2. Pixar
I know what youre thinking; what on earth are Pixar doing on this list? For nearly 20 years Pixars feature films have been delighting kids, parents and anyone in-between with some of the smartest and emotional animated stories and characters we've ever seen; each one has been a box office hit and almost all have been adored by critics. But long before Toy Story hit and even before Luxo, Red and Tin Toy created magic in their award winning shorts, Pixar was just like any other graphic computer company. Originally part of Lucasfilm until it was brought by Steve Jobs, the people at Pixar had always aspired to make a computer generated feature film, but the technological limitations meant it was at the time an impossibility. The main focus for the company therefore fell to producing and marketing their rendering programs. What made Pixar stand out and is, in retrospect, their smartest move was hiring animators to showcase the technologies capabilities. Every other company used the programmers as animators which led to rather plain demo reels, but hiring the likes of John Lasseter, who had worked at Disney until being fired for what came down to over enthusiasm, led to shorts with a genuine feeling behind them. Going down a storm at tech demos, over time the focus shifted more to the creative side of the company. And the rest, as they say, is history.