"Money doesn't interest me" - Ton Roosendaal 2017 Interview

Blender Guru · 1.2M views · 2018-02-26 · 1:46:51

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Overview

A long interview by Blender Guru with Ton Roosendaal, creator of Blender. They cover Blender's origins, the move to open source, why Ton is not driven by money, Autodesk, and what sets Blender apart from other open source projects.

On Hacker News

Recommended as the best account of Blender's history and its user-focused approach as a free software success story.

Recommended by 7 HN people across 8 months · HN mentions 2018–2025

Topics

Tech pioneers & interviews Animation & visual effects Hacker culture & free software

What people said

solarkraft · 2025-09 · Strong recommendation
Blender is one of those shining FOSS successes we should all learn from. I loved watching the BlenderGuru interview: [VIDEO] Thank you, Ton!
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invader · 2025-09 · Strong recommendation
Ton is a legend and a personal hero of mine. He is a great innovator and an open-source superstar who disrupted the entire industry, traditionally dominated by big corporations. The entire Blender story is captivating - from modeler and raytracer prototypes on Amiga to the Internet bubble startup to the famous crowdfunding campaign to free Blender... It is a story that deserves a movie. For anyone interested in open-source history who is not familiar with the Blender story, I would highly recommend Ton's interview with Blender Guru, where he reflects on his journey - [VIDEO]
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solarkraft · 2022-12 · Strong recommendation
IIRC Ton Rosendaal, Blender's creator, still leads the project, but while listening very closely to its users and their pains and a very interesting approach to software development. The interview with BlenderGuru is great one: [VIDEO] The last major redesign was started by a vision shared by the interviewer, who seems to be one of the many deeply invested artists. (This is all very much "IIRC", based on stuff I've peripherally heard or seen years ago)
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Sources

Video by Blender Guru, played through YouTube.

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