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."

Comments

Macs

[BWJones]

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.

One bathroom in the whole building

[xylix]

As the article mentioned, when the building was being constructed Steve Jobs wanted to have one bathroom (I assume one for each sex) in the entire building. I used to teach business in a college and used to have an article about Pixar that I got my students to read that mentioned this fact. I would then try to get them to decide why Jobs wanted this. (The linked article doesn't give an explanation.) Apparently, his thinking was that it would facilitate communication and creativity. If everyone had to walk THROUGH everyone else's space and all gather in the same place there would be more interaction and cross-pollination of ideas. (I included this reading in a unit on "synergy" in business!)

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.

Re:One bathroom in the whole building

[LocoMan]

I think the building wasn't built by them.. or at least not entirely (maybe it was redesigned or expanded later, though). Not too long ago there was a 3D related event here in Venezuela and two of the people invited were from Pixar, one of them was talking about how is life there, and one of the things he mentioned was the "love lounge".

Basically he said that when Pixar was starting and they moved in, there was a "missing space" in the building next to John Lassetter's office. As it Turns out, that missing space was a 2 by 2 meters (or so) room where they had the huge (and very old) air conditioning unit that wasn't being used anymore, so they removed it and had a small door (about a meter tall) cut in the wall, and then they pimped out the place with a nice sound system, a disco ball and lots of other stuff, and most celebrities that visit Pixar are invited to have a drink and sign the wall there. They also show it on the second DVD of Finding Nemo.

Re:One bathroom in the whole building

[Linker3000]

...hmmm...go have a look at the end credits of a Pixar film - they list 'production babies' - children born to staff during the making of the film - there usually quite a few!!!

They've come a LONG way

[sgant]

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!

behind the scenes of "The Incredibles"

[ctrudeau]

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.

While I'm sure Pixar is a nice place to work...

[Bamafan77]

...I can't help but think some of the stuff they do for their employees is part media sensation. So while I think Pixar would treat their employees very well regardless, I think they go the extra mile because they know the media and their camera crews will be there (in this specific case, moriarty and his digital camera) and they know they'll (along with the public) flip out when they see the atrium with the statues of Pixar characters.

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.

Re:While I'm sure Pixar is a nice place to work...

[Bamafan77]

"Steve Jobs is still CEO of Pixar, he did not sell it and leave."

In fact he *did* sell Pixar. He sold it to himself and named the new company Pixar. The deal was approved because he was majority shareholder in both companies. The deal was done of course to screw over the employees.

I'm sure Pixar is a great place to work and the salary is and benefits follow this. But it's all relative, right? Financially, the engineers and founders who made Pixar were exploited by Jobs. Many of engineeers who spent years building the company got nothing, while most others got a fraction of their true value.

There is no doubt that Jobs deserved significant financial return since he invested $50 million over the course of 10 years, but some of his actions were exploitation pure and simple. But that's all old news and has been nicely swept under the rug.

Re:Treating employees like human beings?

[Tassach]

Most of us are human beings, each with the same built in potential

Nice pep talk, but it's bullshit. Different people have different levels of potential. It takes more than dedication and hard work to excel in a given field -- it takes natural ability, which is not distributed equally.

I'm a decent engineer; if I was sufficiently motivated I could possibly be a great one. But I could never, no matter how hard I tried, become a professional baseball player, because I just don't have the natural ability in that area. Conversely, I seriously doubt that the average major-league baseball player has the aptitude to become an engineer.