Goldberg was drawing pictures of Woody Woodpecker at age four and making his own animated "flip books" soon thereafter. He was drawing and photographing his own animated films by age 13. While a college student, Goldberg won the grand prize in Kodak's Teenage Movie Awards with a short entitled "For Sale" (1974). He caught the attention of renowned British animation producer-director Richard Williams and landed a job as an assistant animator on the beautifully crafted but uninvolving and unsuccessful "Raggedy Ann and Andy" (1977). This began his four-year association with Williams for whom he went on to direct, design and animate commercials while working alongside such luminaries as Art Babbit (of 1940s Disney fame) and Ken Harris (from the glory days of Warner Brothers animation). Goldberg joined forces with Mario Cavalli and Pam Dennis to open his own commercial studio, Pizazz Pictures, which created hundreds of animated ads for European and American products between 1983 and 1990. Disney called in 1990 and made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
Goldberg and Gabriel divided directing chores on "Pocahontas" so that the latter handled layout, backgrounds and color models while the former was mostly in charge of animation and clean-up. Reputedly the first Disney animated feature to be inspired by a real-life historical figure, "Pocahontas" demanded an unprecedented level of realistic animation, emotional complexity and cultural sensitivity while still delivering a crowd-pleasing combination of hummable show tunes and cuddly creatures. Though the film certainly recieved its fair share of criticism, many deemed their efforts quite successful.