Creativity, Inc.
Ed Catmull, Amy Wallace
““What does it mean to manage well?”” From Ed Catmull, co-founder (with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter) of Pixar Animation Studios, comes an incisive book about creativity in business—sure to appeal to readers of Daniel Pink, Tom Peters, and Chip and Dan Heath. Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone
who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.” For nearly twenty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner thirty Academy Awards. The joyousness of the storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, in this book, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable.
As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, where many computer science pioneers got their start, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the thirteen movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as:
• Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better.
• If you don’t strive to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead.
• It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them.
• The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them.
• A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody.
• Do not assume that general agreement will lead to change—it takes substantial energy to move a group, even when all are on board.
As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, where many computer science pioneers got their start, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the thirteen movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as:
• Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better.
• If you don’t strive to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead.
• It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them.
• The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them.
• A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody.
• Do not assume that general agreement will lead to change—it takes substantial energy to move a group, even when all are on board.
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Published
2014
Listen to Podcast
“Creativity isn’t magic. It’s culture.”
“Great teams matter more than great ideas.”
“Managing well means making risk feel safe.”
“Strong teams transform weak ideas into remarkable ones.”
Creativity, Inc.
Nonfiction Reader
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Today, we’re diving into a book that asks a deceptively simple question: what does it really mean to manage well? The book is Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull, the co-founder of Pixar alongside Steve Jobs and John Lasseter.
Now, this isn’t just another management book filled with buzzwords and corporate clichés. Catmull takes listeners inside Pixar’s creative engine — the Braintrust meetings, the failures, the rewrites, and the uncomfortable conversations that helped produce films like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and Up.
One of the book’s biggest ideas is that great teams matter more than great ideas. Catmull argues that if you hand a brilliant idea to the wrong team, they’ll ruin it. But a strong, collaborative team can rescue weak ideas and transform them into something remarkable.
Another recurring theme is failure. At Pixar, unfinished work was expected to look messy — Catmull famously calls early projects “ugly babies.” The goal wasn’t to avoid mistakes but to create an environment where people felt safe enough to make them. That mindset led to honest feedback, constant iteration, and creative risk-taking.
What’s fascinating is that readers reacted very differently to the book. Some praised it as one of the best business and leadership books ever written, especially for its lessons on communication, humility, and innovation. Others felt the advice was too obvious or idealistic for ordinary workplaces.
But maybe that tension is the point. Creativity, Inc. reminds us that creativity isn’t magic. It’s culture. And building that culture requires trust, openness, and the courage to admit you don’t have all the answers.
Now, this isn’t just another management book filled with buzzwords and corporate clichés. Catmull takes listeners inside Pixar’s creative engine — the Braintrust meetings, the failures, the rewrites, and the uncomfortable conversations that helped produce films like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and Up.
One of the book’s biggest ideas is that great teams matter more than great ideas. Catmull argues that if you hand a brilliant idea to the wrong team, they’ll ruin it. But a strong, collaborative team can rescue weak ideas and transform them into something remarkable.
Another recurring theme is failure. At Pixar, unfinished work was expected to look messy — Catmull famously calls early projects “ugly babies.” The goal wasn’t to avoid mistakes but to create an environment where people felt safe enough to make them. That mindset led to honest feedback, constant iteration, and creative risk-taking.
What’s fascinating is that readers reacted very differently to the book. Some praised it as one of the best business and leadership books ever written, especially for its lessons on communication, humility, and innovation. Others felt the advice was too obvious or idealistic for ordinary workplaces.
But maybe that tension is the point. Creativity, Inc. reminds us that creativity isn’t magic. It’s culture. And building that culture requires trust, openness, and the courage to admit you don’t have all the answers.
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