Benjamin franklin and albert einstein, this is the exclusive biography of steve jobs

The Little Mermaid
, in which 
King Triton waves good-bye to Ariel. Disney bought dozens of Pixar Image Computers as CAPS 
became an integral part of its production.
Animation
The digital animation business at Pixar—the group that made little animated films—was originally 
just a sideline, its main purpose being to show off the hardware and software of the company. It 
was run by John Lasseter, a man whose childlike face and demeanor masked an artistic 
perfectionism that rivaled that of Jobs. Born in Hollywood, Lasseter grew up loving Saturday 
morning cartoon shows. In ninth grade, he wrote a report on the history of Disney Studios, and he 
decided then how he wished to spend his life.
When he graduated from high school, Lasseter enrolled in the animation program at the 
California Institute of the Arts, founded by Walt Disney. In his summers and spare time, he 
researched the Disney archives and worked as a guide on the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland. 
The latter experience taught him the value of timing and pacing in telling a story, an important but 
difficult concept to master when creating, frame by frame, animated footage. He won the Student 
Academy Award for the short he made in his junior year, 
Lady and the Lamp
, which showed his 
debt to Disney films and foreshadowed his signature talent for infusing inanimate objects such as 
lamps with human personalities. After graduation he took the job for which he was destined: as an 
animator at Disney Studios.
Except it didn’t work out. “Some of us younger guys wanted to bring 
Star Wars
–level quality 
to the art of animation, but we were held in check,” Lasseter recalled. “I got disillusioned, then I 
got caught in a feud between two bosses, and the head animation guy fired me.” So in 1984 Ed 
Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith were able to recruit him to work where 
Star Wars
–level quality was 
being defined, Lucasfilm. It was not certain that George Lucas, already worried about the cost of 
his computer division, would really approve of hiring a full-time animator, so Lasseter was given 
the title “interface designer.”
After Jobs came onto the scene, he and Lasseter began to share their passion for graphic design. 
“I was the only guy at Pixar who was an artist, so I bonded with Steve over his design sense,” 
Lasseter said. He was a gregarious, playful, and huggable man who wore flowery Hawaiian shirts, 
kept his office cluttered with vintage toys, and loved cheeseburgers. Jobs was a prickly, whip-thin 
vegetarian who favored austere and uncluttered surroundings. But they were actually well-suited 
for each other. Lasseter was an artist, so Jobs treated him deferentially, and Lasseter viewed Jobs, 
correctly, as a patron who could appreciate artistry and knew how it could be interwoven with 
technology and commerce.

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Jobs and Catmull decided that, in order to show off their hardware and software, Lasseter 
should produce another short animated film in 1986 for SIGGRAPH, the annual computer 
graphics conference. At the time, Lasseter was using the Luxo lamp on his desk as a model for 
graphic rendering, and he decided to turn Luxo into a lifelike character. A friend’s young child 
inspired him to add Luxo Jr., and he showed a few test frames to another animator, who urged him 
to make sure he 
told a story. Lasseter said he was making only a short, but the animator reminded him that a 
story can be told even in a few seconds. Lasseter took the lesson to heart. 
Luxo Jr.
ended up being 
just over two minutes; it told the tale of a parent lamp and a child lamp pushing a ball back and 
forth until the ball bursts, to the child’s dismay.
Jobs was so excited that he took time off from the pressures at NeXT to fly down with Lasseter 
to SIGGRAPH, which was being held in Dallas that August. “It was so hot and muggy that when 
we’d walk outside the air hit us like a tennis racket,” Lasseter recalled. There were ten thousand 
people at the trade show, and Jobs loved it. Artistic creativity energized him, especially when it 
was connected to technology.
There was a long line to get into the auditorium where the films were being screened, so Jobs, 
not one to wait his turn, fast-talked their way in first.