hardware operations, while the staff moved away from Lucasfilm’s premises to new offices in Point Richmond — not far from a Chevron oil refinery. From then on, they would have to focus only on their boss’s new vision: Steve thought that RenderMan was going to become the next PostScript, an open standard adopted by the masses to make 3D renderings at home, just like PostScript had made desktop publishing possible. He was denying the reality of how hard it was to master three-dimensional animation.

If costs were indeed cut a little by this move, it didn’t make Pixar more profitable. The startup was still relying on Steve Jobs’ line of credit, and in 1990 alone, its net operating loss was over $8 million.

In March 1991, Steve went further in his drastic moves to make Pixar survive. He declared he would continue to keep funding it only if he were given back all of the employees’ stock shares.