Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Mr. Incredible

Steve Jobs made the cover of the current issue of BusinessWeek after his spectacular sale of Pixar to Disney for a total value of US$ 7.4 billion. I use the word spectacular deliberately: How else could you describe such a feat when Jobs bought the company from George Lucas for "only" US$ 10 million in 1986? No wonder the cover depicts him as a Mr. Incredible-like cartoon. A triple allusion to the man himself, one of Pixar's recent hits, and the Disney connection, I suppose. Cool.

Oh, and in the process he became Disney's largest shareholder and got a seat on the Board. Not a bad 20 years' work. Yup--20 years. Well, if this stuff was easy, we'd all be billionaires.

For some vintage Jobs, I highly recommend his commencement address given at Stanford University last year.

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