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- How Pixar Made Steve Jobs a Billionaire Before Apple Did
How Pixar Made Steve Jobs a Billionaire Before Apple Did
A weekly email with the best of marketing, AI, and business.
Marketing in the age of Machines by Castleberry
June 19, 2025
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Welcome to Marketing in the Age of Machines. Each week, we bring you the following:
👉 An innovative marketing strategy that has worked for others.
👉 The 2 most relevant contents in marketing, AI, and business that will help you understand the ever-changing landscape.
👉 3 tools for the Marketer of the Future.
👉 The quote of the week. A simple take on everyday marketing concepts.
Problem
After being ousted from Apple and watching his new venture NeXT flounder, Steve Jobs was left with a fading reputation and a dwindling fortune. He poured $50 million of his own money into Pixar—a struggling side project with no working business model and no immediate path to profit. For nearly a decade, Pixar burned cash without turning a single dollar in profit, pushing Jobs to the brink of financial ruin.
Solution
Jobs bet everything on Pixar’s long-term creative vision. He brought in a strategic CFO, pursued bold deals like a tough partnership with Disney, and executed a high-stakes IPO timed perfectly with the release of Toy Story. Despite Disney’s harsh terms, Jobs stayed several steps ahead—using Pixar’s momentum to renegotiate for a 50/50 split and build Pixar into a beloved standalone brand.
Lesson
The turning point in Jobs’s comeback wasn’t just timing or luck—it was his belief in untapped potential and willingness to endure loss in pursuit of something great. His Pixar story proves that real innovation demands patience, bold strategy, and the courage to risk everything when no one else sees the magic.
The way Steve Jobs became a billionaire is insane:
• Sold 99% of his Apple stock
• Lost $50 million over 9 years
• Then sold a side project to Disney for $7.4 BILLIONHere's how the genius revival of a dying tech company made Jobs a billionaire before Apple did:
— Timothy Solinger (@TimothySolinger)
2:43 PM • Mar 11, 2025
1/. How Targeting 58 Companies Beat a List of 1,000
Most outbound fails because it targets too many and understands too little. This post shows how a focused list of 58 high-pain companies led to 7 meetings in 3 days—by scoring for need, not just fit. A valuable read for B2B marketers rethinking their prospecting strategy.
Read the full post here:
Are you using the latest strategies for B2B Lead Generation?
Take our 9-question quiz to gain insights into whether your brand is using the latest B2B Lead Generation strategies.
2/. How to market your brand to budget-conscious prospects
With budgets tightening, B2B buyers prioritize value over price. This post shares practical strategies, like simplifying value propositions, using interactive ROI tools, and leveraging psychology, to engage cost-conscious prospects effectively. Discover actionable ways to build trust and demonstrate worth without competing on price alone. Read more to adapt your approach for today’s economic realities.
Read the full post here:
👉 Tools in the Age of Machines:
Wondercraft: AI-powered platform to create studio-quality podcasts from text in multiple voices and languages.
The best outbound isn’t louder, it’s sharper, rooted in real pain, not just personas.