27 November 2008

Content & Technology - Pixar gets it

I’ve always been interested in technology. I got fascinated by it, really, because I didn’t want to become a dinosaur. Then I realized that technology and content creation were the same business. When you ask for a business plan, you ask for a script. One in 10 will succeed there, one in 10 will succeed here. We as creative people have a fear of physics and math. Technological people have a fear of, well, we can’t write poetry, we cannot write a script. They have a fear of content. But they have to join hands.

The one company that understands this is one of the most successful animation companies in the world, Pixar. Pixar completely understood that when you write your software hand-in-hand with the creative people writing the story, you are creating a revolutionary company. The new (entertainment) companies will not be film studios, they will be technology companies. Google, as an aggregator, is already going into content creation. Apple is, Microsoft will have to be one. Cisco — fundamentally a plumbing company — will get into new media. I have a fund in new media in which Cisco is an investor.

Shekhar Kapur (Hollywood and Bollywood director) as quoted by John Murrell, Good Morning Silicon Valley, 26 Nov 2008, blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2008/11/quoted-933.html

Full Article: John Boudreau, "Famed Indian film director keeps a foot in Silicon Valley," SiliconValley.com, 26 Nov 2008, www.siliconvalley.com/ci_11075690