Steve Jobs Celebrates the Magic of TOY STORY and Pixar in Newly Unearthed 1996 Interview — GeekTyrant

To mark the 30th anniversary of Toy Story, the Steve Jobs Archive dropped a fascinating piece of animation history. It is a 22 minute interview with Steve Jobs that was recorded a year after the movie’s release, and it captures him at a moment when Pixar was still finding its footing and already changing the entertainment landscape.

The conversation is full of insight, confidence and genuine excitement for what Pixar was building and where computer animation was heading.

In the interview, Jobs talks about building a workplace where the studio’s artists and engineers could do their best work. He explains that Pixar was able to pull in elite talent from both Hollywood and Silicon Valley and actually get them to collaborate.

He says the goal was to “work together as peers,” and he proudly calls Pixar “a very hot place to be right now,” pointing to its expanding staff and a growing focus on keeping quality consistent at every level.

Jobs also dives into how Pixar adopted a Silicon Valley mindset for retaining talent, though he phrases it with a hint of Disney charm.

Pixar, he says, should be a place “nobody will ever want to leave. We don’t take anybody for granted, because if they don’t want to be here, then they should probably leave anyway, whether or not they’d have a contract.”

One of the interview’s most interesting sections centers on Pixar’s early relationship with Disney. At the time, Pixar had become the first outside studio Disney approached for animation, and Jobs describes the partnership with real enthusiasm.

Disney offered access to tools and know-how that it did not share with any competitors, which helped Pixar embrace the studio’s philosophy of “editing your film before you make it.”

Pixar then refined those concepts into its own creative process. Jobs even wonders aloud whether Pixar would continue with Disney after its initial three film deal or branch out with other partners. He references the second project under that agreement, a movie codenamed “Bugs,” which fans now know as A Bug’s Life.

Jobs also speculates about the long term legacy of Toy Story, predicting it would endure for 60 years thanks to its story and characters. Looking back, he was pretty close. The franchise has stayed hugely popular, and Pixar kept expanding the world he helped launch.

Toy Story 3 hit theaters just a year before his passing, and he even promoted it during an Apple event. The next chapter, Toy Story 5, arrives on June 19, 2026.