I can't speak to the recruiting of staff in the early days of Apple or NeXT, but many of the "world class" people at Pixar got involved before Jobs purchased the company.

See: http://www.amazon.com/Pixar-Touch-Vintage-David-Price/dp/030...

"Pixar Touch"[1] is fantastic. Highly recommended.

Also, the 2007 documentary about Pixar ("The Pixar Story"[2]) is well worth a watch - Extremely well done. There's a shorter, 23 minute mini-documantary about Pixar Shorts ("The Pixar Shorts, A Short History"[3]) that I also enjoyed.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/The-Pixar-Touch-Making-Company/dp/1400... and http://www.pixartouchbook.com/

[2]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1059955/

[3]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1164983/

If anyone is interested, The Pixar Touch by David Price is a pretty fantastic look at the early history (both from a business standpoint and from a technological standpoint) of the company.

http://www.amazon.com/Pixar-Touch-Vintage-David-Price/dp/030...

It's in a book called "The Pixar Touch" by David Price I have on order from amazon, but you can read the anecdote here.

http://www.amazon.com/Pixar-Touch-Vintage-David-Price/dp/030...

It says:

John Lasseter has instilled an intense commitment to research in the studio’s creative staff. To prepare for the scene in Finding Nemo in which the fish characters Marlin and Dory become trapped in a whale, two members of the art department climbed inside a dead gray whale that had been stranded north of Marin, California.