At one point the members of the Pixar animation team were trying to convince Intel to let them make some of its commercials, and Jobs became impatient. During a meeting, in the midst of berating an Intel marketing director, he picked up the phone and called CEO Andy Grove directly. Grove, still playing mentor, tried to teach Jobs a lesson: He supported his Intel manager. “I stuck by my employee,” he recalled. “Steve doesn’t like to be treated like a supplier.”

皮克斯動畫團隊曾一度試圖說服英特爾公司，希望承接對方的部分商業廣告制作業務。然而，喬布斯沒有一點兒耐性。一次會議上，喬布斯正痛斥英特爾的營銷總監，說到一半又拿起電話，直接打給英特爾的CEO安迪·格魯夫。格魯夫在某種程度上仍然算是喬布斯的老師，他想要給喬布斯上一課，他支持英特爾公司的經理?！拔抑С肿约旱膯T工，”他回憶道，“史蒂夫不喜歡被當做供應商來對待?！?/span>

Grove also played mentor when Jobs proposed that Pixar give Intel suggestions on how to improve the capacity of its processors to render 3-D graphics. When the engineers at Intel accepted the offer, Jobs sent an email back saying Pixar would need to be paid for its advice. Intel’s chief engineer replied, “We have not entered into any financial arrangement in exchange for good ideas for our microprocessors in the past and have no intention for the future.” Jobs forwarded the answer to Grove, saying that he found the engineer’s response to be “extremely arrogant, given Intel’s dismal showing in understanding computer graphics.” Grove sent Jobs a blistering reply, saying that sharing ideas is “what friendly companies and friends do for each other.” Grove added that he had often freely shared ideas with Jobs in the past and that Jobs should not be so mercenary. Jobs relented. “I have many faults, but one of them is not ingratitude,” he responded. “Therefore, I have changed my position 180 degrees—we will freely help. Thanks for the clearer perspective.”

Pixar was able to create some powerful software products aimed at average consumers, or at least those average consumers who shared Jobs’s passion for designing things. Jobs still hoped that the ability to make super-realistic 3-D images at home would become part of the desktop publishing craze. Pixar’s Showplace, for example, allowed users to change the shadings on the 3-D objects they created so that they could display them from various angles with appropriate shadows. Jobs thought it was incredibly compelling, but most consumers were content to live without it. It was a case where his passions misled him: The software had so many amazing features that it lacked the simplicity Jobs usually demanded. Pixar couldn’t compete with Adobe, which was making software that was less sophisticated but far less complicated and expensive.

皮克斯針對普通消費者市場，或者至少是認同喬布斯對于設計的狂熱之情的消費群體，創造出了一些強大的軟件產品。喬布斯仍然希望，在家中創作超級逼真的3D圖像能夠成為桌面排版熱潮的一部分。例如，皮克斯的Showplace軟件，用戶能夠用它改變3D物體的陰影，這樣，在不同的角度下，能以適當的陰影展現出現實物體的模樣。喬布斯覺得這個軟件很酷，但是大多數消費者覺得這種功能可有可無。喬布斯的激情誤導了自己，Showplace軟件就是一個例證：該軟件擁有如此多神奇的功能，但卻缺少喬布斯一向要求的簡單性。皮克斯無法與Adobe公司競爭，后者做的軟件并不像Showplace那樣高級，但更簡單，也更便宜。

Even as Pixar’s hardware and software product lines foundered, Jobs kept protecting the animation group. It had become for him a little island of magical artistry that gave him deep emotional pleasure, and he was willing to nurture it and bet on it. In the spring of 1988 cash was running so short that he convened a meeting to decree deep spending cuts across the board. When it was over, Lasseter and his animation group were almost too afraid to ask Jobs about authorizing some extra money for another short. Finally, they broached the topic and Jobs sat silent, looking skeptical. It would require close to $300,000 more out of his pocket. After a few minutes, he asked if there were any storyboards. Catmull took him down to the animation offices, and once Lasseter started his show—displaying his boards, doing the voices, showing his passion for his product—Jobs started to warm up.

即使皮克斯的硬件和軟件產品線都失敗了，喬布斯也還會保護著動畫團隊。對他來說，這已經是一個擁有魔力的藝術之島，能給予他深層次的情感愉悅，他愿意培養它，為它賭上一把。1988年春，資金實在太緊張了，于是他召集了一次痛苦的會議，宣布全面深度削減開支。會議結束后，拉塞特及其動畫團隊十分害怕，幾乎不敢再向喬布斯要更多的錢來拍攝另一部短片。但最后，他們還是提起了這個話題，喬布斯靜靜地坐著，滿臉疑慮。如果同意這個項目，他就得再從自己腰包里掏出近30萬美元。過了一會兒，喬布斯問他們是否已有了故事板?？ㄌ啬聽枎麃淼絼赢嬣k公室，拉塞特立即開始了自己的表演——展示故事板，自己配音，盡情地展現對自己產品的激情，喬布斯被感染了。故事是關于拉塞特的心愛之物，經典玩具。

The story was about Lasseter’s love, classic toys. It was told from the perspective of a toy one-man band named Tinny, who meets a baby that charms and terrorizes him. Escaping under the couch, Tinny finds other frightened toys, but when the baby hits his head and cries, Tinny goes back out to cheer him up.

故事以一個單人樂隊玩具小錫兵（Tinny）的視角展開，它遇見了一個讓自己又愛又怕的人類小寶寶。逃到沙發下后，小錫兵發現其他玩具也被嚇壞了躲進這里。但是，當小寶寶撞到頭后，小錫兵又爬出來哄他開心。

Jobs said he would provide the money. “I believed in what John was doing,” he later said. “It was art. He cared, and I cared. I always said yes.” His only comment at the end of Lasseter’s presentation was, “All I ask of you, John, is to make it great.”

喬布斯表示自己會提供資金?！拔铱春眉s翰在做的東西，”他后來說道，“那是藝術，是他關心的東西，也是我關心的東西。我總是同意他的計劃。”看完拉塞特的單人表演展示后，喬布斯只說了一句活，“我只要求一件事，約翰，把它做好?！?/span>

Tin Toy went on to win the 1988 Academy Award for animated short films, the first computer-generated film to do so. To celebrate, Jobs took Lasseter and his team to Greens, a vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco. Lasseter grabbed the Oscar, which was in the center of the table, held it aloft, and toasted Jobs by saying, “All you asked is that we make a great movie.”

《錫鐵小兵》（TinToy）贏得了1988年奧斯卡最佳動畫短片獎，這是首部獲此殊榮的電腦制作動畫短片。為了慶祝，喬布斯帶著拉塞特和整個制作團隊來到綠地餐廳——舊金山一家素食館。拉塞特抓起放在桌子中央的小金人，舉得髙髙的，向喬布斯敬酒道：“你所有的要求，便是要我們做一部偉大的電影?！?/span>

The new team at Disney—Michael Eisner the CEO and Jeffrey Katzenberg in the film division—began a quest to get Lasseter to come back. They liked Tin Toy, and they thought that something more could be done with animated stories of toys that come alive and have human emotions. But Lasseter, grateful for Jobs’s faith in him, felt that Pixar was the only place where he could create a new world of computer-generated animation. He told Catmull, “I can go to Disney and be a director, or I can stay here and make history.” So Disney began talking about making a production deal with Pixar. “Lasseter’s shorts were really breathtaking both in storytelling and in the use of technology,” recalled Katzenberg. “I tried so hard to get him to Disney, but he was loyal to Steve and Pixar. So if you can’t beat them, join them. We decided to look for ways we could join up with Pixar and have them make a film about toys for us.”

迪士尼的新團隊——CEO邁克爾·艾斯納，電影部門主管杰弗里·卡曾伯格（JeffreyKatzenberg）——開始要求拉塞特重回迪士尼。他們喜歡《錫鐵小兵》，認為這種動畫故事——讓玩具擁有生命和人類的感情——還有很大的發揮余地。但是，拉塞特感激喬布斯對自己的信任，認為皮克斯才是自己能夠創作電腦動畫的唯一地方。他告訴卡特穆爾，“我可以去迪士尼，在那兒做個總監；或者留在這兒，譜寫歷史?！庇谑牵鲜磕岱催^來開始接觸皮克斯，希望簽署制作協議?！盁o論是從講故事還是從技術運用的層面上來看，拉塞特的動畫短片真的令人嘆為觀止，”卡曾伯格回憶說，“我非常努力想讓他回到迪士尼，但是他忠于史蒂夫和皮克斯。如果你打不過對方，那么就加入他們。我們決定找出能夠加入皮克斯的方法，讓他們為迪士尼制作關于玩具的電影。”

By this point Jobs had poured close to $50 million of his own money into Pixar—more than half of what he had pocketed when he cashed out of Apple—and he was still losing money at NeXT. He was hard-nosed about it; he forced all Pixar employees to give up their options as part of his agreement to add another round of personal funding in 1991. But he was also a romantic in his love for what artistry and technology could do together. His belief that ordinary consumers would love to do 3-D modeling on Pixar software turned out to be wrong, but that was soon replaced by an instinct that turned out to be right: that combining great art and digital technology would transform animated films more than anything had since 1937, when Walt Disney had given life to Snow White.

至此，喬布斯已經在皮克斯投入了近5000萬美元，占其離開蘋果時所拿到錢的一半以上，而NeXT公司當時還在虧錢。對此，他非常精明實際。1991年，喬布斯強迫皮克斯所有員工放棄期杈，作為交換，他會再投入一筆私人資金。不過，對于藝術和科技融合所能做出的成就，喬布斯卻傾注了浪漫之愛。他曾認為，普通消費者會喜歡用皮克斯的軟件來制作3D圖形，但現實并非如此。不過替代的是他直覺上的先見之明，那就是自1937年迪士尼公司拍出《白雪公主》后，再沒有比讓藝術和數字技術相融合能給動畫電影帶來更大變革的了。

Looking back, Jobs said that, had he known more, he would have focused on animation sooner and not worried about pushing the company’s hardware or software applications. On the other hand, had he known the hardware and software would never be profitable, he would not have taken over Pixar. “Life kind of snookered me into doing that, and perhaps it was for the better.”

喬布斯表示，回首過去，如果自己能知道得更多，就會更早地專注于動畫，而不會費心去推動皮克斯的硬件和軟件應用。但另一方面，如果喬布斯早就知道硬件和軟件都不會贏利，那么他也不會接手皮克斯。“命運似乎誘騙我去做這件事，而這也許是為了把它做得更好。”