Robert Redford

"Joe was immediately warm and friendly. He was a few years our senior, soft-spoken, casually but well dressed, with a warm and gracious smile and graying hair. We began by describing what we were up to at Pixar. After a few minutes, a phone rang in the corner of the room behind Joe’s desk. “Excuse me,” Joe said, “I’m terribly sorry. I need to take that call, but it won’t take long. Please stay and be comfortable here.” Joe spent a few minutes on the phone by the window at the other end of his office. Then he returned to us. “So sorry to have to take that call,” he said. “It was Robert Redford. He’s not easy to reach. There won’t be any more interruptions.” As soon as we left the building, Steve and I tried to keep our cool, but we both had one thing on our minds. “Robert Redford!” Steve exclaimed. “Butch Cassidy! The Sting! I wouldn’t have kept him waiting either. Wow!” “I know,” I said. “That’s about all I could think about the rest of the meeting!” “Me too,” said Steve. We were starstruck! It would be a few years yet before Steve had access to every celebrity in the world, but in this moment, we were more like teenagers glimpsing stars on the red carpet."

"McCaw was in a hurry to grow, at a pace some rivals regarded as rushed, even reckless. But to go where he wanted, he needed people who could find ways around obstacles, who enjoyed defying conventional wisdom. He wanted people who would toil relentlessly in pursuit of a goal, without regard for public recognition or approval. His favorite models came from the classic caper movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. No—not the handsome bank robbers, played by Robert Redford and Paul Newman, but their relentless pursuers, who toiled on, night and day, never giving up, never seeking approval. McCaw wanted frustrated rivals to marvel at the trail marks left by his people—to wonder, "Who are those guys?""