Jobs needed to convince not only Lucas’s studio chief to sell the group to him at a reasonable price, but also Catmull and Smith to continue the project, working for him. By then, Jobs had started NeXT. He told Catmull and Smith that they could run their own show. They could stay in Marin County, a few hours north of Jobs and NeXT. Catmull would be the CEO. Catmull and Smith, who were out of options at that point, agreed. Norby accepted Jobs’s lowball offer to buy the whole unit. And so Jobs became the principal investor, and largest shareholder, of the Lucasfilm Computer Division, which was
...more