A Distinctive Taste

We were a hardware company; we didn’t actually have any business doing animation, because there was no money in it,” Catmull says. “We were struggling as a company, but Steve knew that in our hearts, we wanted to do animation, and if there’s one thing Steve understands, it’s passion.” Jobs has said, “Pixar was a money pit for me. I kept putting money into it, and the only bright spot was John’s short films. He’d say, ‘Can I have $300,000 to make a short film?’ And I’d say, ‘OK, go make it.’ That was the only thing that was fun.