The fact checkers at the Wall Street Journal let one slip

Is it really factually incorrect? Pixar as a company didn't exist until Steve Jobs founded it with staff made up of the graphics group of LucasFilm.

There was no Pixar before Jobs, so I'd say the founding of Pixar had quite a lot to do with him - http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/history/1986.html

Steve probably just lies on his resume like everyone else in IT.

The hypocrite who claims he needs no fact checkers gets corrected by his "audience" of "fact checkers" for claiming that someone else's fact checkers were incorrect.

Pixar was just a division of ILM. Lucas did not see it as an independent company, did not see a product (RenderMan), was dealing with losses. Jobs saw a business opportunity (prior to films with the rendering software but including the future potential to make content). As Ben points out, you are wrong.

Wow, that was the fastest ownage I've seen in blog comments in quite some time. Robert, I think you now owe an apology to Wall Street Journal and Steve Jobs. Gotta love good ole wikiality ;)

If you know Steve Jobs you'll know that he hates talking to reporters (excepting a select few such as Walt Mossberg) so your claim about Jobs "fibbing" to WSJ holds no water.

Some more evidence backing up the WSJ/Steve Jobs version:

http://alvyray.com/Pixar/default.htm

Does 'founding' mean 'incorporation'?

Something called Pixar existed for five years before Steve Jobs bought it, nor was it suddenly repurposed after the purchase. But Jobs did incorporate Pixar.

Jobs was not the first suitor. Pixar might have been acquired by ... Ross Perot, then working for General Motors. Imagine that. They would probably be making movies about animated cars. Oh, wait.

RetiredMidn: that's ironic. I didn't identify why I wrote this, but I know Alvy Ray Smith (actually Buzz Bruggeman is good friends with him) and he doesn't agree that Steve Jobs was a founder. Which is why I posted this whole post. And why I'll stick with my writings here.

RetiredMidn: that page specifically notes that Steve Jobs was not a founder, rather the funder (the VC). Maybe that's how this whole misunderstanding happened.

Good grief, man! Do you do anything more than skim things that come across your "desk". If this is an example of how people will consume content in the furture, I'll stick with hardcopy. Thanks! You're splitting minute hairs here, Scoble.

And enough with the incessant name dropping. Nobody cares who you know other than you. And it does nothing to make you credible, if that is what you think.

Just a question: What was the company called before Jobs purchased it in 1986?

You REALLY want to rely on Wikipedia as the Holy Grail of accurate information?

LayZ: my source is one of the co-founders of the company. Yes, that DOES add up to credibility. And it demonstrates I'm NOT just relying on Wikipedia. He told Buzz that he's sick of hearing that Steve founded the company. That'd be like saying that Paul Matteucci founded PodTech. That'd be wrong. What's your source? Ahh, you're just blowing smoke out your behind again. Got it. I'm getting used to this behavior from you.

Just because someone is sick of hearing something doesn't make it false.

Jobs owned majority stake in the company at the time they took the name Pixar. That's close enough for most people.

But if you want to assign who is most responsible for what Pixar is today...that's an easy one: John Lasseter.

This is akin to the claims that "Al Gore invented the Internet". While the original Internet was a DARPA project, it took the NREN bill that Gore sponsored to make it flourish to what it is today.

the link on pixar's own site that was posted above (http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/history/1986.html) pretty much states that Jobs was a co-founder of the Pixar of today...

It's been posted twice now. From Pixar itself:

The computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, Ltd. is purchased by Steve Jobs for $10 million and established as an independent company christened "Pixar."

You'll note the first definition of "establish" is "to set up; found" (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=establ...)

What other co-founders feel about Steve Jobs doesn't really matter. Jobs was the chairman of the board. Is that an insignifigant position? Is Paul Matteucci the chairman of PodTech? And if he is, he has a great deal of sway and can pretty much tell you to do what he wants. Or to put it inline with your recent postings, if the chairman is an insifigant position, why should we care about the HP scandal again?

Lasseter, Catmull, Smith and money-man Jobs, bought "Pixar" from Lucasfilm early on, it was just a division of Lucasfilm, that Lucas didn't seem to want to invest in, much like Xerox. So while something "unoffically" was "Pixar", the starting of the company, the company *AS* Pixar, was financed, or co-founded, by Jobs.

Lucas's divorce caused him to sell off, and EDS and Phillips bit, but Perot was pushed out, meanwhile Alan Kay introduced Jobs to "Pixar", and Jobs decided he must have it. And Pixar mighta been just another start-up, had it not been for 'Luxo Jr.' And later on Katzenberg offering to do a three movie deal, aka Toy Story. Almost killed when Lasseter made Woody too mean, and had to redo the script and take screenwriting classes. (I always found that one funny). :)

You’re splitting minute hairs here

I gotta go with that and WSJ. Pixar was just a 'research division' of Lucas, the COMPANY was founded/financed by Jobs.

Christopher: Jobs didn't have anything to do with the founding of the company other than the pouring in of money.

We usually keep the "founder" moniker for those who actually do the work of making the product the company will sell.

Again, PodTech wasn't a real company until USVP and VenRock threw its cash into the hat. But John Furrier was the founder.

It might be pedantic, but, it seems worth keeping the two separate.

Or are you saying that Steve Jobs rolled up his sleeves and did a lot of work here? I heard he did not.

Gotta side with Scoble on this one. From my years there, I think if you go talk to old-timers at Pixar about when Pixar was founded you'd hear tales of the NYIT days.

Not that Steve isn't strongly acknowledged in the history and culture of Pixar, and in fact when I was there it was acknowledged that it was pretty amazing how much free reign he gave to Pixar as he kept it funded, but he's as much a founder as John Doerr is a founder of Google.

Robert, I'm going to have to join the scolds.

You said:

"RetiredMidn: that’s ironic. I didn’t identify why I wrote this, but I know Alvy Ray Smith (actually Buzz Bruggeman is good friends with him) and he doesn’t agree that Steve Jobs was a founder. Which is why I posted this whole post. And why I’ll stick with my writings here."

When factual information conflicts with someone's personal opinion, the facts win. Your friend may be an insider, but he is stilll expressing a personal opinion. Heck, there may be some insider somewhere who disputes that Steve Jobs is a founder of Apple Computer. Are you going to rewrite history to agree with that person?

I see you didn't answer my question and resort to yet again more ad hominem arguments that you yourself decry. Let me ask the question one more time and see you can give us a simple answer. What was the company called before Jobs came along. It's a simple question. Richard is right, just because someone thinks, or feels something is inaccurate doesn't make it so. Can you cite any facts beyond
heresay Whether Jobs did any heavy lifting or not is not really the issue. The issue is did he found a company called "Pixar"? Did a company called Pixar exist beforehand. That should be a pretty simple task to research and come back to us with an answer.


"We usually keep the “founder” moniker for those who actually do the work of making the product the company will sell."

Really? When was that meeting held, who participated and when were those decisions published? Because I gotta tell ya, I think the WSJ is pretty much dealing with facts and definitinos.

Found: r.v. found·ed, found·ing, founds

1. To establish or set up, especially with provision for continuing existence: The college was founded in 1872.

found‧er1  /ˈfaʊndər/
–noun
a person who founds or establishes.

So, one more time: Was there a company called "Pixar" before Jobs funded and established it? If so, you win.

So, one more time: Was there a company called “Pixar” before Jobs funded and established it? If so, you win.

Exactly. It's just the bad blood talking (that sure seems to follow Jobs around), and wanting to take away credit, Jobs wasn't so much a "venture capitalist" he was the BANKROLLER and company founder (the early finance docs so much as prove this), big big difference. And the way I hear the history, Jobs was all over it, micromanaging extreme, usual Jobs style. Rolled up his sleeves? You mean coded? He was a screaming temper-tantrum manager, that's about as far as his sleeves ever got, but you to got judge results, and Apple and Pixar for all the sheer Hell it must be to work for Jobs, the end product is darned good, indeed great. Now it could be so much greater, if he didn't treat top talent like dirt. Imagine if Lasseter had bolted early on.

Lost in all this is the HISTORY of Smith-Jobs bad blood...it's all sour grapes, and a willing (duped and game of telephone filtered) host, Scoble.

http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/0123.html

The employees at Pixar were optimistic about the future as Lasseter began writing the screenplay for Toy Story, but that would soon change. Jobs had never gotten along with Smith, and the relationship grew even worse during the negotiations with Disney. Smith was terrified that Katzenberg would walk out on the abrasive Jobs.

After Jobs snapped on Smith and yelled at him during a meeting at the Deer Park NeXT headquarters, Smith resigned from Pixar and started a brand new company, Altimira, which produced computer animation software. Altimira was eventually bought by Microsoft, and its technology was used in Microsoft's line of multimedia CD-ROMs.

14: "the link on pixar’s own site that was posted above pretty much states that Jobs was a co-founder of the Pixar of today."

That would be the Pixar page where if you disagree with Jobs, you get fired? Yeah, that's credible.

15: "What other co-founders feel about Steve Jobs doesn’t really matter."

And what the other eye-witnesses observed at a car crash doesn't really matter, either. That's why in a civil suit, one only hears testimony form the richest, most self-interested party, because they're obviously the most impartial.

Or, um, not.

19: "When factual information conflicts with someone’s personal opinion, the facts win."

Exactly.

19: "Your friend may be an insider, but he is stilll expressing a personal opinion."

No, they're an eye-witness. This is something akin to saying that Newton was "just expressing an opinion" about the apple. (Dare I say it.)

19: "Heck, there may be some insider somewhere who disputes that Steve Jobs is a founder of Apple Computer."

No, but it *is* interesting that, by the same logic others are using here, no one has come forth to defend Mike Markkula as a "founder" of Apple. (Even though the Jobs/Markkula feud was the defining struggle within Apple for 20 years -- see Jobs' Stanford speech.)

*^*^*

Overall comment:

Folks, there's a reason why being in Jobs' presence is described as a "reality distortion field," and *not* as a, "reality clarification field."