To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History Hardcover – November 1, 2016

What a fascinating journey and very well written book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend to anyone interested in learning more about the animation world and overcoming challenges and obstacles in life.

There are few books written by ex-Chief Financial Officers. For good reason – for a general audience just how exciting can an income statement, cash flow and balance sheet be? No one will confuse this book with literature, but surprisingly Levy makes the financing journey of Pixar a really interesting and readable story.As Chief Financial Officer of Pixar, Levy stakes claim to five things he accomplished for Pixar - all of them critical to its survival and success.1. He put together the first business plan for the companya. Killing off several ancillary businesses (Renderman, TV Commercials, Video Games) and focused the company solely on full length animation filmsb. He assembled the first financial/accounting model for an animation entertainment company2. Over the objections of Steve Jobs, he got an employee stock option pool approved before the company’s Initial Public Offering3. He led the 1995 Initial Public Offering for Disney raising $140 million - a pool of capital large enough to keep the company solvent, funded its ability to finance its own movies and made Jobs a billionaire.4. He renegotiated the initial Pixar deal with Disney to one with much better terms for the company5. He was a board member approving Pixar’s sales to DisneyOften, the things authors don’t describe makes you question the veracity of the rest of the book. This book is no exception. There are two minor puzzles and two glaring omissions in the narrative.First, the minor ones:• Levy names his controller “Sarah Staff.” It was a weird enough name that made me Google it. When you do, you will find that her last name wasn’t “Staff”. But nowhere in the book does it say why he changed her name.• Given that the story stands on its own, there seems to be a lot of “look how close I was to Steve Jobs” passages. From the numerous mentions of how many walks he and Steve took together. To the “I just dropped by his house…” Yet there are fewer, “here’s how closely I worked with Ed Catmull” who at the time was his Pixar co-president. Almost of all of Levy’s mentions of Catmull were of the “we showed the plan to Ed and he approved it.” Either Ed wasn’t really involved in any of the Pixar business decisions or there’s a missing story here.The two glaring omissions from the story:• After Disney acquired Pixar in 2006 their auditors reported that Pixar had been backdating stock options since 1997. Getting caught backdating stock options was not some “oh I forgot to mention it” story, it was the dominant Silicon Valley financial story for years. Backdating investigations involved Steve Jobs, Larry Sonsini (Levy’s mentor at his old law firm) and tens of other companies. CFO’s in lots of tech companies lost lots of sleep over this for years. Executives in companies around the valley were fired, and some of them fined by the SEC (the CFO and controller of Apple included) and one went to federal prison. Levy was the Chief Financial Officer of Pixar during the alleged backdating. Did he sleep through this turmoil?• As Levy recounts, Jobs refused to give his early Pixar employees stock before the IPO. What Levy forgot to mention is that Jobs had “crammed down” his early employees so their initial stock was essentially worthless. He spends several pages telling us how hard he worked to get Steve Jobs to give all the employees pre-IPO stock. What he conveniently leaves out of the narrative is that Jobs compensated John Lassiter and Ed Catmull with generous pre-IPO grant stock of 1.6 million shares, (Guggenheim and Reeves got 1 million and 840,000 shares respectively) but others were left with almost nothing, some having worked a decade or more at the company. Oh, and one more thing. Levy who literally just showed up in the company also got a pre-IPO grant stock of 1.6 million shares. Must be great when you’re the CFO in charge of stock option grants. Not a single reference to this in the book.Overall a good a read. However, it’s clear Levy is suffering from selective memory as it appears to be not the whole story.

Lawrence Levy is to blame for my lack of sleep last week. This book was for me a real page turner, as Levy narrates his move to Pixar, and his involvement with Steve Jobs and the folks at Pixar to make the leap from a long struggling startup to a mega force in the entertainment world - a company that would change the world.Levy has a very readable style of writing - casual, but not in a gee whiz sort of way that is all too common for insider books like this one - from non professional writers. Levy takes us behind the scenes of how Pixar was turned from a company with great potential in to the entertainment powerhouse of our generation. I knew a little about this from watching a DVD called Pixar Short Films Vol 1, but Levy provides so much more detail, particularly with regard to Steve Jobs (and his own) personal transformation through his involvement with Pixar, from both a creative and a business standpoint.I've met Lawrence at several Juniper mediation events, but do not know him, so it was especially fun for me to read about his motivations and more recent personal transformation from hi-tech/entertainment executive to working to help found and fund the Juniper (juniperpath.org) organization. A big thumbs up for a great story and a great read.

Full disclosure: I know Lawrence and his family, have met Rinpoche, and cared for the author before ever picking up the book. So there's a bit of a cognitive bias here. I knew he was writing the book, understood what a huge undertaking it was for him to produce something that meant as much to him as it would to all involved and of course all who read it, and eagerly anticipated the date it would arrive. I preordered sight unseen based on my understanding of the author. I already wanted to believe.Still.I—like many of the reviewers here—spent a breathless week flipping the pages and going on the journey of Pixar's early days with Lawrence and felt absolutely, totally, elated. Vindicated for my friend and his triumph. Educated and edified against the messy, improvisational, and dramatic chords that surround business at the highest and lowest levels. And of course: entertained.It's crazy and fun and charming and a relief to see that the people involved with the biggest deals can still be humans. Can still hold onto their humanity in the face of all of the pressure, glamour, and, well, stuff.I work in a creative industry and am constantly wrestling with finding the right balance between creative freedom and business drivers (money, honey). It was awesome to see how similar (bigger, sure) issues as the ones I deal with played out in such a well established theater (no pun), and I'd like to think that I learned something from them...regardless of whether or not I'm able to apply them directly to my day to day.The (a?) bottom line is that there are many industries where workers are separated into groups of planners and makers and Lawrence's grace for approaching both of those sects in a fair, considered, and human manner is totally aspirational. I've referred the book to my boss and direct peers, and if I had it my way, everybody at my company would give it a whirl.I'm a huge fan of Pixar. I'm fascinated by Steve Jobs. But I'm a true believer in Lawrence Levy and this book. So good.

Interesante.

A riveting story about how Pixar went from a small player in animation to the most successful motion picture studio ever. Levy’s opened us to his personal experiences in walking with Steve Jobs, Pixar, Disney and even his own soul. A humble, fresh look at the entrepreneurial spirit of Pixar bringing Silicon Valley and Hollywood together!

Inspiring journey and another tale of the brilliant Steve Jobs

The book describes Pixar's journey from a loss-making unviable venture, into a profit-making, well respected, publicly listed company. An excellent treatise on how a great team can create a miracle and pull a fledgling company out of the depths of near failure.The author of the book, Lawrence Levy, is invited by Steve Jobs to become the CFO of Pixar at a time when it had already burnt a big hole of $50 mn in Jobs's personal pocket. Jobs had been funding Pixar from his personal resources till then.Somewhat unsure of the decision, Levy still agrees to come on board as Pixar's CFO. But after he joins, he is shocked to find so many issues plaguing Pixar:# products are not selling,# only one of the 3-4 product lines is in profit,# Steve Jobs is not a people's person,# the team which has spent years building Pixar is completely disgruntled with Jobs himself,# the lack of stock options for employees is only adding fuel to the fire,# the company is badly in need of funds to grow, and Steve Jobs isn't interested in infusing more of his of personal funds into the company,# the last but not the least, before Levy came on board, Pixar has signed a hopelessly one-sided contract with Disney to make animation films for the latter, the terms of which almost ensured that Pixar would at best be left with the tiniest possible share of the profits from the movie and from the future movies over the next several years.Then Levy, the magician, gets cracking. The book describes how he identifies and tackles each of these problems, urges Jobs to renegotiate the terms of the contract with Disney, devises a stock option plan. Levy is also largely responsible for taking Pixar public, that too at a handsome valuation, following the hugely successful box office show of "Toy Story". In fact Levy insists that the IPO and its price should only be announced once Toy Story has been released theatrically. And the move does pay off! Pixar doesn't just attract the interest of institutional investors but also is priced handsomely. The IPO lists on the stock exchange at a premium to the issue price, making Steve Jobs a billionaire in the process.Finally, the book describes the sale of Pixar to Disney.This book is an ideal text for MBA students, startup founders and professionals across almost every sector. Also, a lot to learn from how Levy handles the various people he comes across, at Pixar and outside.

Um livro cativante e muito bem escrito!