Creativity, Inc. The Expanded Editio..., Ed Catmull
Creativity, Inc. The Expanded Editio..., Ed Catmull
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Creativity, Inc. (The Expanded Edition)
Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

Author: Ed Catmull, Amy Wallace

Narrator: Ed Catmull

Unabridged: 17 hr 24 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/13/2023


Synopsis

The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture, and on all he learned during the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve.

“Might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”—Fast Company
 
For nearly thirty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner eighteen Academy Awards. The joyous storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, 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, 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 twenty-five 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.
• 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.

Creativity, Inc. has been significantly expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. It features a new introduction, two entirely new chapters, four new chapter postscripts, and changes and updates throughout. Pursuing excellence isn’t a one-off assignment but an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And Creativity, Inc. explores how it is done.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Ross

For those unfamiliar with Ed Catmull, he is best known as the president of both Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. Full disclosure: I work for the latter. Before I came to work at Disney, I knew of Ed Catmull as a technological innovator in the field of computer graphics and animation. He was essen......more

Goodreads review by Tim

This book is so disappointing. I had hoped it would take one behind the scenes of such storytelling genius as UP and TOY STORY. Instead, it's a bunch of platitudes which could be bullet pointed in a few pages, which indeed they are at the end. Most of it is common sense: rigid pyramid structures in......more

Goodreads review by da

People first, story second: great advice for managing a business. Interesting to hear Pixar's history told first-hand, as was Catmull's interactions with Steve Jobs. Audiobook narrator is super good!......more

Goodreads review by Otis

Recommend this highly for anyone who works in a technology or creative field. Pixars track records is unparalleled - 14 movies and all of them have been massive hits. I had two important takeaways from this book: how to build a great, lasting culture, and how to build a creative company. Catmull's ph......more


Quotes

“The most practical and deep book ever written by a practitioner on the topic of innovation.”—Prof. Gary P. Pisano, Harvard Business School

“In Creativity, Inc. Ed reveals, with commonsense specificity and honesty, examples of how not to get in your own way and how to realize a creative coalescence of art, business, and innovation.”—George Lucas

“Business gurus love to tell stories about Pixar, but this is our first chance to hear the real story from someone who lived it and led it. Everyone interested in managing innovation—or just good managing—needs to read this book.”—Chip Heath, co-author of Switch and Decisive

“This book should be required reading for any manager.”—Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit

“Ed Catmull has developed methods to root out and destroy the barriers to creativity, to marry creativity to the pursuit of excellence, and, most impressive, to sustain a culture of disciplined creativity during setbacks and success.”—Jim Collins, co-author of Built to Last and author of Good to Great

“This is the best book ever written on what it takes to build a creative organization.”—Robert I. Sutton, professor of management science at Stanford University, author of The No A**hole Rule and co-author of Scaling Up Excellence