1996-11-22 Steve Jobs. Interview about Pixar
“To put these stories into the culture … is a rare opportunity.”
“将这些故事融入文化……是一个难得的机会。”
On November 22, 1996, Steve discussed leading Pixar, his strategy for the studio’s future, and the privilege of creating stories for future generations.
1996 年 11 月 22 日，史蒂夫讨论了领导皮克斯的情况、他对工作室未来的战略，以及为未来几代人创作故事的特权。
Q: What kinds of things did you need to do, both personally (learning to become a filmmaker) and as a businessman, to put the company where it is today?
问：为了将公司发展到今天的地步，您个人（学习成为一名电影制作人）和作为商人需要做哪些事情？
Steve Jobs: Well, Pixar is a studio. I’m not a filmmaker. I don’t direct our films. […] What I try to do is help create the environment where all these incredible people can make films. We’ve got a really unique thing in the industry, in that the very best creative people will only go to work at a few places: Disney, Pixar, possibly DreamWorks. In the same sense, the very best computer scientists in computer graphics will only go to work at a few places. Pixar is one of those, but most of the studios are not because they don’t have [our] level of technical culture there. I think Pixar is the only place in the world that can hire the best from both of these areas. And we’ve worked for ten years to figure out a way to have them all work together, which is not easy, because the Hollywood culture and the Silicon Valley culture are really different. We think we’ve picked the best from both.
史蒂夫·乔布斯：好吧，皮克斯是一家工作室。我不是电影制作人。我不导演我们的电影。[……] 我所尝试做的是帮助创造一个环境，让所有这些令人难以置信的人能够制作电影。我们在行业中有一个非常独特的地方，最优秀的创意人才只会去少数几个地方工作：迪士尼、皮克斯，可能还有梦工厂。从这个意义上说，计算机图形学中最优秀的计算机科学家也只会去少数几个地方工作。皮克斯就是其中之一，但大多数工作室不是，因为他们没有[我们的]技术文化水平。我认为皮克斯是世界上唯一能够同时吸引这两个领域最佳人才的地方。我们花了十年时间来找出一种方法让他们一起工作，这并不容易，因为好莱坞文化和硅谷文化真的很不同。我们认为我们从两者中挑选了最好的。
相似的一段文字出现在《Tencent Holdings Limited (TCEHY) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript》，大部分只喜欢噪音，极少数喜欢看一些现实的内容。
Q: I’ve heard that there are no contracts at Pixar, and that’s different than a lot of Hollywood productions. What’s the philosophy behind that?
问：我听说皮克斯没有合同，这与许多好莱坞制作是不同的。这背后的理念是什么？
Steve Jobs:In this blending of [cultures], one of the things that we encountered was that the Hollywood culture and the Silicon Valley culture each use different models of employee retention. Hollywood uses the stick, which is the contract. And Silicon Valley uses the carrot, which is the stock option. We examined both of those in really pretty great detail: economically, but also sort of psychologically and culture-wise. What kind of culture do you end up with?
史蒂夫·乔布斯：在这种[文化]的融合中，我们遇到的一个问题是，好莱坞文化和硅谷文化在员工留存模型上各自使用不同的方法。好莱坞使用的是惩罚，即合同。而硅谷使用的是奖励，即股票期权。我们对这两者进行了相当详细的研究：从经济角度来看，也从心理和文化的角度来看。你最终会得到什么样的文化？
And while there’s a lot of reasons to want to lock down your employees for the duration of a film, because if somebody leaves, you know you’re at risk, those same dangers exist in Silicon Valley. During an engineering project, you don’t want to lose people, and yet [Silicon Valley] managed to evolve another system other than contracts. And we prefer the Silicon Valley model in this case: give people stock in the company so that we all have the same goal, which is to create shareholder value.
在电影拍摄期间，有很多理由希望锁定员工，因为如果有人离开，你知道你面临风险，这些相同的危险在硅谷也存在。在一个工程项目中，你不想失去人，但硅谷却设法发展出一种不同于合同的系统。在这种情况下，我们更喜欢硅谷的模式：给员工公司股票，这样我们都有相同的目标，那就是创造股东价值。
But [not having contracts] also makes us constantly worry about making Pixar the greatest company we can, so that nobody would ever want to leave. When you sign a contract with somebody, you can sort of say, “Well, I don’t have to worry about that person for five years.” You know? And if you’re real sophisticated, you’ll have a little database that tickles you six months before their contract’s up so you can start paying them more attention. And they’re the most important person in the world for six months, and then after they sign up again, you put them in a drawer.
但[没有合同]也让我们不断担心如何将皮克斯打造成最伟大的公司，以至于没有人会想离开。当你与某人签订合同时，你可以说：“好吧，我可以在五年内不必担心那个人。”你知道吗？如果你真的很精明，你会有一个小数据库，在他们的合同到期前六个月提醒你，这样你就可以开始更加关注他们。在这六个月里，他们是世界上最重要的人，然后在他们再次签约后，你就把他们放进抽屉里。
Our system’s a little different than that. Every single day we worry about how we can make Pixar a better company so that nobody will ever want to leave, and so we don’t take anybody for granted. Because if they don’t want to be at Pixar, then probably they should leave anyway—whether or not they would ever have a contract.
我们的系统与此有些不同。我们每天都在担心如何让皮克斯成为一个更好的公司，以至于没有人会想要离开，因此我们不会把任何人视为理所当然。因为如果他们不想待在皮克斯，那么他们可能还是应该离开——无论他们是否会有合同。
Steve Jobs:In technology, and at Pixar on the creative side, you’ve got incredibly talented people who are also rare and in demand. If you don’t treat them right, they can go get another job in ten minutes. Right?
史蒂夫·乔布斯：在技术领域，以及在皮克斯的创意方面，你会遇到非常有才华的人，他们也是稀缺且需求量大的。如果你不善待他们，他们可以在十分钟内找到另一份工作。对吧？
So a strange thing happens: the hierarchy of power sort of inverts, and the CEO is actually at the bottom. I sort of feel like I work for most of these people because they’re the ones that are doing all the brilliant work.
所以发生了一件奇怪的事情：权力的层级有点颠倒，CEO 实际上处于底层。我有点觉得我为这些人工作，因为他们才是那些在做所有精彩工作的。
And it’s the same in software. It’s the same thing. The best people are very hard to come by, and so it’s management’s job to support them because they’re on the front lines doing the work.
在软件领域也是如此。情况是一样的。优秀的人才非常难得，因此管理层的职责是支持他们，因为他们在一线进行工作。
Q: How is your relationship with Pixar different than Louis B. Mayer or some of the great studio heads who may not have been directors or producers themselves, but who certainly had a great deal to do with what was done?
问：你与皮克斯的关系与路易斯·B·梅耶或一些伟大的制片厂负责人有什么不同？他们可能不是导演或制片人，但无疑对所做的事情有很大影响。
Steve Jobs:Well, we’re a small studio, and so we don’t want to let any of this go to our heads.
史蒂夫·乔布斯：嗯，我们是一个小工作室，所以我们不想让这些事情冲昏我们的头脑。
What we’re trying to do is to build a great animation studio. We stay very focused on that. The other great animation studio is, of course, Disney. And they’ve done an incredible job. Feature animation is really at the heart of Disney; they’ve created all the character franchises that really breathe life into the theme parks. And if you look at where [Disney’s] profits come from, a tremendous amount of it is dependent on feature animation, as are the theme parks.
我们想要做的是建立一个伟大的动画工作室。我们对此保持非常专注。另一个伟大的动画工作室当然是迪士尼。他们做得非常出色。动画电影确实是迪士尼的核心；他们创造了所有真正为主题公园注入生命的角色特许经营。如果你看看[迪士尼]的利润来源，其中很大一部分依赖于动画电影，主题公园也是如此。
What we’re doing is just a pure play to build a feature animation studio. My role is to try to understand the pieces we need to put in place to do that, to work with everybody to attract and retain the people to do that, and to get a clear strategy in place. And [I] help with the relationships with Disney and other people.
我们正在做的只是一个纯粹的项目，建立一个特效动画工作室。我的角色是尝试理解我们需要建立的各个部分，与大家合作吸引和留住做这件事的人，并制定一个清晰的战略。同时，我还帮助与迪士尼和其他人的关系。
I enjoy it tremendously. We’ve got an incredible collection of people at Pixar, so I learn a lot. I learn a lot.
我非常享受。我们在皮克斯有一群令人难以置信的人，所以我学到了很多。我学到了很多。
Steve Jobs:I like to get in there and help where I can. But my greatest joy is when we have people that are much better than I am at something, so I can forget about it, and not worry about it, and get on to something else where I can help.
史蒂夫·乔布斯：我喜欢参与其中并尽我所能地提供帮助。但我最大的快乐是当我们有比我更优秀的人在某个领域时，这样我就可以不再担心，专注于其他我能帮助的事情。
Steve Jobs:Making an animated film is entirely different than making a live-action film. When you make a live-action film, a director typically shoots between ten and twenty-five times as much footage as will end up on the screen. They take that into the editing room and they build their film. And hopefully they can do a good job, because if they can’t, it’s too late—the actors are gone, the sets are down.
史蒂夫·乔布斯：制作动画电影与制作真人电影完全不同。当你制作真人电影时，导演通常会拍摄十到二十五倍于最终出现在屏幕上的镜头。他们将这些素材带入剪辑室，制作他们的电影。希望他们能做好，因为如果做不好，就太晚了——演员已经离开，布景也拆掉了。
Walt Disney realized many decades ago that animation was so expensive that you couldn’t afford to animate ten times more than what you need. Matter of fact, you don’t want to animate even 10 percent more than what you need. And therefore, the only conclusion you can come to is, you have to edit your film before you make it. Disney pioneered a lot of techniques for doing that, and they’ve refined those over the last sixty years.
沃尔特·迪士尼几十年前就意识到，动画制作成本如此高昂，以至于你无法承担制作比所需多十倍的动画。事实上，你甚至不想制作比所需多出 10%的动画。因此，你唯一能得出的结论是，你必须在制作之前编辑你的电影。迪士尼开创了许多实现这一目标的技术，并在过去六十年中不断完善这些技术。
Working with Disney gave us access to that wisdom that you can’t buy for love or money: the wisdom and experience of having made tens of feature animated films. And I think we learned a tremendous amount.
与迪士尼合作让我们获得了那种无法用金钱或爱来购买的智慧：制作数十部动画长片的智慧和经验。我认为我们学到了很多。
Steve Jobs:en years ago, when we made the landmark short film Luxo Jr., it took about three hours on average to render each frame. Fast-forward to today. Computers are a hundred times faster, and yet in Toy Story it took three hours on average to render each frame. And the reason was the frames were a hundred times more complex in many cases.
史蒂夫·乔布斯：十年前，当我们制作具有里程碑意义的短片《Luxo Jr.》时，每帧的渲染平均需要大约三个小时。快进到今天。计算机的速度快了一百倍，但在《玩具总动员》中，每帧的渲染平均仍然需要三个小时。原因是，在许多情况下，这些帧的复杂性提高了一百倍。
And we’re throwing between five and ten times more computer power at our second feature film, code name Bugs, than we did at Toy Story. And it’ll still take three hours to render each frame. Our ambitions visually are growing as fast as the technology can feed them. And so I think the visual worlds which we’ll be able to create will be much richer over time.
我们在第二部电影（代号为 Bugs）上投入的计算能力是《玩具总动员》的五到十倍。每帧的渲染仍然需要三个小时。我们的视觉雄心正在随着技术的发展而快速增长。因此，我认为我们能够创造的视觉世界将随着时间的推移变得更加丰富。
On the creative side, though, I think the art of storytelling is very old. And no amount of technology can turn a bad story into a good story. […] Storytelling is a real art, and that’s something that we’re always going to be working on very, very hard. I don’t think it’s changed in a long time, and I’m not sure it will. And I don’t think it’s something that the technology has anything to do with.
在创意方面，我认为讲故事的艺术是非常古老的。再多的技术也无法将一个糟糕的故事变成一个好故事。[…] 讲故事是一门真正的艺术，而这正是我们将始终非常努力工作的方向。我认为这很长时间以来没有改变，我不确定它是否会改变。而且我认为这与技术没有任何关系。
Steve Jobs: You can hardly find an Apple II around too much anymore. You still can in the schools, but that’s about it. It’s not clear whether you’ll be able to boot up a Macintosh five years from now or not. All these technology boxes and all this software: it has a life of a year or two, if you’re very lucky. If it has a life of five years, it’s extraordinary. And every once in a while, something has a life of ten to fifteen years—and I’ve been lucky to be associated with a few of those products as well. But sooner or later, they all become part of the sedimentary layer that is the foundation for new innovation.
史蒂夫·乔布斯：你几乎找不到苹果 II 了。学校里还有，但就仅此而已。五年后你是否能启动一台 Macintosh 还不清楚。所有这些技术设备和软件：如果你非常幸运，它们的生命周期也就一两年。如果能有五年的生命周期，那就非常了不起了。而且偶尔会有一些产品的生命周期达到十到十五年——我也很幸运能与其中一些产品有过关联。但迟早，它们都会成为新创新基础的沉积层的一部分。
[By contrast] Disney released its first animated feature film, Snow White, in 1937. That’s sixty years ago. A few years ago, they rereleased it on video and sold 28 million copies, making probably around a quarter billion dollars of profits—sixty years after its initial release!
相比之下，迪士尼在 1937 年发布了其第一部动画长片《白雪公主》。那是六十年前。几年前，他们在视频上重新发行，并售出了 2800 万份，可能赚取了大约 2.5 亿美元的利润——在首次发布六十年后！
And I have a young son. We got Snow White, and he loved it. He watched it thirty, forty times. And it really struck me that I know people on most of the continents of this world, and I think everyone I know knows the story of Snow White. I don’t think I know one person who hasn’t seen it.
我有一个小儿子。我们看了《白雪公主》，他非常喜欢。看了三十、四十遍。让我感到震惊的是，我认识这个世界上大多数大陆的人，我认为我认识的每个人都知道《白雪公主》的故事。我想我不认识一个没有看过它的人。
Watching my son watch this, it really hit me that these stories renew themselves with each generation of young children. You read Joseph Campbell; these are our myths. Here’s something that’s sixty years old that’s regenerating itself in my son and other young children.
看着我的儿子观看这个，我真的意识到这些故事随着每一代年轻孩子的成长而不断更新。你读约瑟夫·坎贝尔；这些是我们的神话。这是一个六十年前的东西，在我儿子和其他年轻孩子身上重新焕发活力。
And I think people are going to be watching Toy Story in sixty years. Not because of the computer graphics, but because of the story about friendship. And that’s something really amazing to me, something very different than the industry I worked in in the past.
我认为人们在六十年后仍然会观看《玩具总动员》。不是因为计算机图形，而是因为关于友谊的故事。这对我来说真的很惊人，与我过去所工作的行业截然不同。
To have the opportunity to put these stories into the culture like this, if we can work really hard and be lucky again and again, is a rare opportunity. And I think everybody at Pixar feels really, really privileged to have this opportunity.
能够有机会将这些故事融入文化中，如果我们能够努力工作并一次又一次地幸运，这是一个难得的机会。我认为皮克斯的每个人都感到非常荣幸能够拥有这个机会。
Article Comments Update
热门标签
Related Articles
1995-04-20 Steve Jobs.Interview with Daniel Morrow
Excerpts from an Oral History Interview with Steve Jobs?Founder, NeXT Computer. 与 NeXT Computer 创始人史蒂夫-乔布斯的口述历史访谈摘录。 Interviewer: Daniel Morrow, Executive Director, The Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program 采访者丹尼尔-莫罗（Daniel ...1985-09 Steve Jobs.Interview with Newsweek
Steve left Apple in September 1985, after losing a power struggle with CEO John Sculley. The departure was officially a resignation, but Steve considered it a betrayal. A few weeks later, he spoke to Newsweek. 史蒂夫在 1985 年 9 ...1984-05 Steve Jobs.Interview with Michael Moritz
Steve and Michael Moritz, a reporter who would soon switch careers and become a venture capitalist, spoke at Steve’s office at Apple in May 1984. They covered a wide range of topics, including Steve’s thoughts on product design. 史蒂夫和迈克尔·莫里茨（Michael ...1977 Steve Jobs.Interview with The New Yorker
“It’s a domesticated computer.” "这是一台驯化的电脑" Steve’s first appearance in a national publication came in a 1977 issue of The New Yorker. The magazine sent a reporter to the First Annual Personal Computing Expo, held in the New York Coliseum. Most ...1995-10-01 Steve Jobs.I have changed my position 180 degrees.
Email Exchange Between Steve, Intel CEO Andy Grove, and an Intel Engineer 史蒂夫、英特尔首席执行官安迪-格鲁夫和一位英特尔工程师之间的电子邮件交流 “I have changed my position 180 degrees.” "我已经180度改变了立场"。 As Pixar became a leader in graphics, Steve and his mentor, Intel CEO Andy Grove, ...