Steve Jobs

independent identity, its studio and headquarters would remain in Emeryville, and it would even keep its own email addresses.
    Iger asked Jobs to bring Lasseter and Catmull to a secret meeting of the Disney board in Century City, Los Angeles, on a Sunday morning. The goal was to make them feel comfortable with what would be a radical and expensive deal. As they prepared to take the elevator from the parking garage, Lasseter said to Jobs, “If I start getting too excited or go on too long, just touch my leg.” Jobs ended up having to do it once, but otherwise Lasseter made the perfect sales pitch. “I talked about how we make films, what our philosophies are, the honesty we have with each other, and how we nurture the creative talent,” he recalled. The board asked a lot of questions, and Jobs let Lasseter answer most. But Jobs did talk about how exciting it was to connect art with technology. “That’s what our culture is all about, just like at Apple,” he said.
    Before the Disney board got a chance to approve the merger, however,Michael Eisner arose from the departed to try to derail it. He called Iger and said it was far too expensive. “You can fix animation yourself,” Eisner told him. “How?” asked Iger. “I know you can,” said Eisner. Iger got a bit annoyed. “Michael, how come you say I can fix it, when you couldn’t fix it yourself?” he asked.
    Eisner said he wanted to come to a board meeting, even though he was no longer a member or an officer, and speak against the acquisition. Iger resisted, but Eisner called Warren Buffett, a big shareholder, and George Mitchell, who was the lead director. The former senator convinced Iger to let Eisner have his say. “I told the board that they didn’t need to buy Pixar because they already owned 85% of the movies Pixar had already made,” Eisner recounted. He was referring to the fact that for the movies already made, Disney was getting that percentage of the gross, plus it had the rights to make all the sequels and exploit the characters. “I made a presentation that said, here’s the 15% of Pixar that Disney does not already own. So that’s what you’re getting. The rest is a bet on future Pixar films.” Eisner admitted that Pixar had been enjoying a good run, but he said it could not continue. “I showed the history of producers and directors who had X number of hits in a row and then failed. It happened to Spielberg, Walt Disney, all of them.” To make the deal worth it, he calculated, each new Pixar movie would have to gross $1.3 billion. “It drove Steve crazy that I knew that,” Eisner later said.
    After he left the room, Iger refuted his argument point by point. “Let me tell you what was wrong with that presentation,” he began. When the board had finished hearing them both, it approved the deal Iger proposed.
    Iger flew up to Emeryville to meet Jobs and jointly announce the deal to the Pixar workers. But before they did, Jobs sat down alone with Lasseter and Catmull. “If either of you have doubts,” he said, “I will just tell them no thanks and blow off this deal.” He wasn’t totally sincere. It would have been almost impossible to do so at that point. But it was a welcome gesture. “I’m good,” said Lasseter. “Let’s do it.” Catmull agreed. They all hugged, and Jobs wept.
    Everyone then gathered in the atrium. “Disney is buying Pixar,” Jobs announced. There were a few tears, but as he explained the deal,the staffers began to realize that in some ways it was a reverse acquisition. Catmull would be the head of Disney animation, Lasseter its chief creative officer. By the end they were cheering. Iger had been standing on the side, and Jobs invited him to center stage. As he talked about the special culture of Pixar and how badly Disney needed to nurture it and learn from it, the crowd broke into applause.
    “My goal has always been not only to make great products, but to build great companies,” Jobs later said. “Walt Disney did that. And the way we did the merger, we kept Pixar as a great company and helped Disney remain one as well.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

     

TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY MACS
     
    Setting Apple Apart
     

     
    With the iBook, 1999
     
    Clams, Ice Cubes, and Sunflowers
    Ever since the introduction of the iMac in 1998, Jobs and Jony Ive had made beguiling design a signature of Apple’s computers. There was a consumer laptop that looked like a tangerine clam, and a professional desktop