The Internet cost the U.S. Federal Government about fifty to seventy-five million a year. This is peanuts for what its doing right now and even if that cost someday escalated to half a billion a year, which of course you could build the whole Internet each year from scratch if you had to, you could replace all the equipment, etc. That would be an extrodinarily small price to pay for keeping it from getting into the hands of any one company and thereby starting to destroy and control the innovation that could take place around the Internet. It's the one last bright spot of hope in the computer industry for some serious innovation to happen at a rapid pace.
What's also great about it, again, is that the U.S. in the forefront here. That's what's great about the whole personal computer software industry. This is another example where the U.S. is in the forefront. It should be kept open. It should be kept free.
Yes, I am optimistic about it staying free but before you say it's global too fast, it's estimated that over one-third of the total Internet traffic in the world originates or destines in California. So I actually think this is a pretty typical case where California is again on the leading edge not only in a technical but cultural shift. So I do expect the Web to be a worldwide phenomenon, distributed fairly broadly. But right now I think it's a U.S. phenomenon that's moving to be global, and one which is very concentrated in certain pockets, such as California.
85% of the world doesn't have access to a telephone yet. The potential is there and you're pretty optimistic. Tell me about Pixar. This story is very interesting. I got hooked up with some folks. Again a friend of mine told me I should go visit these crazy guys up in San Rafael, California who were working at Lucasfilm. Now George Lucas, who produced the Star Wars film trilogy, was a smart guy, and at one point when he had a lot of money coming in from these films he realized that he ought to start a technology group. He had a few problems he wanted to solve.