Thirty-three years ago, he was a young truck driver who went to see Star Wars and came out angry that he hadn't made the movie. So he raised $20,000 from some dentists to make a sci-fi short, that then led him to the next step...and some of the steps from there to Terminator to Titanic to Avatar have not been so easy.
I'm impressed that he didn't let his imagination shut down when immense amounts of money were riding on a project and things weren't going well. That's some grace under pressure.