9781422287163

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DISNEY’S PIXAR

If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportion- ally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful ty- pography that they do. That calligraphy class gave Steve one of the skills that would help him become one of the world’s most innovative and creative minds of all time. “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards,” he told the graduating class at Stanford. “So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” AFTER COLLEGE In 1974, after leaving Reed College, Steve got a job working at Atari, one of the very first video game companies. Steve helped to create some of the era’s most popular games while he worked at the company. During this time, Steve was fascinated by the ’70s’ free-spirited atmo- sphere that was marked by the artistic brilliance of music legend Bob Dylan. “We’d drive huge distances to meet people who had . . . pictures or inter- views with Bob Dylan,” said Steve’s good friend Steve Wozniak. Steve met Wozniak when he was still in high school and the two re- mained friends through Steve’s time at Reed College. Wozniak, known as “Woz,” later went on to co-found Apple with Steve. Steve was adventurous, and he wanted to see new things. He joined his friend, and future Apple employee, Daniel Kottke, on a backpacking trip to India and came back with a shaved head and a new perspective on life. When Steve returned from India, he went back to working at Atari with his friend Steve Wozniak, designing video games. Woz was the stronger