George Lucas hired you to start the computer division at Lucasfilm in 1979. Seven years later, that division was sold to Steve Jobs and became Pixar. The rest is history. What was it like running Pixar in the early days?
My leadership mindset actually started to form before that, at the University of Utah, where I studied computer graphics at the Graduate School of Computing. It was this totally open, sharing environment with a remarkably innovative, long-term vision that allowed me to combine my passions for animation and computers. We were on the frontier of an entirely new field, and those years had a profound effect on me. I knew I wanted to be in that kind of environment for the rest of my life.
At Lucasfilm and then at Pixar, I absolutely loved the technical problem-solving aspects of the work, but I also became fascinated by the way people interact in a creative environment. I recognized quickly that I wanted to create a culture where people felt like they were all peers and equally necessary. From the very beginning, we talked about how we treated each other and how we valued people. These became core values for the company — and for me.
You can’t address problems if people
