know. I

210
00:11:16,640 --> 00:11:21,480
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time just you know, sitting listening,

211
00:11:21,679 --> 00:11:23,520
Speaker 1: you know, and just taking notes so I could sort

212
00:11:23,559 --> 00:11:26,160
Speaker 1: of start to understand, you know, what was going on

213
00:11:26,240 --> 00:11:29,079
Speaker 1: at the company. You look at three businesses, the hardware,

214
00:11:29,280 --> 00:11:34,640
Speaker 1: the software, the short commercial business, and none of them

215
00:11:34,760 --> 00:11:38,839
Speaker 1: scale to anything remotely approaching a public company. None of

216
00:11:38,880 --> 00:11:41,640
Speaker 1: them could scale. They were amazing for the hardware had

217
00:11:41,640 --> 00:11:45,480
Speaker 1: already been closed down, but the anime commercials, the animate

218
00:11:45,559 --> 00:11:48,439
Speaker 1: short films, the rendom and software they couldn't scale. And

219
00:11:48,520 --> 00:11:51,360
Speaker 1: the reason was because there's too high end. You know,

220
00:11:51,480 --> 00:11:53,120
Speaker 1: there was like, how many people in the world at

221
00:11:53,200 --> 00:11:56,080
Speaker 1: that point in time, We're gonna pay this very large amount,

222
00:11:56,160 --> 00:11:59,679
Speaker 1: but it's unbelievable software, you know, to render unbelievably high

223
00:11:59,760 --> 00:12:03,640
Speaker 1: quality image. You know, just studios. You know, studios not

224
00:12:03,840 --> 00:12:06,920
Speaker 1: enough to build a business. So you decide the future

225
00:12:06,960 --> 00:12:09,520
Speaker 1: of the company if, if it's going to have a future,

226
00:12:09,920 --> 00:12:13,800
Speaker 1: is to pivot from technology to applying the technology to

227
00:12:13,880 --> 00:12:17,719
Speaker 1: be a unique entertainment company. How hard was it to

228
00:12:17,840 --> 00:12:22,760
Speaker 1: get Steve Jobs two, who is essentially a tech slash

229
00:12:22,960 --> 00:12:25,520
Speaker 1: marketing guy at heart, how hard was it to get

230
00:12:25,640 --> 00:12:29,560
Speaker 1: him to buy in on that vision? Yeah, well, decide

231
00:12:29,720 --> 00:12:33,040
Speaker 1: is probably a bit of an overstatement. It was a

232
00:12:33,160 --> 00:12:36,040
Speaker 1: strategy by default in a way. So you look around

233
00:12:36,080 --> 00:12:38,400
Speaker 1: the company and this isn't gonna work, This isn't gonna work,

234
00:12:38,440 --> 00:12:40,040
Speaker 1: This isn't gonna work. So then you look at this

235
00:12:40,320 --> 00:12:43,240
Speaker 1: animated feature film thing, and so I started to learn

236
00:12:43,280 --> 00:12:46,480
Speaker 1: about that, and I'm like, well, this is the worst

237
00:12:46,760 --> 00:12:52,080
Speaker 1: possible business strategy. So you you specifically right, in order

238
00:12:52,120 --> 00:12:54,599
Speaker 1: for this to be successful, we have to have a

239
00:12:54,800 --> 00:12:58,400
Speaker 1: string of blockbuster hits, And then you go through the

240
00:12:58,520 --> 00:13:01,960
Speaker 1: numbers and and send snow White in the Seven Dwarfs.

241
00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:06,600
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty seven, the two biggest hits that were

242
00:13:06,600 --> 00:13:09,880
Speaker 1: animated were both Disney. One is a Laddin at two

243
00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:13,120
Speaker 1: hundred seventeen million dollars, The other is Lion King at

244
00:13:13,160 --> 00:13:16,160
Speaker 1: three hundred thirteen million dollars, And in order for the

245
00:13:16,320 --> 00:13:19,440
Speaker 1: Pixar business model to make sense, you have to come

246
00:13:19,520 --> 00:13:23,280
Speaker 1: pretty close to those two, you know, in in almost

247
00:13:23,440 --> 00:13:28,120
Speaker 1: uh three quarters of a century, every three or four years. Yeah,

248
00:13:28,160 --> 00:13:30,680
Speaker 1: I mean, and it's worse than that in a sense

249
00:13:30,760 --> 00:13:33,560
Speaker 1: because if you looked at the Disney model, which I did,

250
00:13:33,679 --> 00:13:36,680
Speaker 1: and I was like, why didn't Why aren't there more

251
00:13:36,960 --> 00:13:40,679
Speaker 1: independent animated feature film, It's not like animated feature films

252
00:13:40,679 --> 00:13:45,560
Speaker 1: there's a new product, right, it's been around for two generations, right,

253
00:13:46,559 --> 00:13:48,760
Speaker 1: Disney releases snow White in the Seven Dwarves, the first

254
00:13:48,840 --> 00:13:52,040
Speaker 1: animated feature film. So it's like every studio had an

255
00:13:52,080 --> 00:13:55,000
Speaker 1: opportunity to get into that business, and none of them

256
00:13:55,040 --> 00:13:58,400
Speaker 1: are in it. And it turned out that even Disney

257
00:13:58,720 --> 00:14:01,439
Speaker 1: couldn't make it work because you know, he has a

258
00:14:01,480 --> 00:14:06,000
Speaker 1: good run from He's got you know, Bamby and snow

259
00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:08,480
Speaker 1: White and Dumbo and all these beloved films, but he

260
00:14:08,520 --> 00:14:12,600
Speaker 1: couldn't keep that engine running financially. So he diversifies, right,

261
00:14:12,679 --> 00:14:16,320
Speaker 1: he diversifies. He goes into five, he goes into theme

262
00:14:16,360 --> 00:14:20,080
Speaker 1: parks early, he goes into television with the wonderful world

263
00:14:20,120 --> 00:14:23,760
Speaker 1: of Walt Disney. Uh, he goes into distribution. He sets

264
00:14:23,840 --> 00:14:26,359
Speaker 1: up one of us, the distribution. He's trying to diversify

265
00:14:26,800 --> 00:14:30,200
Speaker 1: away from an animation because he goes to live action

266
00:14:30,280 --> 00:14:32,760
Speaker 1: film Mary Poppins in this and that. So he built

267
00:14:32,800 --> 00:14:36,240
Speaker 1: this diversified media company. And so I'm looking around and

268
00:14:36,320 --> 00:14:40,400
Speaker 1: not even Disney is a good example of an independent

269
00:14:40,440 --> 00:14:45,720
Speaker 1: animated feature film. But um, you know, you know, you're

270
00:14:45,720 --> 00:14:48,800
Speaker 1: sort of looking at it qualitatively and quantitatively that was

271
00:14:48,920 --> 00:14:52,200
Speaker 1: the only shot, and you're you're exactly right that in

272
00:14:52,400 --> 00:14:54,400
Speaker 1: order to make that work, those films had to be

273
00:14:54,840 --> 00:14:57,240
Speaker 1: you know, blockbusters pretty much, every single one of them.

274
00:14:57,440 --> 00:15:00,520
Speaker 1: And that's what the business plan called for. You could

275
00:15:00,560 --> 00:15:02,840
Speaker 1: call it crazy, right, You could say, well, that's a

276
00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:05,720
Speaker 1: crazy bet to take, and I would agree with that,

277
00:15:05,960 --> 00:15:10,240
Speaker 1: but what what other choice do you have? That In

278
00:15:10,360 --> 00:15:12,880
Speaker 1: the book, so, so before we get to Toy Story

279
00:15:12,920 --> 00:15:16,640
Speaker 1: and the subsequent films, a big part of the middle

280
00:15:16,880 --> 00:15:19,240
Speaker 1: of the book is about the Pixar I p O.

281
00:15:20,280 --> 00:15:24,320
Speaker 1: That sounded like that was a really fascinating experience. Yeah,

282
00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:28,200
Speaker 1: well it was, you know how. And so the idea

283
00:15:28,280 --> 00:15:30,720
Speaker 1: for the I p O essentially comes about from do

284
00:15:30,800 --> 00:15:33,680
Speaker 1: you want to it's sort of all flows from this strategy.

285
00:15:33,720 --> 00:15:37,000
Speaker 1: So you want to build an independent animation film company,

286
00:15:37,160 --> 00:15:39,520
Speaker 1: that means you have to finance your own films. Those

287
00:15:39,560 --> 00:15:41,920
Speaker 1: films cost a lot, so it could be you know

288
00:15:41,960 --> 00:15:44,360
Speaker 1: at the time, seventy million, hundred million dollars. You know,

289
00:15:45,040 --> 00:15:47,200
Speaker 1: So how are you going to get that kind of money? Right?

290
00:15:47,480 --> 00:15:51,000
Speaker 1: And so no lender is gonna provide that kind of money,

291
00:15:51,120 --> 00:15:52,320
Speaker 1: you know, for that kind of product, So you got

292
00:15:52,400 --> 00:15:54,680
Speaker 1: to go to the equity markets, capital markets, and so.

293
00:15:55,200 --> 00:15:58,680
Speaker 1: But the business model of Pixar had none of the

294
00:15:58,760 --> 00:16:02,680
Speaker 1: characteristics that the investors and investment banks. So it wasn't steady,

295
00:16:02,880 --> 00:16:06,320
Speaker 1: it wasn't reliable. It required a lot of one off

296
00:16:06,440 --> 00:16:09,920
Speaker 1: success stories that had to be the best of their type.

297
00:16:10,360 --> 00:16:13,800
Speaker 1: It really in advance, it's amazing anybody was willing to

298
00:16:13,840 --> 00:16:16,920
Speaker 1: give you money. You laid out and impossible, here's what

299
00:16:16,960 --> 00:16:19,400
Speaker 1: we're gonna try and do something that's impossible, and then

300
00:16:19,480 --> 00:16:22,520
Speaker 1: repeated every three years from the next twenty years. And

301
00:16:22,640 --> 00:16:25,320
Speaker 1: my take at the time was, in the world you said,

302
00:16:25,360 --> 00:16:28,640
Speaker 1: which is layer it out, just lay it out right, um,

303
00:16:29,000 --> 00:16:32,320
Speaker 1: put it out there, because and then investors are investment banks,

304
00:16:32,480 --> 00:16:35,160
Speaker 1: they'll decide you know, I don't have to decide for them,

305
00:16:35,280 --> 00:16:39,240
Speaker 1: I just have to lay it out. Steve presented, you know,

306
00:16:39,360 --> 00:16:41,560
Speaker 1: grand vision for what Pixock would be. I would lay

307
00:16:41,600 --> 00:16:44,560
Speaker 1: out all of the details together. We we we presented

308
00:16:44,640 --> 00:16:47,040
Speaker 1: you know, this, this vision and this possibility, and then

309
00:16:47,080 --> 00:16:49,680
Speaker 1: it was sort of up to investors to decide, and

310
00:16:49,840 --> 00:16:52,200
Speaker 1: you know, fortunately some decided to go along for that.

311
00:16:52,480 --> 00:16:56,240
Speaker 1: So toy story comes out. It comes out just before Thanksgiving,

312
00:16:56,880 --> 00:17:01,400
Speaker 1: and you're hoping for a ridiculous millions. Steve is hoping

313
00:17:01,480 --> 00:17:05,520
Speaker 1: for fifteen to twenty million opening weekend. What happens? So

314
00:17:05,680 --> 00:17:07,680
Speaker 1: the opening weekend, you know, it turns out to be

315
00:17:08,040 --> 00:17:10,840
Speaker 1: you know, thirty eight million, and you know, just faring

316
00:17:10,960 --> 00:17:13,600
Speaker 1: on anybody's world. And he says, you know, by today's standards,

317
00:17:13,680 --> 00:17:16,680
Speaker 1: that's not even even that huge. But in that time,

318
00:17:17,119 --> 00:17:20,440
Speaker 1: but that film, it was like, you know, grand slam

319
00:17:20,560 --> 00:17:21,919
Speaker 1: home run in the bottom of the ninth. I mean,

320
00:17:21,960 --> 00:17:24,359
Speaker 1: he just couldn't have been better. We would just giddy

321
00:17:24,480 --> 00:17:27,320
Speaker 1: from it. I'm Barry rid Helts. You're listening to Masters

322
00:17:27,359 --> 00:17:30,240
Speaker 1: in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest this week

323
00:17:30,359 --> 00:17:34,080
Speaker 1: is Lawrence Levy. He is the CFO of Pixar Now

324
00:17:34,280 --> 00:17:37,840
Speaker 1: part of entertainment giant Disney, and he is the author

325
00:17:37,960 --> 00:17:41,120
Speaker 1: of a new book two Pixar on Beyond My Unlikely

326
00:17:41,240 --> 00:17:45,320
Speaker 1: Journey with Steve Jobs to make Entertainment History. Let's talk

327
00:17:45,320 --> 00:17:48,439
Speaker 1: a little bit about, uh, what took place with your

328
00:17:48,480 --> 00:17:51,920
Speaker 1: relationship with Disney. There's a line in the book that

329
00:17:52,040 --> 00:17:55,960
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed. You said, the darkest day in your

330
00:17:56,080 --> 00:17:58,919
Speaker 1: life is when you were had already been working at

331
00:17:59,040 --> 00:18:03,639
Speaker 1: Pixar and you reviewed the contract between Pixar and Disney.

332
00:18:04,160 --> 00:18:06,760
Speaker 1: Why was that so awful? Yeah, Well, the darkest day

333
00:18:06,800 --> 00:18:10,240
Speaker 1: in my career, that's for sure. Um. So, you know,

334
00:18:10,680 --> 00:18:14,920
Speaker 1: Disney had Pixar had entered an agreement a few years

335
00:18:14,960 --> 00:18:17,440
Speaker 1: before I came before the making of Toy Story, and

336
00:18:18,040 --> 00:18:21,520
Speaker 1: you would have thought that me, a you know, well

337
00:18:21,640 --> 00:18:24,639
Speaker 1: trained and experienced lawyer, would sort of understand what that

338
00:18:24,760 --> 00:18:26,399
Speaker 1: was all about. And I told we had a challenge

339
00:18:26,440 --> 00:18:28,520
Speaker 1: to look at it. But it was written in this

340
00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:31,919
Speaker 1: sort of arcane language of entertainment law, which is totally

341
00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:34,840
Speaker 1: different from any other type of law. It's its own rules,

342
00:18:34,920 --> 00:18:38,160
Speaker 1: its own everything, its own language, everything. Because I didn't

343
00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:40,920
Speaker 1: know that at that moment, right, So I just thought,

344
00:18:41,240 --> 00:18:43,560
Speaker 1: you know, I can't I don't understand everything that says

345
00:18:43,560 --> 00:18:45,639
Speaker 1: I'll figure it out later kind everything. That's that's what

346
00:18:45,760 --> 00:18:48,440
Speaker 1: I said to myself. How bad can it be? Right? Well,

347
00:18:48,720 --> 00:18:50,840
Speaker 1: anytime you ask that question, you usually find out. Yeah,

348
00:18:50,920 --> 00:18:53,560
Speaker 1: usually find out, and it probably is. It probably turns

349
00:18:53,560 --> 00:18:55,879
Speaker 1: out to be a good thing that I went in naive,

350
00:18:56,119 --> 00:18:58,840
Speaker 1: because if I had known what I learned later about it,

351
00:18:58,920 --> 00:19:02,000
Speaker 1: I kind of imagined I would taken that job. So

352
00:19:02,920 --> 00:19:05,080
Speaker 1: but it just it turned out when I did understand it,

353
00:19:05,280 --> 00:19:08,880
Speaker 1: that Disney had effectively tied Pixar up for what three

354
00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:12,040
Speaker 1: films which could have been twelve fourteen years, and with

355
00:19:12,359 --> 00:19:15,240
Speaker 1: almost no chance of sort of making money on those

356
00:19:15,280 --> 00:19:17,760
Speaker 1: films that would be anything like what you would need

357
00:19:18,080 --> 00:19:20,480
Speaker 1: to grow a business. To go over some of the details,

358
00:19:20,800 --> 00:19:23,760
Speaker 1: they owned, the rights to the sequels, the merchandizing, the

359
00:19:23,880 --> 00:19:27,359
Speaker 1: Lion's share of the profits, everything, I mean it worse.

360
00:19:27,400 --> 00:19:30,320
Speaker 1: I mean like they and they had sort of exclusivity provisions.

361
00:19:30,359 --> 00:19:32,520
Speaker 1: It's not even right a first refusal. It was them

362
00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:34,920
Speaker 1: or nobody, Yeah, them or nobody. So it was like,

363
00:19:35,119 --> 00:19:37,560
Speaker 1: you know, Pixar is not even allowed to work on

364
00:19:37,720 --> 00:19:40,040
Speaker 1: other other film projects, you know, And I was asking,

365
00:19:40,080 --> 00:19:42,879
Speaker 1: you know, the lawyer. You know that Sam Fisher about that,

366
00:19:42,920 --> 00:19:45,080
Speaker 1: and he's saying yeah, because you know, like it picks

367
00:19:45,119 --> 00:19:46,680
Speaker 1: us working on other things. They could take that better

368
00:19:46,720 --> 00:19:48,479
Speaker 1: people and put them on other things. And Disney want

369
00:19:48,520 --> 00:19:50,520
Speaker 1: to make sure has assets to the best people. And

370
00:19:50,600 --> 00:19:52,719
Speaker 1: I was like, but that ties up a whole company.

371
00:19:52,960 --> 00:19:55,320
Speaker 1: We could hire a thousand animators and they could only

372
00:19:55,359 --> 00:19:59,439
Speaker 1: work for Disney. And but you know, my my protests

373
00:19:59,520 --> 00:20:01,240
Speaker 1: were or for know it, it was what it was.

374
00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:05,160
Speaker 1: So you you create a business strategy, which you describe

375
00:20:05,200 --> 00:20:09,240
Speaker 1: as four pillars. In order to allow the company to grow.

376
00:20:10,160 --> 00:20:14,600
Speaker 1: You have to change this contract with Disney, and briefly,

377
00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:17,640
Speaker 1: you have to capture more of the profits on each film.

378
00:20:18,119 --> 00:20:21,080
Speaker 1: You have to raise capital so you can self finance,

379
00:20:21,119 --> 00:20:22,600
Speaker 1: which is part of the way to get to that

380
00:20:23,160 --> 00:20:26,119
Speaker 1: greater profit share. You have to double or more the

381
00:20:26,280 --> 00:20:29,119
Speaker 1: output of films. It can't be every four years. And

382
00:20:29,280 --> 00:20:33,000
Speaker 1: you have to turn Pixar into its own standalone brands.

383
00:20:33,760 --> 00:20:36,640
Speaker 1: How did you go about negotiating that with Disney? Because

384
00:20:36,640 --> 00:20:38,960
Speaker 1: they could have said no, we have a contract to

385
00:20:39,040 --> 00:20:42,840
Speaker 1: go away. They absolutely could have. And we learned that

386
00:20:43,320 --> 00:20:47,240
Speaker 1: there are two things that talk in Hollywood. Um One

387
00:20:47,560 --> 00:20:51,640
Speaker 1: is success, right, so you have a success here, celebrity

388
00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:54,800
Speaker 1: of any kind, you have some cloud and the second

389
00:20:54,840 --> 00:20:58,520
Speaker 1: thing that talks is money. Uh and so and so

390
00:20:59,080 --> 00:21:01,679
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, from the I p O Pixel

391
00:21:01,760 --> 00:21:05,720
Speaker 1: had money from Toy Story, Pixarl had success. And that

392
00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:08,280
Speaker 1: means that in that you know, that is going to

393
00:21:08,359 --> 00:21:11,639
Speaker 1: get attention. And so then Disney, you know it's Michael

394
00:21:11,680 --> 00:21:14,320
Speaker 1: Eisener at the time, is sort of going to start

395
00:21:14,400 --> 00:21:18,440
Speaker 1: to think about okay, um, Pixar is willing to invest

396
00:21:18,520 --> 00:21:21,560
Speaker 1: in its own films, right, and so instead of Disney investing,

397
00:21:22,440 --> 00:21:26,960
Speaker 1: you know, maybe the Pixar's willing is invest that's of interest. Secondly,

398
00:21:27,400 --> 00:21:29,560
Speaker 1: you know, I want to keep closer attention to these

399
00:21:29,640 --> 00:21:32,120
Speaker 1: guys because now they're successful, I don't want to risk

400
00:21:32,280 --> 00:21:35,960
Speaker 1: losing them. And so that opened the door for a negotiation.

401
00:21:36,119 --> 00:21:38,040
Speaker 1: Now that said, as I recount in the book, that

402
00:21:38,160 --> 00:21:41,720
Speaker 1: negotiation was pretty rocky, but but it opened the door.

403
00:21:42,760 --> 00:21:45,760
Speaker 1: And and just to reiterate, so you we mentioned earlier,

404
00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:49,359
Speaker 1: Toy Story opens their first weekend at thirty eight million dollars,

405
00:21:50,280 --> 00:21:52,639
Speaker 1: far better than anyone was even hoping in the company.

406
00:21:53,040 --> 00:21:56,560
Speaker 1: How successful was Toy Story following that thirty eight million

407
00:21:56,600 --> 00:22:00,600
Speaker 1: dollar opening as the first feature film for Picks Are. Well,

408
00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:03,640
Speaker 1: from a box office point of view, it was unbelievably successful.

409
00:22:03,680 --> 00:22:06,119
Speaker 1: It did like hundred ninety million dollars in the domestic

410
00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:08,520
Speaker 1: box office, It did well in the nationally. It was

411
00:22:08,560 --> 00:22:11,240
Speaker 1: the biggest film of the year. So from that perspective,

412
00:22:11,320 --> 00:22:13,920
Speaker 1: it couldn't have been better. Doesn't mean it made Pixar

413
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:16,320
Speaker 1: a lot of money because it was still under the

414
00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:20,639
Speaker 1: original agreement with Disney. So when you renegotiated the the agreement,

415
00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:24,120
Speaker 1: how what did that change to? Well, when we renegotiate,

416
00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:26,600
Speaker 1: it radically changed. And so if you looked at it

417
00:22:27,080 --> 00:22:30,879
Speaker 1: on the original agreement, maybe pixel was gonna depends how

418
00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:33,439
Speaker 1: it worked out, but ten twelve percent of the profits

419
00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:35,639
Speaker 1: from the films under the new agreement, it was going

420
00:22:35,680 --> 00:22:41,960
Speaker 1: to be and we're putting up answering, but what about marketing, sequels,

421
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:45,159
Speaker 1: ownership of of rights, et cetera. That was you know,

422
00:22:45,440 --> 00:22:47,639
Speaker 1: Disney was always going to do the marketing, but that

423
00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:52,320
Speaker 1: Picks Are regained sort of control over the creative side,

424
00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:55,359
Speaker 1: So the sequels and those things. I'm Barry rit Hilts.

425
00:22:55,520 --> 00:22:58,840
Speaker 1: You're listening to Master's in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My

426
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:02,400
Speaker 1: special guest today is Lawrence Levy. He is the CFO

427
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:05,879
Speaker 1: or former CFO of Pixar, currently the author of the

428
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:09,600
Speaker 1: book to pix On Beyond, My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs.

429
00:23:10,119 --> 00:23:13,160
Speaker 1: So in the beginning of the book, I learned something fascinating.

430
00:23:13,600 --> 00:23:18,159
Speaker 1: I'm a longstanding Apple fanboy mac head. I thought I

431
00:23:18,280 --> 00:23:22,159
Speaker 1: knew a lot about Apple. I did not know that

432
00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:26,320
Speaker 1: it was Pixar that turned Steve Jobs into a billionaire,

433
00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:32,080
Speaker 1: not Apple. Describe what that impact on Jobs was like, Well,

434
00:23:32,359 --> 00:23:36,080
Speaker 1: this was one of their inspirations for writing the book. Actually,

435
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:39,440
Speaker 1: I long known that this is a great story. I

436
00:23:39,640 --> 00:23:42,520
Speaker 1: told it to people privately and publicly and always had

437
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:45,240
Speaker 1: fantastic reaction, and people were always that, you know, you

438
00:23:45,280 --> 00:23:47,399
Speaker 1: should write this into a book. People don't know this story,

439
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:49,879
Speaker 1: and I didn't. It took me a long time to

440
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:52,680
Speaker 1: get inspired to do that. But one of the inspirations

441
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:56,480
Speaker 1: came in the aftermath of Steve's death. When we have

442
00:23:56,680 --> 00:24:00,320
Speaker 1: this you know, endless amount of material I documentary, move

443
00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:02,320
Speaker 1: his books, you know, on him, and you know, I

444
00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:04,680
Speaker 1: began to feel that pis are and what happened and

445
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:07,359
Speaker 1: there was an afterthought and all of that. You know,

446
00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:10,560
Speaker 1: it really wasn't. If it wasn't for Pixar, we wouldn't

447
00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:14,159
Speaker 1: be talking about Steve Jobs. That's what set him up

448
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 1: to go back to It was a setup. You know,

449
00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 1: It's all sounded as though like he started Apple, he

450
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:20,520
Speaker 1: goes back to Apple, and I was like, wait a minute,

451
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:22,480
Speaker 1: the stuff that happened to Pixar was really important to

452
00:24:22,520 --> 00:24:25,440
Speaker 1: this story. And and you know because look, when when

453
00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:29,000
Speaker 1: I met Steve right, he hadn't had a hit in

454
00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:33,240
Speaker 1: ten years at Apple. So so Lisa was an expensive failure.

455
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:37,800
Speaker 1: McIntosh ultimately had effect did, but not the original one.

456
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:41,680
Speaker 1: Right at the time, it wasn't going anywhere by it

457
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:45,520
Speaker 1: was a successful but he was already gone by that.

458
00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:46,919
Speaker 1: He was already gone by that. And then he did

459
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: the next computer and the Pixar image. Next computer was

460
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 1: a disaster with nowhere. Eventually they've developed an operating system. Um,

461
00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:58,280
Speaker 1: but Next wasn't a successful hardware company, and it looked

462
00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:01,680
Speaker 1: like Pixar was a yelling hardware company. Right, so he

463
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:04,440
Speaker 1: hadn't had a hit. He had put close to fifty

464
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:08,760
Speaker 1: million dollars into Pixar and lost it all. So explain

465
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:14,679
Speaker 1: I have to interrupt you here. Explain how completely unique

466
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:17,240
Speaker 1: and unusual. That is in in the late eighties early

467
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties in Silicon Valley for a founder to put

468
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:25,119
Speaker 1: fifty million dollars into his own company, well, it was crazy,

469
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 1: and those days I have ventured. I guess only Steve

470
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:30,359
Speaker 1: would be Steve would be the only founder to do that.

471
00:25:30,520 --> 00:25:33,080
Speaker 1: But you know that was Steve. I mean, Steve didn't

472
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 1: do many things, but what he did do he did

473
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:39,400
Speaker 1: with sort of passionate intensity that was like second to nine.

474
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 1: Did he have any other option at the time? I

475
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:43,720
Speaker 1: think that a lot of that. You imply in the

476
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 1: book that he was kind of funding this and didn't

477
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:48,480
Speaker 1: want to admit it wasn't working, and didn't want to

478
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 1: go to other venture capitalists, that this was really a

479
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 1: partially a face saving exercise. Well, I think so. I

480
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:57,400
Speaker 1: think there are a couple of years before I came.

481
00:25:57,480 --> 00:25:59,919
Speaker 1: Had he had the opportunity to sell out the company

482
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:02,600
Speaker 1: just to cut those losses, he would have just don't

483
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:05,159
Speaker 1: think that opportunity came along. And I don't think he

484
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:07,480
Speaker 1: wanted to close it down. You know, that just wasn't

485
00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:10,920
Speaker 1: his nature. Um and so and so he hung in there,

486
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:13,200
Speaker 1: and that's a great credit. And you know, a tribute

487
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:15,600
Speaker 1: to to him as well, and so it was rare,

488
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 1: but he still had fifty million dollars in there. And

489
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:22,920
Speaker 1: and he also had you know, sort of sort of

490
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:27,119
Speaker 1: a toxic relationship with with Pixar. And so you spoll

491
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:30,000
Speaker 1: forward a few years and this is really the arc

492
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 1: of his story in the book, you know, and then

493
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:34,840
Speaker 1: all those things have changed. He's had this huge comeback

494
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 1: um with the Pixar I p O and with toy

495
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 1: story is fifty million loss is converted into now a

496
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: billion dollars of of of of of of wealth. And

497
00:26:45,320 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 1: and this is when a billion dollars was real money.

498
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: It's when ill I know, that's right. You know, when

499
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:51,119
Speaker 1: I came out first, came out to Selicon Valley, we

500
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: used to talk about millionaires like you know, now it's

501
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 1: like there's a billionaire I to even to count Um

502
00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:00,239
Speaker 1: and his and and his relationship with the how many

503
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:03,879
Speaker 1: had changed into you know, Um into really like a

504
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:08,240
Speaker 1: beloved you know, patriarch of soil. He gave all the

505
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 1: employee stock options, probably not as much as they wanted,

506
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 1: but they all did wildly successfully. It also all these

507
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 1: changes that this arc of this I'm thinking, you know,

508
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:21,200
Speaker 1: you know, had to be important. You know, I know

509
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:23,879
Speaker 1: it was important and gave him a level of confidence

510
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 1: and knowledge of the entertainment industry that mattered a lot

511
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 1: when it came to going, you know, taking on the

512
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: challenge at Apple. So Apple and the music industry, Apple

513
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:37,400
Speaker 1: and television and film. The experience of Pixar was formative

514
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 1: to that. What I was there. We did it together.

515
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 1: I mean, we imagine, I mean what I'm saying, we

516
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 1: need to go into the entertainment industry. And you've got

517
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:47,159
Speaker 1: the two business guys running the company that don't know

518
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:51,960
Speaker 1: anything about that industry. Uh, And so we literally, you know,

519
00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 1: learned it and pieced it together. And so I think

520
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:57,399
Speaker 1: when he went back to Apple, he was the only

521
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 1: CEO that had great sort of mastery over both industries,

522
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: you know, of technology and technology and entertainment and you know,

523
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:08,640
Speaker 1: and and he was brilliant and so he put those

524
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:10,399
Speaker 1: things together in a way I'm not sure you know,

525
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:13,399
Speaker 1: anybody else could. So let's let's explain for people who

526
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:16,920
Speaker 1: have not yet read the book, how often you were

527
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 1: speaking with Steve or you tell the book. You tell

528
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 1: them earlier in the book that you lived around the

529
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:26,359
Speaker 1: corner from him. The two you would go for walks

530
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 1: all the time. He was calling the house night and day.

531
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 1: You would frequently like you must have spent thousands and

532
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:36,719
Speaker 1: thousands of hours with him, Oh, I would say. At

533
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:40,200
Speaker 1: that time, it was just a continuous dialogue. Started first

534
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: thing in the morning, ended last thing at night. And

535
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:43,920
Speaker 1: you know, we have a phone by the fax machine

536
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 1: in the kitchen, and it's every night, you know, he

537
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 1: calls me. I call him on the weekends, come over,

538
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 1: you know, go for walks. But it was there. It

539
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:54,000
Speaker 1: was just an ongoing dialogue, you know, and it was

540
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 1: a back and forth. It was really a collaboration and

541
00:28:57,440 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 1: it lasted for how many years, Well, it lasted were

542
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 1: oute all the way through Pixar, so you know, I'm

543
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 1: gonna say all the way through the Disney acquisition and

544
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 1: then you know, and then he converted you and we

545
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: became friends too. And then you know, after he was ill,

546
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: I spent time with him then, um, and so it

547
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 1: was it was a relationship that lost it, but it's

548
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 1: it started with this kind of dialogue. So we're speaking

549
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:20,520
Speaker 1: with Lawrence Levy. He was the CFO of Pixar and

550
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:23,120
Speaker 1: helped bring them public and is the author of a

551
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: new book to Pixar and Beyond. So tell us something

552
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:30,080
Speaker 1: about Steve Jobs that we probably don't know about him. Well,

553
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 1: you probably don't know about him that I had a

554
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 1: I had a nasty accident when I first started broke.

555
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 1: You broke your ankle. I broke my ankle, a very

556
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 1: bad break that required surgery, and there was a lot

557
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 1: of pain involved, titanium rods and all that, and so

558
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: there would be no way to know this. But Steve

559
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 1: was really really concerned about this, and he was very

560
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:55,640
Speaker 1: concerned about how much pain I was in, and he

561
00:29:55,680 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 1: would come visit me in the hospital and at home

562
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 1: after it was with his family. And so, you know,

563
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 1: I think that was a side of Steve that that

564
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 1: people never don't really see. Did you did you read

565
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: the Walter Isaacson biography? Actually I did not. You didn't

566
00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 1: have you read any of the other body I only recently,

567
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 1: you know, I when The World's Eyes in some book

568
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 1: came out so close to Steve's death, you know, and

569
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 1: I was kind of like, you know, I'm just I

570
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:21,200
Speaker 1: have my own memories and my own experience, and I'm

571
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 1: just not really ready, you know, to you know, to

572
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 1: read something like that. So no, I didn't. I'm curious

573
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 1: as to somebody who's close to him how accurate of

574
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 1: a portrayal it is. It comes across as if it's

575
00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 1: very accurate, because Steve is the guy who reached out

576
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 1: to him and said, I wanna chronicle my life for posterity,

577
00:30:41,840 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 1: or at least that the implication it is. And of

578
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 1: course I'm aware of all the information and content and

579
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: reputation of Steve out there, and you know, my my

580
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 1: take on that is that it's not for me to judge.

581
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:57,800
Speaker 1: I mean, people have their own experiences, and I'm writing

582
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 1: my experience, and so so you are perspective at Pixarar

583
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 1: sounds like and reads like it was very, very different

584
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:09,440
Speaker 1: than what other people experienced that Apple. Well, you know

585
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 1: again it I can't speak to what they experienced, but

586
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 1: I can speak to my experience at Pixar, and you know,

587
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:17,920
Speaker 1: I can say it was you know, it's that's something

588
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:21,160
Speaker 1: I look back and I treasure it. So, so let's

589
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the process of the I

590
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 1: p O. He wants to have Goldman Sacks and Morgan Stanley,

591
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:30,600
Speaker 1: the two biggest banks for technology. I p O. S

592
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 1: on the book, and they both look at it, they

593
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 1: assessed the risks and they passed. And what was his response,

594
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 1: What was his reaction to that? Well, you know, I

595
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:44,560
Speaker 1: think that was a blow. Um and uh and so

596
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 1: you know, but he didn't, you know, he sort of

597
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 1: goes quiet in a way. You know, it's not like

598
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: there's a big bruja over it. It's just was a blow.

599
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 1: And you know, and so we had to regroup and

600
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 1: so and and and that's what happened. So so ultimately

601
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 1: ends up being Um, Robbie Stevenson, hambriken Quist and Count

602
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 1: and company are the under utterers on the I p O.

603
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:12,959
Speaker 1: And he seemed to be pretty comfortable with that. By

604
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:16,640
Speaker 1: the way, it's usually Goldman or Morgan Stanley just to

605
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 1: describe Steve jobs. He insisted on both of them, he thought.

606
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 1: So he said, oh, it'll be you know, a part entertainment,

607
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:26,960
Speaker 1: part technology. We'll get them both. Was that typical of

608
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 1: his attitude, Let's do something no one's ever done before

609
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 1: because we can and it will be great. Yeah, But

610
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:36,120
Speaker 1: it's not because we can, it's it's out of his

611
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:39,840
Speaker 1: conviction for sort of the greatness of what we're doing.

612
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:43,239
Speaker 1: I mean, and so whether Pixel or Apple later. I mean,

613
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 1: it's a reflection of his belief that this work is

614
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:50,880
Speaker 1: so it's so stunning, it's so great that these other

615
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:52,880
Speaker 1: people sort of want to come on board, and so,

616
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't like to take advantage. It was

617
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:57,760
Speaker 1: just came from that place of you know, I really

618
00:32:57,840 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 1: believe in this, and so everyone else will. How infectious

619
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:04,480
Speaker 1: was I mean, we've all heard about his reality distortion field.

620
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:11,840
Speaker 1: How infectious was his almost preternatural self confidence, almost delusional

621
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 1: self confidence in the face of incredibly daunting odds. How

622
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 1: much did that impact everyone around him? Well, it's very

623
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: it's very infectious, and I think the key is there

624
00:33:23,360 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 1: working with others that can collaborate at a level to

625
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:29,920
Speaker 1: sort of make those dreams a reality. But the you know,

626
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 1: but as a certain contagiousness to sort of the passion

627
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 1: and intensity that he wrote to what he did. We've

628
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 1: been speaking with Lawrence Levy. He was the CFO of

629
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 1: Pixar and is the author of Two Pixar and Beyond.

630
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:45,400
Speaker 1: If you enjoy this conversation, be sure and stick around

631
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: for the podcast extras, where we keep the tape rolling

632
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:53,640
Speaker 1: and continue discussing all things computer generated animation. Be sure

633
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 1: and check out my daily column on Bloomberg View dot

634
00:33:56,760 --> 00:34:00,080
Speaker 1: com and follow me on Twitter at Rid Halts. You

635
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 1: love your comments and feedback. Be sure to write to

636
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 1: us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. I'm

637
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:10,960
Speaker 1: Barry Ritults. You've been listening to Masters in Business on

638
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:16,919
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio, brought to you by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

639
00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 1: Seeing what others have seen, but uncovering what others may not.

640
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 1: Global Research that helps you Harness disruption voted top global

641
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:28,320
Speaker 1: research firm five years running. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and

642
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 1: Smith Incorporated. Welcome to the podcast extras Um Lawrence than

643
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 1: is it Lawrence or Larry? When Lawrence justish, I assumed

644
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:40,359
Speaker 1: it was a British That's my middle name is Lawrence. Um,

645
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: so I just assumed you were also a Lawrence. So

646
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 1: thank you so much for doing this and being so

647
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,279
Speaker 1: generous with your time. Are welcome. I have to tell

648
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:51,440
Speaker 1: you I read a lot of books for this. I'm

649
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 1: literally you can see I'm almost done with it. It's

650
00:34:55,160 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 1: a fascinating story that I had no idea about. It's

651
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:03,319
Speaker 1: a fast re eat and you're actually a very talented storyteller.

652
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: So it's I've really been enjoying it. This is like

653
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:11,480
Speaker 1: perfect thing for people to take on holiday vacations because

654
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:16,480
Speaker 1: it's it's characters you know but don't really know in

655
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 1: great depth. Most people who follow any sort of entertainment

656
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:24,480
Speaker 1: business or even film at least have an idea of

657
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:27,920
Speaker 1: who John Lasseter is. They they've heard of Pixar. You

658
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:31,399
Speaker 1: really tell a fascinating story in a very entertaining way.

659
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:36,400
Speaker 1: I've really I've really been enjoying it. Um. So we

660
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 1: were talking about the I p O was so successful

661
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:42,360
Speaker 1: you obviously, um get a little fun money out of it.

662
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:46,400
Speaker 1: Since then, you've been running or operating something called the

663
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:50,560
Speaker 1: Juniper Foundation Foundation. Tell us a little bit about that. Well,

664
00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:53,239
Speaker 1: I had another sort of talise running in me. You know,

665
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:55,400
Speaker 1: I had a great career and I loved what I did,

666
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 1: both as a lawyer and as a business executive and

667
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 1: a Pixar But I also sort of took note that

668
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:04,880
Speaker 1: there's a sort of a one dimensional quality to corporate

669
00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 1: life in a way. It's it's driven, it's an acquisition

670
00:36:08,120 --> 00:36:12,080
Speaker 1: oriented mentality. It's all about performance. And you know, and

671
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:14,760
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, you know, there are it produces

672
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 1: incredible things, great technologies, a lot of prosperity, a lot

673
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:21,239
Speaker 1: of wealth, but they're a hidden cost to it. That

674
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:25,920
Speaker 1: performance mentality produces costs in terms of stress and anxiety

675
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:29,360
Speaker 1: and personal performent and how we feel about ourselves. And

676
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 1: I wanted to go off and learn more about that

677
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:35,360
Speaker 1: because I felt that we were sort of missing this dimension.

678
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 1: Everybody puts the family and themselves second, and very I

679
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:42,279
Speaker 1: shouldn't say everybody, but many people do. When they just

680
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 1: get so focused on the rat race, they lose sight

681
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: of what matters. They lose sight of what matters. And

682
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 1: so I had been very disciplined about that in my career,

683
00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 1: so family, my children, my wife and all of that.

684
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 1: WAS always tried my best to prioritize it. But I

685
00:36:57,080 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 1: really wanted to go on a deep dive in that.

686
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 1: And so and I was past and always interested in

687
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: religion and philosophy, so I went off to discover how

688
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:09,040
Speaker 1: one might cultivate that side of life. And I found

689
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 1: it eventually, and basically, you know two thousand tradition of

690
00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:17,960
Speaker 1: Buddhist philosophy and and and and meditation, which I see

691
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:21,759
Speaker 1: not as a religious undertaking, but if you look but

692
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:24,440
Speaker 1: I was looking at these things. I was thinking like wow,

693
00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:29,919
Speaker 1: like this these ideas are basically a technology of inner transformation.

694
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:33,240
Speaker 1: We're really good at the outer stuff, but the inner

695
00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:35,800
Speaker 1: stuff that you know, you need something for that. And

696
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:39,040
Speaker 1: here was this sort of whole philosophy. And so that

697
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:43,200
Speaker 1: Lad myself and my wife Hilary, the teacher that I

698
00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:46,080
Speaker 1: had at the time still do um say Rimpoche, and

699
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 1: and two other individuals. We we founded the Junior Foundation

700
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: in two thousand and three, and the question that we

701
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:54,840
Speaker 1: set out to ore and so was what would it

702
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:58,600
Speaker 1: take to embed right in the middle of contemporary life

703
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:03,000
Speaker 1: UM a system and methodology that could be used for

704
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 1: this inner transformation. And that system comes from this sort

705
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:11,320
Speaker 1: of two thousand year old tradition. So there are two things.

706
00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:14,359
Speaker 1: I don't use the term trendy because it almost as

707
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:18,719
Speaker 1: a negative connotation, but there are two things, especially on

708
00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:23,280
Speaker 1: Wall Street and finance these days, that have become really popular.

709
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:29,239
Speaker 1: One is meditation, yes, and the other is mindfulness. UM

710
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 1: tell us how that fits into the concept of of

711
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 1: Buddhism and what you're doing with the Junior Profoundation. Well,

712
00:38:38,640 --> 00:38:41,239
Speaker 1: I think it's great, and you know, a meditation and

713
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 1: mindfulness you know, represent sort of an opening, if you will,

714
00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:48,640
Speaker 1: an awakening, a realization that these things that that impact

715
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 1: us inwardly are are important. And so I'm sort of

716
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:56,960
Speaker 1: happy to see all this. H Um. I would say that, um,

717
00:38:57,280 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 1: those represent like a one piece of the puzzle. Um,

718
00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:02,440
Speaker 1: you know kind of a thing. And I think if

719
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 1: people take that space of meditation or that space of mindfulness,

720
00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:11,240
Speaker 1: it's like opening a door to a to a world

721
00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:14,320
Speaker 1: in which there are all these tools and ideas to

722
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:19,440
Speaker 1: cultivate ourselves endwardly. That the key to it is that, um,

723
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:21,800
Speaker 1: it takes some effort. We have to pay attention to

724
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:24,240
Speaker 1: do it, and we tend to want to quick fix.

725
00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: We tend to want to be you know, like I'm stressed.

726
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:28,799
Speaker 1: What's gonna take me out of that? Quickly? A pill?

727
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 1: Here's a pill, you know, or even you know, I'll

728
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:35,279
Speaker 1: go to a meditation retreat or something like that. But

729
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:39,800
Speaker 1: it takes an engagement with this kind of methodology and

730
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:43,719
Speaker 1: so um and so you know, Juniper presents that because

731
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:46,200
Speaker 1: we present a whole way of looking at you know,

732
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:51,319
Speaker 1: balancing emotions, cultivating compassion, developing insight, all using meditation as

733
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:54,400
Speaker 1: the tool to do those things. So that is just

734
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 1: a radical break from what you were doing previously. What

735
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 1: were the in between steps? How did you go from Okay,

736
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 1: I'm a corporate lawyer, now I'm a CFO. The company's

737
00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:07,920
Speaker 1: public were successful, everything is now running the way we

738
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:12,719
Speaker 1: wanted to. Let's explore the inner space. How did that

739
00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:15,680
Speaker 1: come about? It came There wasn't much of an in between.

740
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:19,239
Speaker 1: I I just realized the Pixar was in this incredibly

741
00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:21,759
Speaker 1: good place. The plan that we put in place was

742
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 1: going to go at least ten years. I was on

743
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:26,000
Speaker 1: the board of directors, and so I would still be

744
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:28,520
Speaker 1: able to keep my eye on things. And I realized

745
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 1: I had an opportunity. I had an opening in my life,

746
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:33,560
Speaker 1: and I was just like, what do I do? I'm

747
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:36,480
Speaker 1: really interested about these other things that I do. I

748
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:38,680
Speaker 1: wait another twenty years? Will I be around it another

749
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:41,239
Speaker 1: twenty years? You know? Now is the time kind of

750
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:43,759
Speaker 1: a thing. And so that's the decision I made. I said,

751
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:45,880
Speaker 1: you know, no, don't don't put it off. You know,

752
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:48,920
Speaker 1: this is something that is deep and and also in

753
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: the back of my mind, I thought that one day

754
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:55,279
Speaker 1: maybe it would come back around and I would be

755
00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 1: able to take these new learnings back into that corporate

756
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 1: world because I think that the I think we haven't

757
00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 1: reached the ultimate or the end of sort of the

758
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 1: corporate paradigm. I think that it has problems in it,

759
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 1: and as many has much to evolve, and I think

760
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:15,840
Speaker 1: it's evolution can come out of these kinds of ideas. So,

761
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:19,720
Speaker 1: you know, you end up in especially in Silicon Valley,

762
00:41:20,239 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 1: with people with kind of you know, on the East

763
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:26,319
Speaker 1: Coast they would be laughable titles, but on the West

764
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 1: Coast there's a Chief Happiness Officer, there's a there's a

765
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:33,960
Speaker 1: Director of Joy, there's a like we've we've seen some

766
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:36,399
Speaker 1: really you're laughing, and you've spent a lot of time

767
00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:39,160
Speaker 1: out there, so you can imagine what jaded New Yorkers

768
00:41:39,239 --> 00:41:41,840
Speaker 1: think of that. Are we eventually going to see in

769
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 1: the corporate world the chief um mindfulness officer or a

770
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:50,279
Speaker 1: director of meditation? Or is that one step too far?

771
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:53,680
Speaker 1: I think it's a step. I don't think it's the

772
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:55,799
Speaker 1: ultimate step. I don't even know if it's the best

773
00:41:55,840 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 1: step that the you know, it it's not us about

774
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 1: sort of bringing mindfulness and meditation teachers, you know, because

775
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:06,920
Speaker 1: that's like putting a band aid on a problem. You know.

776
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:10,239
Speaker 1: And so it's the question of how that entity is

777
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:15,160
Speaker 1: going to think and work and whether it um it

778
00:42:15,520 --> 00:42:18,759
Speaker 1: wants to take account for the well being of all

779
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:22,120
Speaker 1: the people that it affects. Both it's not just employees

780
00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:27,000
Speaker 1: but everyone, it's customers, you know, the environment and these

781
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 1: kinds of things. Because you know, it's interesting, like you know,

782
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:33,920
Speaker 1: corporations want to be people and when it comes to

783
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 1: like you know, First Amendment rights, uh, you know, when

784
00:42:37,600 --> 00:42:40,120
Speaker 1: it comes when it comes to third party externalities, they

785
00:42:40,160 --> 00:42:43,880
Speaker 1: don't want to pay for right, But real people, generally speaking,

786
00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:46,319
Speaker 1: don't have the chance to get away with that right.

787
00:42:46,360 --> 00:42:48,440
Speaker 1: If you start acting on with all the people around you,

788
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:50,880
Speaker 1: someone's gonna, you know, se say, hey, Berry, what's going on? Right?

789
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:54,360
Speaker 1: You know, And so it's a way of thinking, you know.

790
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 1: And when the way of thinking is acquisition at all costs,

791
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:01,839
Speaker 1: short term profit, that's we care about. You can bring

792
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:05,279
Speaker 1: mindfulness and meditation in, but it's like putting a band

793
00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:07,719
Speaker 1: aid on the problem, you know, because at the very

794
00:43:07,800 --> 00:43:10,240
Speaker 1: same time you know you're teaching mind when it's a meditation,

795
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:13,960
Speaker 1: you're also putting enormous pressure on your people to perform.

796
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:17,880
Speaker 1: So no, nothing wrong with that, but the problem is

797
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:21,320
Speaker 1: to UM look at it from that broader perspective and

798
00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:25,440
Speaker 1: take responsibility for this. And I think that these kinds

799
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:28,879
Speaker 1: of ideas can can infiltrate the corporate paradigm in other

800
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:33,719
Speaker 1: ways too. That that's quite quite interesting and really not

801
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:36,360
Speaker 1: I don't think a lot of people, UM would have

802
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 1: expected that from UM, a corporate lawyer, but really your

803
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:44,839
Speaker 1: path was very different, and uh, what I enjoyed about

804
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 1: reading the book was your approach to problem solving, which

805
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 1: is very logical and yet at the same time employed

806
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:55,759
Speaker 1: a lot of creativity. So maybe it shouldn't be a

807
00:43:55,840 --> 00:44:01,400
Speaker 1: surprise that you're now taking a slightly different focus on

808
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:03,400
Speaker 1: what you're doing. So I want to go through a

809
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 1: couple of questions we missed and then jump into our

810
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:08,719
Speaker 1: favorite question. I promised to get you guys out of

811
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:11,239
Speaker 1: here on time. I'll see if I can I can

812
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:16,239
Speaker 1: do that. UM. One of the things you had mentioned

813
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:20,600
Speaker 1: early in the book is the tension between and this

814
00:44:20,760 --> 00:44:22,840
Speaker 1: is very relevant to what you were just talking about,

815
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 1: the tension between creative integrity and real world necessity. UM.

816
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 1: Describe that if you would, well, these things sort of

817
00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:38,040
Speaker 1: pull against each other, so you know, the creative impulse

818
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:40,279
Speaker 1: is sort of by necessary, but it needs to be

819
00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:45,040
Speaker 1: unbound in a way by um, sort of time or imperatives.

820
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:47,600
Speaker 1: You like. A way of thinking of it is like

821
00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:51,279
Speaker 1: you can't force the gestation of a story, so you

822
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 1: can't go to someone's I want a great story in

823
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:55,560
Speaker 1: a year, right, You may get a great story in

824
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:58,359
Speaker 1: a weekend. You may get a great story in five years,

825
00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:01,960
Speaker 1: but you can't corse it and and um. And so

826
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:04,799
Speaker 1: what the business imperative wants is that no, I want

827
00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:07,399
Speaker 1: to know, right, I want to know I want this UM,

828
00:45:07,719 --> 00:45:10,239
Speaker 1: I want everything to be sort of orderly and on

829
00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:13,160
Speaker 1: time and and um, because that's the only way I

830
00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 1: can build this thing. And so those things pull against

831
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:18,719
Speaker 1: each other. And so the challenge for organizations trying to

832
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:20,680
Speaker 1: do any kind of creative work, it doesn't have to

833
00:45:20,719 --> 00:45:24,319
Speaker 1: be filmed, it could be engineering, design, anything, is how

834
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 1: to bring harmony between those two things. And it takes

835
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:31,080
Speaker 1: a fair amount of courage because business executives kind of

836
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:36,200
Speaker 1: want to smother creativity sometimes with bureaucracy, and so it's

837
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:38,840
Speaker 1: not easy to allow it to flourish. So later in

838
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:41,320
Speaker 1: the book, is you're reminding me of something that Steve

839
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:45,520
Speaker 1: Jobs said, to you and to some of the bankers

840
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:48,000
Speaker 1: when you were prepping for the I p O. A

841
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:51,799
Speaker 1: lot of these technologies that seem to have sprung up

842
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 1: wholly formed or really the result of many, many years

843
00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:00,400
Speaker 1: of gestation. It takes a long time to become an

844
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:05,279
Speaker 1: overnight sensation. And and he described you describe in the

845
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:09,960
Speaker 1: book how uh Pixar was developing hardware, they were developing

846
00:46:10,040 --> 00:46:14,840
Speaker 1: software that we're working on narrative storytelling. And then really

847
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 1: a lot of this was a decade in the making.

848
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:19,840
Speaker 1: No one would have set out, all right, here's what

849
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 1: we're gonna do for the next ten years. Here's a

850
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:24,960
Speaker 1: new company. We're gonna spend ten years developing hardware and software,

851
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:28,799
Speaker 1: rethinking the approach to creating narrative, and then we're gonna

852
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:33,120
Speaker 1: first start putting out a product. So so describe as

853
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:37,120
Speaker 1: a follow up to that that creative tension. How true

854
00:46:37,239 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 1: is that today? Do you still think these things take

855
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:44,040
Speaker 1: much longer than it appears? With Steve right when he

856
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:47,320
Speaker 1: said that, and what does this mean for us taking

857
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:50,840
Speaker 1: all these products for granted that seemed to just appear.

858
00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:53,839
Speaker 1: I think it's as true today as any other time.

859
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:57,440
Speaker 1: I think great work requires a much longer period of

860
00:46:57,600 --> 00:47:00,239
Speaker 1: gestation than we think. You know. One of my frame

861
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 1: was one of my favorite science fictional authors, Rob Behindland.

862
00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 1: He's he wrote, he said, when we're ready to railroad,

863
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 1: we railroad, meaning that until we're ready, no railroads. And

864
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 1: so you know what it means is it takes a

865
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:16,440
Speaker 1: long period. A lot of things have to come together.

866
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 1: You know. I remember Stevie and told me once, you know,

867
00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:21,279
Speaker 1: when he was thinking about tablets that you know, he

868
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:24,200
Speaker 1: was passionate about tablets for a long time, you know,

869
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:28,640
Speaker 1: had long long before, but he felt it wasn't ready.

870
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:30,880
Speaker 1: It wasn't ready right, it wasn't ready to sort of tools.

871
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 1: You know, I went there, he had kind of his

872
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:35,239
Speaker 1: pulse on that. It was the same with Pixar. You know,

873
00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:38,239
Speaker 1: it took you know, fifty and twenty years for the

874
00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:41,000
Speaker 1: gestation of everything to come together. And I think it's

875
00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:43,480
Speaker 1: not that there are never overnight sensations, but I think

876
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:45,680
Speaker 1: they're much more rare than we think. Well, it looks

877
00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:48,319
Speaker 1: like overnight sensations really is the result of a lot

878
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:51,600
Speaker 1: more time. And African people realize so in corporations today,

879
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 1: you know, they're trying to sort of force innovation in

880
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:57,680
Speaker 1: a way and or force creativity. Then, um, it doesn't

881
00:47:57,719 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 1: sometimes allow for that for that process. So I have

882
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:05,320
Speaker 1: to just digress briefly. You're the third guest out of

883
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:09,719
Speaker 1: the previous four or five who drops a reference to

884
00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:14,160
Speaker 1: science fiction. James Glick, who wrote the book, Um, The

885
00:48:14,239 --> 00:48:18,359
Speaker 1: Information and Time Traveler. We were. We were geeking out

886
00:48:18,400 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 1: on science fiction. And then I was surprised to learn

887
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 1: that Bill McNabb, who's the CEO and chairman of Vanguard,

888
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:29,400
Speaker 1: is a giant science fiction geek. Um, and you just

889
00:48:29,520 --> 00:48:34,160
Speaker 1: referenced Heinland, who I am always quoting. We're in the

890
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:37,680
Speaker 1: midst of a horrible election and everybody wants to convince

891
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:42,360
Speaker 1: the other side that they're right. And I believe it

892
00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 1: was the Notebooks of Lazarus Long as a quote I

893
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:48,919
Speaker 1: use all the time. Never try and teach a pig

894
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:52,560
Speaker 1: to sing it waste your time and annoys the pig.

895
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:56,200
Speaker 1: And that's what the political debate seems to be. You know,

896
00:48:56,360 --> 00:48:59,120
Speaker 1: you're either preaching to the choir or annoying people who

897
00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:01,879
Speaker 1: were never going to change their minds. Don't waste your time.

898
00:49:01,960 --> 00:49:06,600
Speaker 1: It really feels that way amongst the citizenry. The candidates

899
00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:08,719
Speaker 1: have to do what they have to do. But it's

900
00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:12,000
Speaker 1: funny you you went right to uh Hindland was filled

901
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:19,759
Speaker 1: with wonderful But I haven't um finished listening to the

902
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:23,520
Speaker 1: Jim Click interview. But if you've read any of his stuff,

903
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:28,400
Speaker 1: time travel of History is a really interesting So so

904
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:31,560
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna get to some books soon. That's

905
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:34,359
Speaker 1: still fresh in my mind because um, I'm I don't

906
00:49:34,360 --> 00:49:36,239
Speaker 1: know if you read multiple books at a time. I'm

907
00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:40,080
Speaker 1: I'm finishing two books that and this. These are the

908
00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:45,080
Speaker 1: two books I'm almost done with. Um. So the run

909
00:49:45,160 --> 00:49:50,080
Speaker 1: of films that picks are it's like Grand Slam after

910
00:49:50,160 --> 00:49:54,600
Speaker 1: Grand Slam. How on earth is that possible that you

911
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:59,520
Speaker 1: careen from Toy Story to Bugs Life Defining Nemo to

912
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:03,200
Speaker 1: The Credibles too. Like at a certain point, I remember saying,

913
00:50:03,560 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 1: all right, the streak has to come starting to an end,

914
00:50:07,239 --> 00:50:10,920
Speaker 1: but it looks like it could go on. And definitely,

915
00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:16,400
Speaker 1: how is that possible? Well, Pixar is you know, despite

916
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:19,120
Speaker 1: you sort of see all the animation and the story

917
00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:21,600
Speaker 1: glitz and all of this, but it's a very very

918
00:50:21,719 --> 00:50:25,319
Speaker 1: disciplined company when it comes to creativity, and so um

919
00:50:25,880 --> 00:50:28,839
Speaker 1: it has honed over years and years and years sort

920
00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:33,200
Speaker 1: of systems to um to develop these films, you know.

921
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 1: And so you know the Pixar brain trust that is

922
00:50:36,360 --> 00:50:38,720
Speaker 1: very famous and has been written about, and the story

923
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:41,840
Speaker 1: team and the production team. UM. You know. An example

924
00:50:41,880 --> 00:50:43,840
Speaker 1: of this is, you know, when Pixar finishes a film,

925
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:48,279
Speaker 1: it it goes through a painful, you know, process of

926
00:50:48,360 --> 00:50:50,719
Speaker 1: looking at everything that it did wrong. And there's a

927
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:52,840
Speaker 1: films like a hit. So The Incredibles comes out like

928
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:55,200
Speaker 1: it couldn't be better. Well, you know, there's a group

929
00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:58,320
Speaker 1: of people that Pixar that spend weeks just criticizing it,

930
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:00,799
Speaker 1: picking it apart, picking it apart, you know, what went wrong?

931
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:03,800
Speaker 1: Where we go better? How can we improve our production processes?

932
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:07,480
Speaker 1: And so they never let up and and then so

933
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:09,800
Speaker 1: that's sort of on the technical production side, you know.

934
00:51:09,920 --> 00:51:14,279
Speaker 1: On on on the creative side, the the value of

935
00:51:14,520 --> 00:51:18,319
Speaker 1: what they called the brain trust is is and many

936
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:21,359
Speaker 1: companies try to duplicate that, but that how to make

937
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:24,799
Speaker 1: that work is much much harder than than I think

938
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:27,360
Speaker 1: is known. And even if you've read about it or

939
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:31,920
Speaker 1: know about it, um, because there's a tension in in

940
00:51:32,200 --> 00:51:35,080
Speaker 1: doing great work and on the one hand, you need

941
00:51:35,200 --> 00:51:40,560
Speaker 1: this passionate, create an intensity to create, and have to

942
00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 1: have the talent to go along with it. That's true

943
00:51:43,239 --> 00:51:46,759
Speaker 1: for a writer, a musician, you know, uh, anything that

944
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:50,920
Speaker 1: that that is great creative, innovative work. But on the

945
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:54,160
Speaker 1: other side, you also have to collaborate. You have to

946
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:58,960
Speaker 1: yield to those voices that can sort of help shape

947
00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:01,640
Speaker 1: what you do. And like if you look back at

948
00:52:01,760 --> 00:52:04,840
Speaker 1: even Steve's career, I think you see an absence of

949
00:52:04,920 --> 00:52:08,240
Speaker 1: that yielding and some of those products that that didn't

950
00:52:08,239 --> 00:52:10,160
Speaker 1: make it. And so because there's a lot of hubris

951
00:52:10,239 --> 00:52:13,480
Speaker 1: in the creative side, and so those tensions pull against

952
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:15,840
Speaker 1: each other. The very hubrists that you know makes you,

953
00:52:16,400 --> 00:52:19,520
Speaker 1: you know, talented and creative and passionate, and all that

954
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:23,040
Speaker 1: cuts against the very yielding that you need to to

955
00:52:23,400 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 1: um sort of keep things in balance and check and

956
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:30,000
Speaker 1: um which is really important. So is that the secret

957
00:52:30,040 --> 00:52:33,600
Speaker 1: sauce that Pixar is they've found the right balance between

958
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:37,160
Speaker 1: what we described earlier, the creative tension in the businesses

959
00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:42,480
Speaker 1: and that it is, and between that creative drive and

960
00:52:42,840 --> 00:52:46,040
Speaker 1: and the collaboration it takes to have all the pieces

961
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:48,840
Speaker 1: come together. And I think picks our mass at that

962
00:52:48,960 --> 00:52:52,319
Speaker 1: tension and It's really interesting because even when picks are

963
00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:55,880
Speaker 1: slips and it forgets about that tension for whatever reason,

964
00:52:56,080 --> 00:52:59,239
Speaker 1: it'll slip and quickly regroup, you know, to sort of

965
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:01,799
Speaker 1: you know, come back to that. And so it's it's

966
00:53:01,880 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 1: hard to there are a lot of there's a lot

967
00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:06,360
Speaker 1: that goes into that. We could do. We could do

968
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:10,600
Speaker 1: a whole episode here just on that one. So so

969
00:53:10,760 --> 00:53:12,880
Speaker 1: while I still have you, let's talk about some of

970
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:18,200
Speaker 1: the Pixar executives you reference in the book um and

971
00:53:18,480 --> 00:53:20,879
Speaker 1: and spend a little bit of time, but really don't

972
00:53:20,920 --> 00:53:23,520
Speaker 1: give us a lot of color on them. They're all

973
00:53:23,719 --> 00:53:26,839
Speaker 1: kind of famous people within the industry, but I would

974
00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:30,839
Speaker 1: imagine the public doesn't know them that well. So let's

975
00:53:30,920 --> 00:53:33,360
Speaker 1: let's go through a few of them quickly. John Lasseter

976
00:53:33,560 --> 00:53:36,160
Speaker 1: tell tell us about well, John, and you know, he's

977
00:53:36,200 --> 00:53:39,440
Speaker 1: probably the most well known I mean John is you know,

978
00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:43,520
Speaker 1: the mozart of his generation. When he comes to animation,

979
00:53:43,640 --> 00:53:47,640
Speaker 1: I mean, storytelling through the medium of animation just courses

980
00:53:47,719 --> 00:53:50,680
Speaker 1: through John like it's like he was born with it

981
00:53:50,840 --> 00:53:53,960
Speaker 1: or something like that. And you know, he's a kind

982
00:53:53,960 --> 00:53:57,480
Speaker 1: of a larger than life charismatic character. He's very warm.

983
00:53:57,680 --> 00:54:01,200
Speaker 1: You you greet you with a with a he's interested

984
00:54:01,239 --> 00:54:05,920
Speaker 1: in you and and he's just endlessly creative. You know,

985
00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:08,279
Speaker 1: there's a little boy in him. He was like a

986
00:54:08,360 --> 00:54:10,640
Speaker 1: little child in him, a twinkle in his eye clear,

987
00:54:10,920 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 1: and that is reflected in all the output of films

988
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:18,040
Speaker 1: he does. You could see there is a child's wonderment

989
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:21,440
Speaker 1: and joy in everything he seems to touch. Yeah. I mean,

990
00:54:21,480 --> 00:54:23,920
Speaker 1: I think he's office is full of toys. And when

991
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:27,040
Speaker 1: I went there, his office was was old toys and gadgets,

992
00:54:27,120 --> 00:54:29,279
Speaker 1: and I don't think he ever lost that kind of

993
00:54:29,520 --> 00:54:34,920
Speaker 1: you know, um, that creative inquiry. Brad Bird Well, Brad

994
00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:38,080
Speaker 1: came on later, you know, to to direct The Incredibles,

995
00:54:38,200 --> 00:54:41,680
Speaker 1: you know, and which was so different than the previous films.

996
00:54:42,440 --> 00:54:47,279
Speaker 1: There there was a family relationship. You could sort of see,

997
00:54:47,360 --> 00:54:51,520
Speaker 1: oh this is intellectually similar, but it looked and felt

998
00:54:51,600 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 1: so different. Yeah, Brad is a very very disciplined filmmaker.

999
00:54:55,840 --> 00:54:59,800
Speaker 1: And it's you know when when a crew it's like

1000
00:54:59,880 --> 00:55:02,400
Speaker 1: a cruise, like fall in love with Brad. You know,

1001
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:05,279
Speaker 1: he has kind of a mesmerizing quality over It's a

1002
00:55:05,360 --> 00:55:07,520
Speaker 1: very large crew and and that pushed to do a

1003
00:55:07,600 --> 00:55:10,480
Speaker 1: lot of things. And he's a great sort of leader

1004
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:15,120
Speaker 1: and um and and so um so when he comes

1005
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:17,200
Speaker 1: on to do Incredibles and he's done live acting films

1006
00:55:17,200 --> 00:55:20,000
Speaker 1: as well, you know, in Mission Impossible. But um so,

1007
00:55:20,239 --> 00:55:23,560
Speaker 1: people sort of like take to him that he has

1008
00:55:23,600 --> 00:55:27,840
Speaker 1: a natural leadership that complements his his creativity. Tell us

1009
00:55:27,880 --> 00:55:30,879
Speaker 1: about Lee, Uh, Lee is. It's funny. You know, when

1010
00:55:30,920 --> 00:55:33,640
Speaker 1: I was thought of the Pixar, Lee was an editor.

1011
00:55:33,840 --> 00:55:36,439
Speaker 1: He was you know, an editor. But you know, John

1012
00:55:36,600 --> 00:55:40,080
Speaker 1: recognized this sort of creative talent in Lee and kept

1013
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:43,440
Speaker 1: trying to, you know, bring that out. So Lee is

1014
00:55:43,719 --> 00:55:46,600
Speaker 1: um a little sort of he's sort of more understated,

1015
00:55:47,040 --> 00:55:51,400
Speaker 1: a quieter by nature, and but an incredible sort of

1016
00:55:51,600 --> 00:55:54,880
Speaker 1: force of filmmaking. He's a guy that sort of like

1017
00:55:55,040 --> 00:55:58,600
Speaker 1: knows everything about filmmaking. And there's a list of thirty

1018
00:55:58,680 --> 00:56:01,120
Speaker 1: or forty or probably the people I can ask, but

1019
00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:04,680
Speaker 1: I would be um remiss if I didn't ask about

1020
00:56:04,840 --> 00:56:08,480
Speaker 1: Ed catmull. Well, you know, Ed is my great friend

1021
00:56:08,600 --> 00:56:11,640
Speaker 1: and you know, beloved by everyone at Pixars. It's sort

1022
00:56:11,680 --> 00:56:15,319
Speaker 1: of a co founder. But Ed is and I think

1023
00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:18,400
Speaker 1: it's because you know, Ed is sort of professorial, you know,

1024
00:56:18,520 --> 00:56:21,440
Speaker 1: almost by nature. You know, he's and that comes across

1025
00:56:21,440 --> 00:56:24,080
Speaker 1: a little bit in your depiction of it. He's a listener,

1026
00:56:24,239 --> 00:56:27,520
Speaker 1: you know, he's very very attentive. He's a learner, you

1027
00:56:27,560 --> 00:56:29,200
Speaker 1: know what I mean. He's I've never known him to

1028
00:56:29,239 --> 00:56:32,520
Speaker 1: be otherwise, and so he learns, he absorbs, he listens,

1029
00:56:32,640 --> 00:56:36,719
Speaker 1: he talks. He's always respectful, um, and and then he

1030
00:56:36,840 --> 00:56:39,480
Speaker 1: kind of and and and then so and then when

1031
00:56:39,520 --> 00:56:41,520
Speaker 1: he does put things together and he says, you know,

1032
00:56:41,640 --> 00:56:44,680
Speaker 1: his views about things, you're always kind of like, he's

1033
00:56:44,719 --> 00:56:46,680
Speaker 1: not the loud, booming voice in the room. If you

1034
00:56:46,760 --> 00:56:49,080
Speaker 1: have heard him speaking, it's a great speaking voice. Uh,

1035
00:56:49,440 --> 00:56:51,800
Speaker 1: it's kind of an understated speaking voice. But he's a

1036
00:56:51,880 --> 00:56:53,799
Speaker 1: voice that you want to listen to what he has

1037
00:56:53,880 --> 00:56:56,080
Speaker 1: to say because he's he's sort of put it together

1038
00:56:56,160 --> 00:56:59,440
Speaker 1: in ways that matter a lot. So he's wonderful. It

1039
00:56:59,560 --> 00:57:02,920
Speaker 1: sounded like this was just a collection of rock stars.

1040
00:57:02,960 --> 00:57:08,320
Speaker 1: Everybody at Pixar was really astonishingly talented, and everybody was

1041
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:11,399
Speaker 1: more or less pulling together in the same direction, which

1042
00:57:11,520 --> 00:57:14,680
Speaker 1: is really hard to do with a complicated project like

1043
00:57:15,080 --> 00:57:17,200
Speaker 1: like you were undertaking that, It is really hard to do.

1044
00:57:17,360 --> 00:57:19,520
Speaker 1: And I think Pixar is a collection of rock stars.

1045
00:57:19,560 --> 00:57:21,880
Speaker 1: I think a lot of companies that you know, collections

1046
00:57:21,920 --> 00:57:24,320
Speaker 1: of of have a lot of rock stars. But what

1047
00:57:24,480 --> 00:57:28,480
Speaker 1: Pixar did was to honor that. And that sometimes is

1048
00:57:28,840 --> 00:57:31,400
Speaker 1: is because it doesn't matter. You know, someone could be

1049
00:57:31,480 --> 00:57:34,360
Speaker 1: a production assistant or working on the budget of the film.

1050
00:57:34,400 --> 00:57:36,840
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be you know, I'm directing you

1051
00:57:36,920 --> 00:57:40,240
Speaker 1: know the film or something like that. Um. And by

1052
00:57:40,440 --> 00:57:44,480
Speaker 1: honoring all of that, it matters to the culture. And

1053
00:57:45,200 --> 00:57:47,840
Speaker 1: and sometimes that's easy to forget what in companies, you

1054
00:57:47,920 --> 00:57:50,840
Speaker 1: know what that means to really respect and honor people.

1055
00:57:51,160 --> 00:57:54,000
Speaker 1: You You had written about how important corporate culture is,

1056
00:57:54,040 --> 00:57:57,880
Speaker 1: and there was concerned when Pixar was being acquired by

1057
00:57:58,120 --> 00:58:03,560
Speaker 1: Disney that that culture sure would get destroyed. So two questions, First,

1058
00:58:04,280 --> 00:58:08,080
Speaker 1: what what was done to make sure that transition was okay?

1059
00:58:08,400 --> 00:58:12,040
Speaker 1: And second, is the Pixar culture still intact even though

1060
00:58:12,080 --> 00:58:15,040
Speaker 1: it's a part of Disney. Yes, I mean it's it's

1061
00:58:15,040 --> 00:58:17,840
Speaker 1: funny in an acquisition, but I would say that when

1062
00:58:17,920 --> 00:58:19,520
Speaker 1: a lot of money is at stake, right, and that's

1063
00:58:19,520 --> 00:58:22,880
Speaker 1: what everyone's talking about. But that was the single most

1064
00:58:22,920 --> 00:58:26,960
Speaker 1: important point in that deal, was the preservation of pixows culture.

1065
00:58:27,080 --> 00:58:31,800
Speaker 1: And I think that if we hadn't believed Bob Iger's

1066
00:58:31,840 --> 00:58:36,120
Speaker 1: sincerity in that UM, then that acquisition would not have happened.

1067
00:58:36,200 --> 00:58:40,240
Speaker 1: And so you know, Bob promised that Pixos culture would

1068
00:58:40,240 --> 00:58:41,960
Speaker 1: be intact, and in fact, he wanted to sort of

1069
00:58:42,040 --> 00:58:45,840
Speaker 1: infect Disney Animation, you know, with with Pixows culture, and

1070
00:58:46,080 --> 00:58:48,320
Speaker 1: he completely came through on that. And so I think

1071
00:58:48,640 --> 00:58:51,720
Speaker 1: if you visit Pixar today, all the things that I've

1072
00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:54,040
Speaker 1: been talking about, and they're working very hard to try

1073
00:58:54,080 --> 00:58:56,840
Speaker 1: to keep that in place. So I know I only

1074
00:58:56,920 --> 00:58:59,280
Speaker 1: have you for a limited amount of time. Let me

1075
00:58:59,560 --> 00:59:04,600
Speaker 1: jump to my favorite podcast questions I asked all my guests.

1076
00:59:05,080 --> 00:59:07,280
Speaker 1: We we talked about your background of what you did

1077
00:59:07,400 --> 00:59:12,680
Speaker 1: before picks are UM, who are some of your early mentors? Well,

1078
00:59:12,840 --> 00:59:16,360
Speaker 1: I always have had mentors, UM. I believe very strongly

1079
00:59:16,400 --> 00:59:18,720
Speaker 1: in that this is the whole collaboration pod. I've always

1080
00:59:18,800 --> 00:59:22,360
Speaker 1: had sort of what I considered being an inner circle

1081
00:59:22,440 --> 00:59:24,800
Speaker 1: of people that I really trust, that have got my back,

1082
00:59:24,880 --> 00:59:28,440
Speaker 1: that I listened to. So you know, early on, you know,

1083
00:59:28,560 --> 00:59:31,640
Speaker 1: well Larry Soncini, for sure, you described that relationship in

1084
00:59:31,720 --> 00:59:34,320
Speaker 1: the book. Yeah, for sure. Efia Razzi, who was giving

1085
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:37,320
Speaker 1: me my first job in electronics for imaging, UM, you know,

1086
00:59:37,400 --> 00:59:39,160
Speaker 1: I would go on, I have to include my wife

1087
00:59:39,280 --> 00:59:43,800
Speaker 1: Hillary and that in in in that circle, um say, Rimpochet,

1088
00:59:43,840 --> 00:59:45,960
Speaker 1: who has been my mentor and teacher on this new

1089
00:59:46,200 --> 00:59:48,480
Speaker 1: you know part that that I'm doing now and and

1090
00:59:48,560 --> 00:59:51,320
Speaker 1: even in writing the book, I've had incredible mentors to

1091
00:59:51,400 --> 00:59:57,720
Speaker 1: sort of help me. So that's so you really accomplished

1092
00:59:57,720 --> 01:00:01,760
Speaker 1: a lot of pis are what business people well influenced

1093
01:00:02,240 --> 01:00:05,800
Speaker 1: your approach to what you did at Pixar. Well, you

1094
01:00:05,880 --> 01:00:08,280
Speaker 1: know at Pixar, the people that I've told him about,

1095
01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:11,280
Speaker 1: I mean, and in business, I cut my teeth a

1096
01:00:11,400 --> 01:00:14,360
Speaker 1: lot with Fie Rozzi Fie who's who's passed on now.

1097
01:00:14,520 --> 01:00:20,840
Speaker 1: But he was a brilliant entrepreneurs from it, I mean

1098
01:00:20,880 --> 01:00:22,480
Speaker 1: he was. It's funny. You know, he was known as

1099
01:00:22,520 --> 01:00:25,680
Speaker 1: the Steve Jobs of Israel because he created the company

1100
01:00:25,720 --> 01:00:27,640
Speaker 1: called side Ticks, which just put them on the map

1101
01:00:27,760 --> 01:00:30,600
Speaker 1: from a technology point of view, but um put the

1102
01:00:30,680 --> 01:00:34,080
Speaker 1: whole country one. Israel has become known as a hot

1103
01:00:34,640 --> 01:00:37,640
Speaker 1: hotbed of high tech. That was the first really big success.

1104
01:00:37,680 --> 01:00:39,440
Speaker 1: It was the first really big success and it was

1105
01:00:39,720 --> 01:00:41,760
Speaker 1: it was him who did it and um and so

1106
01:00:42,120 --> 01:00:45,200
Speaker 1: we you know, we built that first company of electronics

1107
01:00:45,200 --> 01:00:48,960
Speaker 1: for imaging together and um, and he was brilliant and

1108
01:00:49,040 --> 01:00:51,040
Speaker 1: I learned a lot from him. And I also, you know,

1109
01:00:51,400 --> 01:00:53,320
Speaker 1: but I had the advantage because when I was a lawyer,

1110
01:00:53,520 --> 01:00:55,360
Speaker 1: I was sort of a business lawyer because I was

1111
01:00:55,440 --> 01:00:58,840
Speaker 1: doing these transactions for all these companies, these startups that

1112
01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:00,840
Speaker 1: were trying to you know, break cannon, doing deals with

1113
01:01:00,920 --> 01:01:02,959
Speaker 1: all these big companies. So I met a whole bunch

1114
01:01:03,040 --> 01:01:05,640
Speaker 1: of CEOs, you know Ken Osman, who was a founder,

1115
01:01:05,720 --> 01:01:07,800
Speaker 1: old time founder of Rome, and then he was doing

1116
01:01:07,840 --> 01:01:11,320
Speaker 1: another company called Echelon, and so I had, you know,

1117
01:01:11,480 --> 01:01:14,840
Speaker 1: a lot of interaction with different people in Silicon Valley,

1118
01:01:14,880 --> 01:01:17,320
Speaker 1: and so I, you know, started absorbing a lot from them.

1119
01:01:17,400 --> 01:01:18,920
Speaker 1: And then and then I met Effie and then of

1120
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:22,640
Speaker 1: course Steve. So that that's quite on Sasani, Effie and

1121
01:01:22,920 --> 01:01:27,240
Speaker 1: Steve jobs for pretty pretty good mentors to have. And yeah, no,

1122
01:01:27,320 --> 01:01:29,320
Speaker 1: I've been on that front. I've been very fortunate. So

1123
01:01:29,960 --> 01:01:33,200
Speaker 1: let's talk about books. So I mentioned I enjoyed this.

1124
01:01:33,480 --> 01:01:37,360
Speaker 1: Tell me about some books that that you've enjoyed, fiction,

1125
01:01:37,480 --> 01:01:40,640
Speaker 1: non fiction, technology, It doesn't matter what. What sort of

1126
01:01:40,720 --> 01:01:44,040
Speaker 1: books have you really read and have resonated with you. Well,

1127
01:01:44,320 --> 01:01:46,920
Speaker 1: I'm avid read there so there's a lot. But I

1128
01:01:47,280 --> 01:01:50,040
Speaker 1: am by the way, I constantly get emails from from

1129
01:01:50,120 --> 01:01:52,800
Speaker 1: listeners who say, what was the book he referenced? I

1130
01:01:52,840 --> 01:01:55,680
Speaker 1: couldn't find it, could you. People really want to hear

1131
01:01:56,000 --> 01:01:59,440
Speaker 1: book recommendations more than anything else, So feel free to

1132
01:01:59,560 --> 01:02:01,560
Speaker 1: go over many books as you like. Well, it's only

1133
01:02:01,600 --> 01:02:03,120
Speaker 1: like a lot of Hinden books. I am a bit

1134
01:02:03,160 --> 01:02:07,080
Speaker 1: of a science fiction boff. Brandon Santison's UM series that

1135
01:02:07,280 --> 01:02:10,760
Speaker 1: that that that he's doing now, The Way of Kings

1136
01:02:11,400 --> 01:02:16,680
Speaker 1: is absolutely brilliant. Um I UM. As far as literature

1137
01:02:16,760 --> 01:02:20,320
Speaker 1: is concerned, Thomas Munns The Magic Mountain the big influence

1138
01:02:20,320 --> 01:02:23,439
Speaker 1: on me. That's a big undertaking. Uh. He also wrote

1139
01:02:23,480 --> 01:02:26,240
Speaker 1: Death in Venice, and I thought there's a very powerful

1140
01:02:26,360 --> 01:02:30,560
Speaker 1: literary literary books. UM. Joseph Campbell's Hero of a Thousand

1141
01:02:30,600 --> 01:02:35,600
Speaker 1: Faces big influence, UM, especially for anyone in in narrative

1142
01:02:35,640 --> 01:02:39,320
Speaker 1: storytelling and mythology, pathology. Absolutely brilliant. And I've watched all

1143
01:02:39,400 --> 01:02:42,640
Speaker 1: of Joseph Campbell's videos that he did on PBS, UH

1144
01:02:42,920 --> 01:02:45,880
Speaker 1: many years ago. UM. And now you know, I'm into

1145
01:02:46,080 --> 01:02:49,000
Speaker 1: sort of you know, five year old you know, sort

1146
01:02:49,000 --> 01:02:52,160
Speaker 1: of Buddhist philosophy, you know, there's a book, um, the

1147
01:02:52,280 --> 01:02:56,000
Speaker 1: Great Stages of the Part by great teacher called jades

1148
01:02:56,080 --> 01:03:01,240
Speaker 1: On Copper UM T s O N G k p A.

1149
01:03:01,760 --> 01:03:05,160
Speaker 1: That's a very challenging undertaking, but it sort of took

1150
01:03:05,200 --> 01:03:07,840
Speaker 1: me years to work my way through that. UM and

1151
01:03:08,200 --> 01:03:11,040
Speaker 1: uh so there's uh, there's a few that come to mind.

1152
01:03:11,280 --> 01:03:15,920
Speaker 1: UM A recent one, gosh um UM. One of the

1153
01:03:15,960 --> 01:03:19,440
Speaker 1: inspirations for this book was the Boys in the Boat, Boys,

1154
01:03:20,720 --> 01:03:23,600
Speaker 1: Boys in the Band, Boys in the Boat. Um M,

1155
01:03:24,160 --> 01:03:28,040
Speaker 1: that sounds absolutely incredible. It's being absolutely incredible story about

1156
01:03:28,480 --> 01:03:32,440
Speaker 1: the US rowing team and um huge bestseller and um

1157
01:03:32,640 --> 01:03:36,680
Speaker 1: and going to Germany. Dan Brown. Dan Brown is the

1158
01:03:37,040 --> 01:03:39,240
Speaker 1: author of Boys in the Boat and Oh, I don't

1159
01:03:39,240 --> 01:03:41,600
Speaker 1: know if you've read Ready Play a one, UM, which

1160
01:03:41,640 --> 01:03:45,520
Speaker 1: is a current that's just super fun, just a super

1161
01:03:45,600 --> 01:03:50,160
Speaker 1: fun Ready Player one. I think Steven Spielberg is making

1162
01:03:50,200 --> 01:03:52,720
Speaker 1: that into a movie. Really that's very interesting. So, um

1163
01:03:53,200 --> 01:03:56,840
Speaker 1: so there's a few for you. So aside from um reading,

1164
01:03:56,880 --> 01:03:58,400
Speaker 1: what do you do outside of the office, What do

1165
01:03:58,440 --> 01:04:00,680
Speaker 1: you do to relax? What do you do to stay fit?

1166
01:04:01,200 --> 01:04:03,160
Speaker 1: That's a question I get from readers all the time

1167
01:04:03,200 --> 01:04:05,040
Speaker 1: about guests. I've been sort of a bit of a

1168
01:04:05,160 --> 01:04:07,520
Speaker 1: fitness buff. And so during you know, when I was

1169
01:04:07,600 --> 01:04:09,560
Speaker 1: working really hard, I was I ran, you know, and

1170
01:04:09,600 --> 01:04:11,760
Speaker 1: I always just if I could go out and just run,

1171
01:04:11,880 --> 01:04:14,040
Speaker 1: like you know, even two or three miles, like you know,

1172
01:04:14,120 --> 01:04:15,800
Speaker 1: five or six days a week. I did that all

1173
01:04:15,840 --> 01:04:18,080
Speaker 1: the time. And then a few years ago I started

1174
01:04:18,120 --> 01:04:19,760
Speaker 1: reading you know, as you get a little bit older,

1175
01:04:19,840 --> 01:04:22,400
Speaker 1: its resistance training is good. So I took up to

1176
01:04:22,440 --> 01:04:24,080
Speaker 1: the weight training in the gym, and I do that

1177
01:04:24,240 --> 01:04:28,200
Speaker 1: you know regularly now. So I find that exercises, um,

1178
01:04:28,840 --> 01:04:32,520
Speaker 1: you know, there's huge benefits to it. Um. And then

1179
01:04:32,720 --> 01:04:35,000
Speaker 1: of course I I do a lot of meditation and practice.

1180
01:04:35,040 --> 01:04:37,280
Speaker 1: So that's an important part of my life. And and

1181
01:04:37,400 --> 01:04:40,160
Speaker 1: then you know, you know, my family still left to

1182
01:04:40,200 --> 01:04:43,240
Speaker 1: sit around and watch you know, Gilmore Girls and the Voice,

1183
01:04:43,320 --> 01:04:47,040
Speaker 1: and so you know, that's what we do for for entertainment.

1184
01:04:47,240 --> 01:04:50,080
Speaker 1: So my last two questions, these are my favorite questions.

1185
01:04:51,040 --> 01:04:54,240
Speaker 1: If a millennial or a recent college graduate were to

1186
01:04:54,320 --> 01:04:56,560
Speaker 1: come up to you and say, I'm interested in a

1187
01:04:56,680 --> 01:05:01,360
Speaker 1: career in law or business or entertainment, what sort of

1188
01:05:01,400 --> 01:05:04,280
Speaker 1: advice would you give them? I the advice iart with

1189
01:05:04,360 --> 01:05:06,920
Speaker 1: give them is that, regardless of what you're interested in,

1190
01:05:07,720 --> 01:05:12,560
Speaker 1: get some deep experience in something, in anything. Um. You know,

1191
01:05:12,640 --> 01:05:15,520
Speaker 1: what I see a little bit is sort of jumping around. Um.

1192
01:05:15,760 --> 01:05:19,600
Speaker 1: You know, and what I think is more important is

1193
01:05:19,640 --> 01:05:21,720
Speaker 1: to just go deeply into something for a while. Don't

1194
01:05:21,760 --> 01:05:25,120
Speaker 1: just skim the surface. Really learn at least some areas,

1195
01:05:25,400 --> 01:05:27,840
Speaker 1: some area, even if it's not what you ultimately want

1196
01:05:27,840 --> 01:05:30,080
Speaker 1: to do. UM. I mean I've given this advice, you know,

1197
01:05:30,160 --> 01:05:33,040
Speaker 1: to my own children, you know, and and so because

1198
01:05:33,080 --> 01:05:35,440
Speaker 1: I think it's in going deeply in something. And this

1199
01:05:35,600 --> 01:05:37,640
Speaker 1: also gets us back a little bit to the meditation

1200
01:05:37,720 --> 01:05:40,640
Speaker 1: as well, which is that it's the going deeply into

1201
01:05:40,760 --> 01:05:43,280
Speaker 1: something that crafts us. You know, it's easier to stay

1202
01:05:43,320 --> 01:05:46,520
Speaker 1: on the surface, but it's when things get rough. It's

1203
01:05:46,560 --> 01:05:49,360
Speaker 1: when you know you're you're having you know, difficult time

1204
01:05:49,360 --> 01:05:51,400
Speaker 1: getting a project down, or a hard time with a boss,

1205
01:05:51,640 --> 01:05:54,720
Speaker 1: or this material doesn't make any sense, or you know,

1206
01:05:54,960 --> 01:05:57,680
Speaker 1: like meditation is really hard, or I don't understand this

1207
01:05:57,760 --> 01:06:01,440
Speaker 1: point of philosophy. Whatever it is, it's that's what shapes us,

1208
01:06:01,680 --> 01:06:04,440
Speaker 1: you know. And so you know, I take an analogy

1209
01:06:04,560 --> 01:06:06,920
Speaker 1: like to a mountain. If you want to, um, if

1210
01:06:06,960 --> 01:06:08,520
Speaker 1: you want to climb a mountain, you have to pick

1211
01:06:08,560 --> 01:06:12,160
Speaker 1: a path um and if you're constantly circling around looking

1212
01:06:12,200 --> 01:06:14,760
Speaker 1: for the best path, you'll never climb the mountain. And

1213
01:06:14,920 --> 01:06:20,560
Speaker 1: so reference that we were just circling. So I say

1214
01:06:20,640 --> 01:06:23,480
Speaker 1: to young you know, you know people as well climb

1215
01:06:23,520 --> 01:06:24,920
Speaker 1: a mountain. You know, it doesn't have to be the

1216
01:06:25,040 --> 01:06:27,040
Speaker 1: ultimate mountain or the only mountain. You know, there a

1217
01:06:27,080 --> 01:06:29,600
Speaker 1: lots of mountains to climb, but but at least climb

1218
01:06:29,640 --> 01:06:31,880
Speaker 1: a mountain and then go through the rigor of that,

1219
01:06:32,040 --> 01:06:33,720
Speaker 1: and then you'll figure out what the next mountain is.

1220
01:06:34,120 --> 01:06:37,040
Speaker 1: And and our final question, what is it that you

1221
01:06:37,240 --> 01:06:43,880
Speaker 1: know about the entertainment industry and and running a company

1222
01:06:44,000 --> 01:06:47,080
Speaker 1: such as picks are that you wish you knew twenty

1223
01:06:47,200 --> 01:06:50,640
Speaker 1: five years ago when you started on this endeavor? Oh,

1224
01:06:50,760 --> 01:06:52,800
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, that's a that's a really

1225
01:06:52,840 --> 01:06:54,880
Speaker 1: good question. I kind of go into everything with the

1226
01:06:55,000 --> 01:06:58,040
Speaker 1: fresh mind, you know. I I just I didn't wouldn't

1227
01:06:58,080 --> 01:06:59,840
Speaker 1: even know how to answer that. You know, there's I

1228
01:07:00,080 --> 01:07:04,760
Speaker 1: wouldn't change it, Like if I'd known more than I wouldn't,

1229
01:07:04,760 --> 01:07:06,640
Speaker 1: the experience wouldn't have been the same. I'm asking a

1230
01:07:06,680 --> 01:07:09,360
Speaker 1: Buddhist and I as I was saying the words, I

1231
01:07:09,480 --> 01:07:12,360
Speaker 1: know the correct answer is it is the path, not

1232
01:07:12,560 --> 01:07:16,160
Speaker 1: the destination. So I as the but I asked everybody that,

1233
01:07:16,240 --> 01:07:17,920
Speaker 1: and I knew I was going nowhere as soon as

1234
01:07:17,960 --> 01:07:20,880
Speaker 1: the words stumbled out of my mouth. Lawrence, thank you

1235
01:07:20,960 --> 01:07:24,120
Speaker 1: so much for for having this conversation with us. It's

1236
01:07:24,160 --> 01:07:27,920
Speaker 1: really been fascinating. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure

1237
01:07:27,920 --> 01:07:29,520
Speaker 1: and look up an inch or down an inch on

1238
01:07:29,680 --> 01:07:32,400
Speaker 1: iTunes and you could see any of the other I

1239
01:07:32,480 --> 01:07:35,800
Speaker 1: want to say a hundred and twelve or so conversations

1240
01:07:35,880 --> 01:07:39,440
Speaker 1: we've had over the past two years. We love your

1241
01:07:39,480 --> 01:07:43,360
Speaker 1: comments and feedback. Be sure right to us at m

1242
01:07:43,440 --> 01:07:47,160
Speaker 1: IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. I would be remiss

1243
01:07:47,440 --> 01:07:50,120
Speaker 1: if I did not thank my head of research, Mike

1244
01:07:50,200 --> 01:07:55,040
Speaker 1: Patnick and my booker Taylor Riggs for helping out. I'm

1245
01:07:55,120 --> 01:07:58,720
Speaker 1: Barry Ritults. You've been listening to Masters in Business on

1246
01:07:58,880 --> 01:08:06,000
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio M brought to you by Bank of America

1247
01:08:06,120 --> 01:08:09,600
Speaker 1: Merrill Lynch, committed to bringing higher finance to lower carbon

1248
01:08:09,880 --> 01:08:12,640
Speaker 1: named the most innovative investment bank for climate change and

1249
01:08:12,720 --> 01:08:16,720
Speaker 1: sustainability by the Banker That's the Power of Global Connections.

1250
01:08:17,000 --> 01:08:19,760
Speaker 1: Bank of America North America member f D I C