To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History

by Lawrence Levy

Overview

“A delightful book about the creation of Pixar from the inside . . . and like a good Pixar film, it’ll put a smile on your face.” —Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times

Winner, Axiom Business Book Award * Fortune Favorite Books of the Year Top Pick * Amazon Best Book of the Year in Business & Leadership

After he was dismissed from Apple in the early 1990s, Steve Jobs turned his attention to a little-known graphics company he owned called Pixar. One day, out of the blue, Jobs called Lawrence Levy, a Harvard-trained lawyer and executive with whom he’d never spoken before. He hoped to persuade Levy to help him pull Pixar back from the brink of failure.

This is the extraordinary story of what happened next: how Jobs and Levy concocted and pulled off a highly improbable plan that transformed Pixar into the Hollywood powerhouse it is today. Levy offers a masterful firsthand account of how Pixar rose from humble beginnings, what it was like to work so closely with Jobs, and how Pixar’s story offers profound lessons that can apply to our professional and personal lives. To Pixar and Beyond reveals how a struggling computer animation company became one of the greatest entertainment studios of all time.

“[A] delightful book about finance, creative genius, workplace harmony, and luck.” —Fortune 

“Part business book and part thriller—a tale that’s every bit as compelling as the ones Pixar tells in its blockbuster movies.” —Dan Lyons, bestselling author of Disrupted

“A natural storyteller . . . an inside look at the business and a fresh, sympathetic view of Jobs.” —Success Magazine

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780544734197
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/19/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	274
Sales rank:	136,147
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

LAWRENCE LEVY is a former Silicon Valley attorney and business executive who was personally recruited by Steve Jobs in 1994 as CFO and member of the Office of the President of Pixar Animation Studios. Levy was responsible for Pixar’s business strategy and IPO and guided Pixar’s transformation from a money-losing graphics company into a multibillion-dollar entertainment studio. He later joined Pixar’s board of directors. Levy left corporate life to study Eastern philosophy and meditation and their relevance to modern life. He now writes and teaches on this topic and cofounded Juniper Foundation to pursue this work. Originally from London, Levy earned degrees from Indiana University and Harvard Law School. He lives with his wife, Hillary, in Palo Alto, California.

 

Editorial Reviews

07/25/2016
Levy, a former Silicon Valley attorney, recounts becoming a confidant of the late Steve Jobs in this engaging memoir. When Levy arrived at Pixar (where Jobs served as chairman) as chief financial officer in February 1995, it was a small but brilliant firm on the edge of failure, not for lack of talent—this was the creative team that had developed the cutting-edge animation behind the still-unreleased Toy Story—but from a lack of business savvy and a deep distrust of Jobs. By believing in Pixar’s future and its people, Levy explains, he and Jobs turned the tide for the struggling company, despite its deeply disadvantageous deal with Disney. The solution, Jobs and Levy realized, was an IPO to garner Pixar more capital. After Pixar’s value skyrocketed to $1.46 billion on its first day of trading and Toy Story became an unexpected success, Pixar could finally renegotiate its deal with Disney, acquiring more creative control and a larger share of the profits. A wildly successful slate of films followed, ultimately leading to the 2006 sale of Pixar to Disney for $7.6 billion. Levy has written a fascinating look at one of the most innovative companies of the early 21st century. Agent: David McCormick, McCormick Literary. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Enchanting...What makes Mr. Levy’s contribution so insightful is not that he plows old ground in greater depth but that he uses his personal story as vehicle to add a new dimension...Mr. Levy’s ability to remain calm and clear-eyed in the face of singular personalities and business challenges translates into a crisp, even elegant, narrative...The power of Mr. Levy’s writing and the success of his management at Pixar are both grounded in the same personal quality that is evident from the earliest pages of To Pixar and Beyond: humility.”
—New York Times

“A lovely and surprising discourse on topics business books rarely touch. Levy is a rare humanist in the world of finance and technology. In describing the pre-IPO, pre-Toy Story Pixar, he captures the fragile and wonderful workplace dynamic anyone who loves their (difficult) job can appreciate... Reading how Levy played go-between is eye-opening and inspiring... This delightful book is about finance, creative genius, workplace harmony, and luck... That’s a lot for one volume by a first-time author with a legal and financial background covering exceedingly well-trod material... Life obviously is about more than business, but few books discuss both so well.”
—Fortune

"Revealing and humanizing ...[A]n epic tale of Levy’s quest to balance the competing interests of the quiet artists and technologists who created Toy Story and the mercurial entrepreneur who controlled their professional fates.” -FortuneFavorite Books of 2016

"[T]here is still an irresistible attraction to the story of Pixar, the little animation studio that could. Lawrence Levy turns it into a charming, upbeat tale – much like one of Pixar’s animated features.” –Financial Times

"A natural storyteller, Levy offers an inside look at the business and a fresh, sympathetic view of Jobs."
—Success Magazine

“Levy has written a fascinating look at one of the most innovative companies of the early 21st century.”
—Publishers Weekly

"A detailed and fascinating peek behind the curtains at Pixar before it became one of the most successful film studios in history.” --Cult of Mac

"Levy is an affable guide who writes with clarity... his account of the inner workings of the company, and the personalities that shaped it into what it has become, is an informative and engaging read." 
—Shelf Awareness

“What a delightful book about the creation of Pixar from the inside. I learned more about Mr. Jobs, Pixar and business in Silicon Valley than I have in quite some time. And like a good Pixar film, it’ll put a smile on your face.”
—Andrew Ross Sorkin in The New York Times 

“I love this book! I think it is brilliant. Of course I am biased, but even so, I think people will love this story—one they didn’t even know existed. And Lawrence has told it beautifully.”
—Ed Catmull, Co-Founder and President Pixar Animation, President Disney Animation, bestselling author of Creativity Inc.

“Lawrence Levy's To Pixar and Beyond is the gripping story of how, through hard work, vision, and a devotion to excellence, tiny Pixar transformed itself into a Hollywood powerhouse. But it’s also something more: a wonderful buddy story—between Levy and Steve Jobs --and how their friendship and partnership transformed them both.”
—William D. Cohan, bestselling author of House of Cards and Money and Power 

“To Pixar and Beyond is a finely sketched insider’s account of the hard-fought success of a pathbreaking company. Lawrence Levy goes surprisingly and refreshingly deep on the business details behind Pixar’s creative achievements. He also shows an intimate side of Steve Jobs that will delight the mercurial businessman’s many admirers.”
—Adam Lashinsky, Assistant Managing Editor of Fortune Magazine and author of Inside Apple

“Lawrence Levy, a former top exec at Pixar, tells the inside story of how a struggling computer animation company became one of the greatest entertainment organizations of all time. To Pixar and Beyond is part business book and part thriller—a tale that’s every bit as compelling as the ones Pixar tells in its blockbuster movies. It's also incredibly inspirational, a story about a team that took big risks and reaped the rewards. This is a must-read book for anyone who cares about corporate culture and wants to learn how to build a business, as well as everyone who loves Woody, Buzz, and all of the other beloved Pixar characters. I loved this book and could not put it down.”
—Dan Lyons, bestselling author of Disrupted

"Levy’s book offers a detailed and fascinating peek behind the curtains at Pixar before it became one of the most successful film studios in history… The book paints an intimate, very human portrait of Jobs, one at odds with more facile accounts of his career. It’s all very relatable." 
—Cult of Mac

"With rich clarity and detail, Levy recounts Pixar’s humble beginnings and astronomical success... Even if the world of finances, business and stocks is alien to the reader, To Pixar and Beyond is a thoroughly engaging and fascinating read. This is attributed to Lawrence Levy’s personable and warm tone. A deep sense of humility characterizes his reflections. This book is an excellent resource for anyone who wishes to learn more about Pixar’s history and the overlooked people responsible for its breakthrough success. Levy also makes a case for how necessary practicality is to a company like Pixar. Just as technology can be wedded to art, so too can business."
—Pixar Planet

From the Publisher

06/15/2016
Hired by Steve Jobs in 1994 as CFO and member of the office of the president of Pixar Animation Studios, Levy crafted a business strategy that helped turn the in-the-red graphics company into a multibillion-dollar entertainment studio. He's told his story to various audiences, but it was Jobs's daughter Lisa who suggested that he turn his talks into a book. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Library Journal

2016-09-19
Pixars former chief financial officer turns in an insiders account of one of the worlds most influential digital media companies.Steve Jobs had made and lost a fortune by the time Levy showed up, having founded and then been ejected from Apple and gone to NeXT. In 1994, his new Pixar digital film company had chewed its way through $50 million of Jobs money with little to show for it. In part thanks to Levys legal skills and analytical powers, Jobs turned that around to become one of the wealthiest people in the world, controlling billions of dollars. The authors account of his dozen years with Jobs follows an unsurprising, almost by-the-numbers trajectory: new guy comes to embattled company, helps company face and then overcome challenges, and finds himself wealthy and powerful but unfulfilledwith the twist that, instead of becoming a celebrity chef or an around-the-world adventurer, Levy winds up a student and then teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. In between the cut-to-standard scaffolding, though, Levys account offers some pleasant moments and insights, including anecdotes on how Toy Story came into being pixel by pixel, a process that helped lure Levy into the company to begin with. (How do I know Im not simply falling for the allure of a high-tech company making a film? he asked a mentor, to which the response, in so many words, was, Dont be a schmuck and go for it.) No mere technocrat, Levy is also good on the details of digital filmmaking, as when he writes of the considerable difficulties involved in rendering skin so that it doesnt look like painted rubber: These are nuances we never think about, he observes, but they are glaringly obvious when they are missing. Thats just so, and theres not much missing herealthough there isnt much in the way of news about Jobs himself, the star of the show. A footnote to Walter Isaacsons Steve Jobs, but not a minor one.

Kirkus Reviews