Long Read: The Real Story of Pixar

Alvy Ray Smith | 15 minutes

The story of Pixar doesn't start with its founding—a tech company's story rarely does. Rather, the original spark often comes from a university lab, a renegade group at a large company, or a hobbyist building stuff for fun. Pixar's story doesn't even start with the creation of Lucasfilm's Computer Graphics Group, which developed the Pixar Image Computer, the company's first product.

Snippets

Instead of telling kids that their treehouses could be on the path to the work they do as adults, we tell them the path goes through school.
And unfortunately schoolwork tends be very different from working on projects of one's own.

- Paul Graham, A Project of One's Own

Much like has happened with money, the clock has come to be seen as the thing it was only supposed to represent: The clock has become time itself.

- Joe Zadeh, The Tyranny Of Time

on of Lucasfilm's Computer Graphics Group, which developed the Pixar Image Computer, the company's first product.

A note of gratitude.

On Thursday, I requested your support on Product Hunt for AudioPen, another product I’d built.

I’m happy to let you all know that AudioPen finished in first place with over 1,000 votes.

Thank you to each one of you who tool the time to vote. I am truly grateful.