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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."
Coral seems to have the file: http://aintitcool.com.nyud.net:8090/display.cgi?id =19658#1
Hey, common you can treat people like crap, they'll do a good job in return and not just the absolute minimum! Honest!
Keep in mind during the dotcom boom many actually creative/innovative/perhaps not business worthy companies actually had things like real break areas, creative cubicles, music, gaming time, gyms, etc...
Now all those things are "anti-productive" and evil again...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
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 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.
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
What a concept! Wow!
Of course, if the average people employed (or employable) by the average business could ever, ever come close to being as smart, inspired, productive, and profitable as the army of PhDs and 140+ IQ types at Pixar, then we'd have more reason to wonder why the average employer doesn't look more like Pixar. But every company cannot have Pixar's capital (intellectual or financial) - there just aren't that many people of that caliber adrift looking for (and able) to do that sort of work. Hell, there isn't really even a market for more than a couple more Pixars, per se.
So, the uncomfortable truth: most of us (myself very definately included) are way, way too mediocre to demand the costs (which are way higher than the paycheck) that Pixar has to cover to keep a body around, productive, and happy. It's like looking at the New York Yankees and wondering why your farm-league team's locker room isn't just as nice, and why it's take-the-bus instead of take-the-Gulfstream.
Native talent. Raw brain horsepower. Big up-front financial investment. Hugely lucrative actual results. That's what enables that tech Valhalla you see at Pixar. Sure, you could have all of those things, treat people like crap, and then chase off all of that talent in about 6 months... but they're smarter than that. But what about all of the folks who try to get jobs at Pixar and just don't cut it? They, like me, toil in less idyllic environments, for less cash, with less cool office lighting, and with fewer Mr. Fusion-powered robo-scooters bringing them cardemom-enhanced lattes for "free." Oh well! It would all fall down if they didn't use their one-in-million people to make exceptional products. The other 999,999 of us per million get to have regular jobs, sometimes managed by average people without a large budget (because the average workers don't generally produce the above-average revenue that make fantasy office environments an asset rather than a liability).
If we only had a foosball table for every average office worker that deserved better... oh, wait.. we did! And we financed them with crashed dot-com stocks! There's a reason that didn't work out except for a handful of Pixars and their equivalents in other areas (Google, et al).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.
My employer recently had a "human capital" survey to get our opinions on work conditions. I wanted to tell them that calling us "employees" or even "human beings" would be a good step in the right direction. Even the term "resources" is slightly better than "capital". Unfortunately, I wasn't in the survey.
I think you're giving Pixar too much credit. Sure they hire smart, talented, people. But one difference is that they're not all exactly IT people, they're artists, IT folks, directors, voice actors, etc. Just some of the jobs are IT and Technology related, everyone else works with technology.
The really appear to have setup a great culture to create great movies. The work environment is part of that. However, there are many people who would like to see movies more often from Pixar and maybe see TV cartoons from Pixar with their characters. But they don't do that, they have a commitment to quality that goes beyond most other movie studios and in fact most other companies. And they know that to get that quality they have to trust their people and have to work collaboratively. It just amazes me watching their making of and listening to their commentaries on their DVD's how much of a team effort it is to bring their movies to life.
Its all about culture. The difference here is that pixar looks like it does because it hasen't succumbed to that "gotta make a profit this quarter" culture that currently pervades American business. Thats what makes other jobs suck, everybody says they hire the best people, Pixar just appears to treat them better.
Should we tell Pixar that, here in Britain, 'cottagers' are men who go looking for rough sex with other men in public lavatories (cottages)?
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
You make a greater point than your parent in this thread. The reality is Pixar has an environment like that because you need an environment like that to do the things they do.
I work for a defense contractor. I couldn't imagine what our office would be like if it were like Pixars. In our office everyone wants their own office, they want a hardwood desk, book shelf, maybe an extra table. Everyone is allowed to bring in their own decorations but what you see are diplomas, family pictures, awards, certifications, some books, and a whole lot of business materials.
It's quite possibly the most dull and sedated atmosphere I've ever been in, but it's what works. We're not looking for creativity as much as "by the numbers". They work at work and they play at home.
An acquaintance of mine has a small startup of ~20 people (mostly part-timers) and it's dependent on creativity. So despite their small budget their office is set up to foster an amazingly different environment than ours.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
Are you always so negative?
Actually, I don't think I was being negative at all - just realistic. Being negative is what I was responding to - the implication that if only the average employee was treated differently he/she'd actually be smarter, more creative, etc. I don't buy that, not in so many words. Truly crappy work environments certainly taint creativity, but truly great environments can only do so much to make a non-creative person a creative rock star (which is to say, not much at all if you're not already that kind of person).
Most of us are human beings, each with the same built in potential.
That, I definately don't buy. Even if we were to stipulate that at birth, everyone has the same capacity for the type of work that makes a Pixar shine, by the time that people are in their 20's and 30's, and filling in that job application at Pixar/Google/wherever, life has happened to them. They have (or have not) been intellectually nurtured, have (or have not) had the discipline to polish their critical and creative thinking skills, have (or have not) spent their time in a way that prepared them for a job as challenging as a gig at a top-flight shop. We do not all arrive at the human resources office "equal" in our potential. A prospective employer's choice of decor and office culture will not make up for the substantial differences in experience and intellect that truly do exist, no matter how politically incorrect that may sound.
Point of interest: I'm going to say that my brother and I are probably equally bright and creative. But our characters, academic histories, and pursuits have been different enough that we've cut ourselves out for different activities. He actually does work at Pixar, and is definately thriving there. I'm more of an IT cowboy, and it brings me to different sorts of work. The specific character traits and skills that work for me in my setting are definately at odds with what's working for him (and thus, for Pixar, too). So, the point is: our potential to be valuable to Pixar is substantially different, just as our potential to be valuable to my customers (a more 1-on-1 consulting type audience) is different. We couldn't switch jobs now, and I don't think we could have switched paths years ago, either. Made of different stuff!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
That's one of my biggest pet peeves in the workplace -- being referred to as a "resource". Just like other resources, such as raw materials and electricity. I find it about as disrespectful as can be. And then they have the audacity to say that "our people are our most important asset".
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
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.