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Inside Look at Pixar HQ
LittleGuernica writes "Aintitcool's moriarty has taken a tour of Pixar's Headquarters in Emeryville, California and it just looks astounding. It instantly makes you wanna work there, or at least pimp up your cubicle... Which they don't have at Pixar, no they have cottages! Looks like Pixar created the optimal work condition for such a creative company, which leaves you no choice but to enjoy your job at Pixar every damn minute you work there."
as if I didn't hate my workplace enough already.
CEO position open or something. Maybe they can use some new overlords now that disney is no longer in the animation...
the correct term is pimp out
What a concept! Wow!
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Aaargh! At least you saw the article.. two posts on /. and during that time it's already slashdotted.. where has the world gone.
Not to mention the beautiful effigy of a hanging Mickey Mouse statue in the courtyard...
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
I am working the grill today at McDonalds, I hung up some napkins and drink covers to personalize my space. My boss is real mad, he lacks the creative spark that Steve Jobs has...
It's nice to see the Macs, but Yo Steve! When are you gonna replace the rendering farm with Xserves? We want our films rendered even faster!
Seriously though, given that one can easily approach #3 on the supercomputing list with a bunch of out of the box Xserves, one would expect this to happen at some point after the initial render farm has paid for itself.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
..but sitting here in my cubicle of an office measuring no more than 80 Square feet, with plane white walls and no window, I'm jealous. No wonder they come up with off the wall creative stuff and I sometimes struggle whilst attempting to get the creative juices flowing.
As if we don't get enough Apple stories to keep Apple fanbois happy, here's another Steve Jobs story. /. should change its tagline to "News for Steve Jobs fanbois. Stuff no one else give a rats shit about"
BTW, do they use linux workstations there or SGI? Macs aren't great for animation.
Go ahead, mod me down....apple fags
...and DOWN it goes!
There ought to be a way that BitTorrent could be expanded to regular websites. It's quite possible, except for the legal problems. Perhaps if there were a robots tag specifically allowing this?
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Here's the article cache.
Coral seems to have the file: http://aintitcool.com.nyud.net:8090/display.cgi?id =19658#1
try the google cache speaking of google maybe they could get some 'best work-place' competitions going between the two
Here you go: http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/0b03f1cd74ffa8734 e4dd63a452912b2/index.html/
From what I understand Jobs didn't get his single washroom for the whole building. But I *think* I heard that there is one washroom PER FLOOR instead for the same reason.
I needed my nose rubbed in the fact that I have a shitass job.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
link
There's also some great stuff about that in the second DVD of Finding Nemo.. :)
IIRC, someone's working on a BitTorrent-based HTTP proxy.
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I remember a time, 4 or 5 years ago, when they used to get all of the scoops. It was really the only site you had to go to get the latest news and spoilers about all kinds of cool movies. Today they are a joke. They are the last to report on most stories, if they report on them at all, and I can't remeber the last time they had a really interesting exclusive about any of the movies I really care about. You haven't been able to register for the talkback for almost a year. McWeeny's latest X-Men 3 "scoop" was something to the effect of "I know who will direct X-Men 3 but I can't tell you". It's nothing like it used to be, which is a shame, because I used to love that site.
Well, with Steve Jobs, you better, becuase you'll be working there every damn minute of your waking life.
Apple T-shirts: working 90 hours a week and loving it!
"your cubicle... Which they don't have at Pixar, no they have cottages"
:p
Are those like cubicals with a roof? Doesnt that mean that when they run out of space they can just turn them into houses and high rises, by stacking them
but Pixar keeps its staff in them
It fills the quarter jars pretty quickly though.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
Big deal.
Check out the 'behind the scenes at pixar' special feature on any Pixar DVD. The same stuff + 50.
I remember years ago going to SIGGRAPH and Pixar had this little booth off in the back. Ed Catmull was there manning the cash-box to where you could buy a videotape of their few animated shorts they had made up to that point.
Ed freaking Catmull was taking my bucks and sticking a videotape into a bag for me. I know, geek worship here, but this is Ed Catmull we're talking about.
Now look at Pixar!
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
"I talked with a couple of guys who were also waiting there in the lobby, guys working with Pixar on an ancillary project. They sounded just as excited talking about the company as I'm sure I did, and it struck me: for hardcore animation fans, Pixar plays the same role that the Beatles must have for music fans in the '60s. We are living in a golden age, watching true giants in their primes, and each new film they put out is a joy because of the incredibly high genre defining standards that they hold themselves to."
Nothing's worse than hearing a line like this and knowing that it's only a relatively few years down the line before the wrong type of management takes over, and the public ends up with just another Disney that churns out the same type of rehashed stories to make a quick buck, and marry it with hurried animation carried on the backs of the overworked "Cottage" dwellers. Pixar is certainly a fine example of a company with more on their mind than the bottom line, and one that understands that happy workers are productive and creative workers, but it won't last. I'm sure we can all think of many companbies offhand that fell from such a height (I believe HP was featured recently on Slashdot.)
As a bit of an aside, Google may one day fall too. We can all hope that this won't come to pass, as Google symbolizes and displays pretty much every virtue that a techie could want in a company and it would be nice to see the proverbial good guys hold their own, for once. Perhaps their hiring practices will help protect against it. Once again, though, all it will take is a bad, short-sighted management and stock-holders that think only of the coming quarter and not several years down the line. Thinking down the line is how Pixar and Google came to rightfully stand on the pedastals that they now do (and hopefully will for years to come.)
is a concept that many companies don't understand. They stress, over and over, the idea of customer satisfaction, customer service, and friendly employees. I worked in retail for nine years and we were told day after day to smile, be friendly, be helpful, and care for the customer. But I found, day after day, that my employer was not willing to extend the same courtesies to me and the other employees.
I believe that if a company's employees enjoy their job, they will gladly serve the customers, help the customers, and extend that sense of friendliness without being prodded and told to do so.
http://www.walkingtaco.com
Wow, what a cool looking place to work, I mean you can make your own space, nice furniture, spacious - OMFG - is that a Garfield doll ?! What kind of mindless idiots do they have working there?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Cottages? Do they go cottaging in them?
Given AICN's reporting techniques in the past, I wouldn't trust anything that "Moriarity" says.
If you catch them in summer repeats, you'll see a fun place to work.
Lots of Brits will be smirking at the use of the term "cottages". It has a rather unfortunate slang meaning here.
To be able to shut out Chatty Kathy who's cell phone rings ten times and plays la-cookaracha and gets louder and louder when she doesn't answer it or Dum and Dummer who need to have a discussion at my desk when Dummer has his own office.
Do they have thatched roofs? Do you get burninated instead of fired?
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Anyone remember reading the Jobs bio a while back that mentioned how in the early Apple days (on Bandley Drive) Steve used to walk around barefoot? And how he used to give himself foot massages in the toilet?
because you see more of how great the company is. I'd love to work there as a developer on Pixar Renderman after I graduate.
Hahahahaha
Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting someone else to do the work. --John G. Pollard
As any true Brit can tell you, those are SHEDS.
That was classic intercourse!
Personally, I'm not to interested in talking to other guys when I'm standing around with my dick in my hand.
No offense, and I'm sure that much of the coolness of Pixar emanates from the creativity of the people who work there and the laxity of the 'corporate culture'; however, unless you work there you shouldn't presume that it is 'fun' because of the workplace. It certainly APPEARS to be a fun place to work ;).
:). Makes it easier to empathize with children as an adult if you're not surround by grey cubicle walls, LOL.
I've worked in startups in old gymnasiums in the Mission District in San Fran and I've worked in plush corporate offices with EVERY amenity (massages, shoe shiners, crazy weird stuff...) and job satisfaction was related to the working space for no one at these two companies.
That being said, it certainly looks nice
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I just watched the extras on "The Incredibles" DVD yesterday and it contains a whole bunch of interviews inside the offices. All the "cottages" are clear along with some interesting insight into the personalities there. Nice stuff around, but it looked to me like some were difficult people to work with. The hazards of genius, I guess.
When AppleLink Personal Edition morphed into America Online, some of us making the switch were beta-testers - we got a special disk with the client SW on it, and were to use it for a few months at half price as their way of thanking us, after which we'd get the real disk with the full release / full price client. Another few months went by, then I got a call from the main office, Steve Case called to let me know that the 'full' client was NG and had been still charging us the beta rate, and could I please send them a check for the amount I'd already spent with them in the last oh, 6 months?
Um, no - but I will send you six checks, a month at a time. He thought that might work. I asked how many of us this had affected - a dozen? Yes. Hundreds? Yes. Thousands? Look , that's not the point. So I methodically settled up, and once the full client began to suck wind, I ended up elsewhere...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Hmm... you know its bad when even the coral link is slow. What?! Are you all so miserable at your current jobs?! Yeah, me too... click... click... click
was considerably less exciting when Sybase inhabited it (I should know, I was one of the residents), and even less exciting when it was a United States Postal Service sorting center. Now all the 'dudes' that work there just skateboard over to the chill out room and jam on the electric guitar to blow off steam. Back in the day they blew off steam with FULLY AUTOMATIC MACHINE GUNS in a little ritual we know as 'going postal'. Oh , and speaking of 'cottaging' one of the bay area's more infamous cruising spots is literally around the corner from pixar hq, so the name may be appropriate given the locale.
Well if you're already stuck in a 60 hour work week maybe it wouldn't make a difference, but what kind of hours do these people need to put in to get their stuff done? Are they given all of their amenities so they never need to leave? Vacation? Go outside?
Whenever a potential employer starts racking up the extra 'amenities', I start to wonder what kind of thing they want in exchange.
I'll just take the money, thank you very much.
because when the crunch comes down, they put in some serious hours. Really serious hours. Even pixar has deadlines in the end.
I'm sure having that sort of work area helps a lot though, as does the masseuse who comes around givng back rubs, etc etc..
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Can't we do without moronic MTV type rap BS phrases here on $lashdot?
"Nothing's worse than hearing a line like this and knowing that it's only a relatively few years down the line before the wrong type of management takes over, and the public ends up with just another Disney that churns out the same type of rehashed stories to make a quick buck, and marry it with hurried animation carried on the backs of the overworked "Cottage" dwellers."
That's why you don't take a company public.
Private: Satisfy yourself.
Public:Satisfy someone else.
and here's the pic
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
Look at him signing autographs at Pixar (and the commment.. priceless)
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
Apple switched their rendering farm to OSX machines early last year, at least according to this article. Slashdot discussion thread here.
Opterons have a better bang/buck ratio than any Apple product, and I say this as one who enjoys his powerbook immensly (of course, I also enjoy my Linux boxes, and my Linux partition on my powerbook).
This is Steve Jobs, though. He can probably get Xserves for Pixar at cost from Apple.
Then he'd be stealing from one set of stockholders to pad the pockets of another set. Unless Pixar becomes a division of apple in an official, complete merger, doing something like this would be a very bad idea. There's good reason companies keep separate books (and often separate stocks) even when they are conglomerated together.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
And while we're on the Steve Jobs praise, don't be so quick to commend him on developing the great environment at Pixar. The truth is (as you'll see in the link) that Jobs bought the Pixar in 1995, sold it to become a billionaire and left the original technical founders with almost squat (in fact, he ran off co-founder Alvy Ray Smith). Yeah, this is a guy only concerned about the employees.
The fact is that Pixar had a family atmosphere before Jobs got there and Jobs in fact tried to destroy it. Jobs was the PHB that many so readily (and rightfully) deride, yet for some reason his reality distortion field is such that it allows him to escape much criticism and be hailed as a genius. He may be a genius, but probably not the kind you want to be around if you don't have to be.
(massages, shoe shiners, crazy weird stuff...)
You've got me hooked, what was that "crazy weird stuff"?
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
I was wondering why I was having a hard time browsing AICN -- Damn you slashdot effect....damn yooooouuuuuuuu! *shakes fists at the sky*
The credits of each Pixar film include the names of the babies born to staff families during production.
So, they must get _some_ time off - or now we know what they do with the cottages.
I just emailed my buddy back at Dreamworks (identity protected!) and here is what he said about what it's like at Dreamworks... - The pixar tour site is slashdotted, so I don't know what they have. We have: large offices, with doors, with one or two people per office fountains, park-like areas, waterfalls, lagoon area, courtyards, etc. Southern California weather free breakfast free lunch (relatively gormet, with usually two or three entree options) free well-stocked snacks (fruit, chips, candy, ice cream, etc) free tea, coffee, soda, juice, etc. $20/month health insurance for my whole family free movies, about 2-6 per month, often well before public release lots of gaming options around campus (pool, ping pong, darts, foosball, shuffleboard (table version), street hockey, etc. free gifts from time to time (ranging from shirts and DVDs to digital cameras and stock)
I think you are generalizing all liberals and inappropriately. Yes, there are some on the way way way far left that think capitalism is a bad thing, but most folks liberal or not know it is the best system out there.
I consider myself to be a very liberal person. I believe that us as people OWN common resources such as the land, water, air, electro-magnetic spectrum, etc. Do I think captialism is bad? No. But it is not a perfect system.
I think you would see a lot less anti-capitalism rhetoric from people if the desire for accountability extended all the way to the top of a company.
When you have people like Ken Lay, Bernad Ebbers, Andrew Fastow, John Rigas, and Dennis Kozlowski still not in jail for their crimes it does lead one to question our system. Why is a white collar criminal that takes BILLIONS of dollars often punished less than the piece of garbage that stol a carton of cigarettes from the local convenience store?
This becomes even more relevant with the President wanting to create private investment accounts. If my social security money is diverted into a public fund like that you can bet damn well I want anyone that is stealing money from me held accountable to the fullest.
Steve Jobs is CEO, and no way shareholders would want him leaving.
Jobs has said that "Pixar is the most technically creative company, while Apple is the most creatively technical company."
Let's see... Birthday parties where they hired entertainment (there was a BIZARRO clown one time), Dim Sum service once a month (it was really crappy Dim Sum, I mean, how could it be good if you had to cart it around town?), Yoga classes in one of the conference rooms, an aborted attempt at a company sponsored sailing club.
It was as if we had a tour director on the Liedo (sp?) deck... LOL.
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Which shareware programs used at Pixar? I would bet for Graphics Converter by Lemke for instance. http://www.lemkesoft.com/en/index.htm
Also it would be funny if they used haxies on those evil big macs.
Your post really makes terrible use of every single buzzword, Leftists, Capitalism, Rulling class etc.
It seems that you have very strong preconceived ideas about their meanings. But at the end they are all wrong.
Left and Right are just labels of two opposite sides of power and cannot, should not, be used to brand any particular set of ideologies in an universal way. In my home country for instance. We have a Right wing liberal goverment (I am not kidding you). And during the early 90's we had a "neo" Liberal goverment that was all in favor of free markets, changed the constitution to allow
religios freedom and dissolved congress.
So you see, your post makes no sense to me at all, because in my own epistemologic system, Left and Right don't mean the same thing that in yours.
Perhaps if you cared to provide more detailed definitions in your rants, your post would be taken more seriously.
Fortunately, all those jokers will have their day in jail; Ebbers was just convicted, and he'll have jail time to deal with shortly.
And recall that it was under this President that these jokers were "found out". It was under the last one when they created the havoc they did.
And I say good riddance. They should all go to jail.
As for investment accounts, the accounts are not forced. You have a choice about whether you want to invest in them or not. If you don't trust it, then don't have one created. Simple as that.
Personally, I'd like a system like Congress itself has, where they DO have private investment accounts. I'm sure that if more people knew about that, or better yet, we were able to take those AWAY from Congress, there would be a lot of screaming going on.
I love it!
... someday ... I'm sure of it.
Someone with half a brain gave me a -1 rating. While this person punching their proverbial (or maybe not proverbial) time cards to flag another poster a Troll, and kissing the bosses backside one more time so they can live their dream of retiring with a big pension at 65 (or maybe it will be 70 by then?), I'll be building yet another business that will earn me passive income so I can enjoy a trip to Hawaii whenever I feel like it.
Keep up the good work, Mods! You'll be rewared
I love my workplace.
Not sure which I love more:
- The whips in the morning
- The acid bath after the afternoon "Resource Meeting"
- Or the vodka to help me sleep at night
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
PHB: We've been saying that our people are our most important asset for years, but our recent inventory shows that's not true.
Dilbert: Really? Where do we rank?
PHB: 17th.
Dilbert: 17th!?
PHB: Yes. Just below carbon paper.
Man, it almost makes you wish they'd just come out and say the truth:
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Before anyone burns a "redundant" mod point against my karma, though, would they consider the "sincerest form of flattery" argument first? Please? Pretty please??
Didn't think so...
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Is your link hosed or your cache?
I'm getting a page saying there no cache there.
Can anyone post a working one?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Two bits:
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Yes, there are some on the way way way far left that think capitalism is a bad thing, but most folks liberal or not know it is the best system out there.
I wouldn't say I *know* that. I would paraphrase what Winston Churchill said about democracy: It's the worst system out there, except for the others we've tried.
Pixar is an outlier. You can find examples of luxury in any economic system. The Soviets did a pretty good job with the Moscow subway, and I wouldn't have objected to living under their system, provided I had a high rank in the Party. I wouldn't have minded feudalism, either, provided I was a lord.
Sweatshops are the norm for unregulated capitalism--not something to take a lot of pride in. Under our system of regulated capitalism, safe mediocrity is the norm. Not ideal, but quite a bit better than most of the alternatives.
Pixar created the optimal work condition for such a creative company
Not only that. because I work there my penis is now 10 inches long and I can lick my eyebrows too... and all without CGI assistance.
Your "Quality is Job 36" was enough to excuse your mistake. Plus, when I read with highest scores first, it looks like the other guy was the redundant one, since you have a Karma bonus over him.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Unfortuantely, there's the whole timestamp issue.
In any case, I'm glad you like "Quality is Job 36." I'm thinking of having it tatooed on my forehead. Better yet, perhaps I should get a chloroform soaked rag and hide in the shadows in the executive parking lot. Now, that would be one amusing police report and mug shot for The Smoking Gun
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
A friend of mine was visiting San Francisco and while driving across the Golden Gate Bridge saw a big expensive Mercedes Benz with the license plate PIXAR. Knowing I was a huge fan of Steve Jobs she called me to tell me. I told her to describe him. She said he had a beard and was wearing a dress shirt. I realized it couldn't be Jobs because he wasn't sporting a beard at the time and wouldn't be wearing a dress shirt. I realized it was probably Ed Catmull.
Then my friend starts going "Ewwwww Ewww Ewww!" I asked what happend. "He's picking his nose! I mean he is really digging!" Ed Catmull picks his nose!
"It's the shoes."
They've been on KPIX news many times so I'm well familiar with the facilities.
First of all, in the movie business you're only as good as your last movie. It's real percarious in places like that, not good when owing $1000 on rent every month.
Secondly, doesn't your gut tell you there's way too much open space in that place? If having so much unused space on the most expensive land in the entire world seems a bit inefficient, imagine how inefficient their other practices are.
The reason u.s. can stay afloat despite having the world's largest trade deficit and the world's largest federal deficit is that every single u.s. dollar is spent in the most efficient way possible. Pixar just doesn't seem even remotely efficient enough to be viable.
I'm curious however. Those of you who point the finger at Michael Eisner for the way Disney has become such a shambles in the last decade... you also give no credit to Jobs at Pixar? Either the CEO gets credit/blame or not. If you hold those two views (and I bet there are plenty here who do) then you should consider why you accept such an obvious double-standard.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Is this the part where we talk about how fat Harry is?
Seriously though, I agree, the site has gone downhill in terms of the quality of the scoops. Part of it may be getting too close to the creators, but I think a lot of it is that the site (and others like it) was too good at their job and the movie inustry has tightened up their process so there are a lot fewer leaks and information in general is just hard to come by.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Ebbers not in jail? You Bush-supporters are all alike. You'll lie to make your point. We'll, you can't tell the truth so you just lie.
Actually, McWeeny's latest X-MEN 3 scoop was that Matthew Vaughn would be announced as the director. Which he was. Today. A week and a half later. We break plenty of exclusive content. I've been responsible for a fair percentage of it already this year. And our traffic (even on days we're not Slashdotted) is at an all-time high. I think the site is better now than it ever has been, and will continue to improve. If you really think we don't have any exclusive content, then you aren't paying attention.
Secondly, doesn't your gut tell you there's way too much open space in that place? If having so much unused space on the most expensive land in the entire world seems a bit inefficient, imagine how inefficient their other practices are.
:)
"Open" doesn't necessarily mean "unused."
The fact that it's not a tightly-packed cube farm is the whole point.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
It's been like 6 months ....