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Uncle Steve's Wild Ride (12/5/00)
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You can say what you like about Steve Jobs and his managerial techniques, but the man clearly knows what constitutes a pleasant and productive work environment. In a recent Macworld article, Richmond City Council Member Tom Butt (no jokes, please-- the man's suffered enough) is quoted as saying, "Steve Jobs didn't like [Pixar] being near Chevron, because every once in a while something over there blows up." Yes, when the occasional explosion or two at the nearby refinery unnerved those sensitive souls at Steve's "other" company, the bossman immediately set about finding Pixar some new digs in an area less closely resembling a war zone. (Evidently stuff blowing up nearby is counterproductive to the creative process.)
So get this; Steve bought an old Del Monte cannery way back in May of 1997, and has been working on its renovation into the new Pixar offices ever since. Anyone who's familiar with Steve at all realizes that he wouldn't just fork over a wad of cash and say "make it look nice." Instead, in classic Steve micromanagement form, he "called all the shots." He even special-ordered the bricks to his exact color specifications. And when the dust finally cleared, Pixarville turned out to be "very much Steve's vision."
All this means, of course, that for the past three and a half years Pixar employees have been stuck in the old offices, and thus have had to continue dodging the occasional explosion-- but now that they're apparently finally getting to move into Pixarville, the years of toil in a twitchy mine field all seem worth it. The new headquarters features "a terraced amphitheater, basketball and volleyball courts, a jogging path, and a lap pool." Still not lush enough? Well, wait a few months more, because there are plans to add "a swimming pool and apple orchard" to Club Pixar. What, no water slides? What a rip-off!
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SceneLink (2722)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 12/5/00 episode: December 5, 2000: AppleInsider comes back from the dead-- bearing news of an Apple subnotebook laptop. Meanwhile, rumors of 1.5 GHz G3 chips by the end of next year are making the rounds, and Steve's other company is about to leave behind its old war-torn offices in favor of swimming pools and apple orchards...
Other scenes from that episode: 2720: Back Amongst The Living (12/5/00) What do you mean, AppleInsider is still alive? But it's been missing since October 23rd! That's like a couple of decades in web years. The search party was called off weeks ago, the insurance companies proclaimed the site officially dead, the rest of the Mac rumors community attended the funeral, and Mrs. AppleInsider has since moved on and remarried... 2721: Right Speed, Wrong Chip (12/5/00) While the nation impatiently awaits the resolution of our roller-coaster-ride Presidential election (not to mention the eagerly anticipated premiere of Dude, Where's My Car?), the only higher concern in the minds of the Mac community is the approaching end to the Great 500 MHz Stall-out...
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