Pixar’s Ed Catmull: Throw out your rules

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Mm. When Steve Jobs bought us. At the beginning. To be honest, we were nervous. Because we did know.

And I think it's not a little bit more. What the reputation was? And I have to say for several years. I didn't see any sense of humor. at all.

That's Ed Catmole. Co founder of Pixar. Recalling Steve Jobs. As a creative genius. Yes.

But a genius who is demanding. Brash. Abrasive. And that's Putting it mildly. I would say from ninety one to ninety five was the dramatic change in him as a person.

He became more empathetic and caring. I paid attention to people. Actually began to see him having it. Sense of humor. But this reputation stuck with Steve.

Even after The changes Ed is talking about. So when the stories were written about him They're about the early public stories'cause frankly it's kind of sexy.

Bad behavior or various things like that. For more dramatic Television. Good example. That's

Dramatic television. is the nineteen ninety nine TV movie. Pirates. No, Wiley.

had played Steve In a television movie. That was fairly Derogatory towards Steve. I want beauty.

Many companies. Can I see? Are you listening? Yes, I'm listening! I'm so sick of your abusiveness! That's all you know! Tearing people down for a tangent! Miserable cinema! Shortly after the film came out.

was the annual apple showcase Macworld Nighty Nine. And then the image of Steve Jobs. As an intense. Humorless. Taskmaster.

Was fresh. In the minds of attendees. That didn't stop them from going wild. As the light stemmed. And a turtleneck figure strewn out to the center of the stage.

Welcome to the Macworld 99 stage, Steve Jobs. This is going to be a great Macworld.

What you could hear in the audience sort of this increasing Titter. As people begin to laugh because they realize it wasn't Steve. Yeah, in fact.

It was Noah Wiley that came out. You know, everybody at Apple has been thinking different for the last couple years. We're selling a lot of computers. But there's something else happening here. The resurgent of apples! So this went on for a couple of minutes and then

Reach the point where no Wiley Says something like an extreme version of what Steve used to say. Some really great new product. Some insanely great new product. Some really totally wildly

Insanely great new product. We've got products that are going to make it And then Steve came out. You're supposed to come over here.

Open of water. Now Steve with a slighter sense of humor. Thought it'd be a a great idea to have No Wally come out. On the stage And pretend to be him.

They just demonstrated the depth of humor. To be able to do that. This insanely great thing we talked you had a hundred years ago. This moment of levity. Was a clear indication.

Of how Steve had changed. It's a change. It had been tracking for a long time. Even If most of the world Overlooked it.

And it had a huge effect. On how Steve worked. change over time. Worth that in recognizing.

Why things weren't going the way expected? He could then change the way he Work. and I thought about people.

And throughout his life he kept learning and growing. as we all should be doing. As a result of that. Steve. And Apple had a major transformative effect in the world.

The MacBook. The iPod. iTunes. And the iPhone. These are some of the vastly impactful things that Steve Jobs

Shepherded. Into the world. And I'd argue These were all so successful in part. Because Steve learned to change his approach.

His process. And even the way he saw himself. I believe. You need to constantly tweak. Huck.

And reinvent. The ways you work to keep at the top. Of your creative game. You gotta have incredible talent at every position.

Huge push. There are fires burning when you're going home. Can you believe it? Such an idiot. And then you go back to this is totally gonna be amazing. There are so many easy ways. I have no idea what it's doing. Sorry, we made a mistake. But you have to time it right. Not ball ten years later and be like, well that's just how you do it. We haven't made it just how you do it. This is masters of scale. I'm Reed Hoffman.

Partner Greylock. Co founder of LinkedIn. And your host. And I believe. You need to constantly tweak.

Hack. And reinvent. The ways you work to keep at the top. Of your creative game. Imagine the challenges involved in trying to teach chess to a toddler.

First, you've got to try to explain the complex set of rules in a way that a three year old can understand. Then. There's the question. Of their short attention span. But probably the biggest challenge you'll face is

Playfulness. What young kid could resist picking up a knight and galloping it across the board. Or grasping a bishop and pretending it's a rocket ship. In short.

Your patience is going to be tested. But imagine you manage to push through this initial frustration. Perhaps alter your goal. Instead of teaching a kid chess, you're going to use the pieces and the board to engage with them on their terms. Okay. Once you adapt to the new rules of the game and accept they'll keep on changing. You can even have fun and start getting creative.

As a leader, you need to be ready to do more than adapt to new ways of playing the game. You need to embrace them. And then come up with your own rules. In response.

Accepting. That the rules you play by need to be constantly tweaked, hacked, or reinvented opens you up to new ways of doing things. Instilling this attitude throughout your organization will help you be boldly differential in your experimentation. I wanted to talk.

To Ed Cottmull about this because he literally wrote the book on creating a dynamic and sustainable creative culture. Creativity Inc. Has become a foundational text. On how to presume dynamism. Throughout an organization.

Ed was an early pioneer of computer graphics and went on. Celebrated animation studio Pixar. Which counts Toy Story. The incredibles.

And elemental. Among their many. Beloved hit movies. In his role as president. Of Wisney Animation Studios.

His push to reinvigorate the creative process. Resulted in a string of successes, including Frozen. And Zootopia. It was first switched on. To the magic of animation.

By the art forms. Most famous. Pioneer. I grew up When uh

While Disney was on. Television every Sunday night. And Both showing programs that were available Plus animation.

Including How things worked. And it was pretty amazing. Even as a kid I knew that they were stimulating something in my head. And

What I imagined myself doing was Becoming an animator. The T V show. That had Ed glued to the sitting room floor of his family home in Salt Lake City was the wonderful world of Disney. The more I'd watch Walt

Reveal the tricks in the Magic Kingdom spell book. the more enthralled he became. But Walt wasn't the only great mind of the twentieth century. To capture Ed's imagination. I loved

Taking Science classes and physics. And the other iconic figure of that time was Einstein. There was something pretty magical about what he was doing and what he'd figured out and So I'd read the books about it.

Throughout his childhood. Ed dove deep. Into both these passions. Become a skilled artist. While pursuing his scientific curiosity.

While he was studying for his bachelor's in physics at the University of Utah, Ed found himself drawn to another Cutting edge field. I'd always wanted to be at the frontier. Where you discover something. And

When I took a computer science course, I thought, Well, this is like being at the front of the Easter egg hunt. You're just gonna go out and Find things and gather them up. And it made it exciting. In N Sexi Na Ed graduated with two degrees, one in physics.

And the other in computer science. He then double down on computing as his path. When I returned to graduate school It was initially to study Computer languages.

with some thought about artificial intelligence. It's tempting. To take a brief pause and consider an alternative universe in which I'm speaking with Ed Catmull, pioneer of AI. Rather than pioneer of animation. There are deep parallels between the huge advances in computing

underway at this point in Ed's story. And the seismic impacts of the current AI revolution. Like AI. The computational wave. that Ed was immersing himself in was going to inform sweeping changes in technology.

industry. And society. And like AI. It was impossible for anyone to predict. What these changes would be.

People were feeling their way through the possibilities and potentialities of the computer revolution. For Ed. One of these routes proved especially tantalizing. Soon. Another unplanned encounter.

Changed. It's destiny. The first course I took was was one in computer grafics. And that blew me away.

And Basically changed everything. It's like all of a sudden bam things came together and the art and the Technology and the physics, like Well, they're all mixed together and

This is a new direction. And it was actually thrilling. This new area of computer graphics was a dynamic combination. Ав Ed's passions анімеш сайенц. And technology.

And the way the classes were taught reflected this. with students largely left to create their own projects and curriculum. We were all discovering things together. and providing support for each other. There's something about

Having to discover what to do. When there really wasn't a curriculum. All they can say is solve the next problem. You figure out what the curriculum is. This environment.

Was radically different. To what you would normally expect. of a graduate class. The course leaders Had tossed out the very notion.

Of a curriculum. Partly because the field was so new. But also because They knew that this was the best way. To stimulate the creativity.

Of their students. It was soon helping to push the boundaries of this new technology. There's some software so that people can make pictures. But I looked at that and said. You can't do anything with that.

So I decided to write my own software to Make a model of my hand, so I made a plaster Paris model. I then digitized it. But looking through. A piece of plastic with a grid on it.

To figure out. Where all the points were on this surface. I wrote a program. to animate it, to move it around. Not only move the fingers but also look around inside the hand with the camera.

It had never been done before. And it was exciting. Mm. You can see the резуals for yourself. By searching for A Computer Animated Hand by Ed Catmall.

On YouTube. The video also contains the work of a fellow grad student of Ed's. Fred Park. He also wrote his own software and he digitized the image of his wife's face. We were the only two that stayed in computer graphics.

Because we were the ones that rejected what was already in place. And said we need something new. These are foundational works in the history of computer animation. And it only came about. Because Ed and Fred were prepared to throw out the existing animation software available to them.

And then create their own. One of the first things I look at when considering an investment is whether the founders are rejecting the status quo. If I've been asked the fun projects in Ed and Fred's class I'd have been drawn. to the two students who are breaking out of the constraints of the tools available to them.

Because when you see someone asking the question Why this way? It signals a willingness to create your own rules. This willingness. Is that the core?

Of entrepreneurial success. Ed's graduate work brought him back to his first love. Animation. It inspired him. To set a new goal.

Someday create. A full length computer animated feature film. Okay, this can get to the point. Or it's gonna change filmmaking. But I

had no illusions about us almost being there. The advice. From one of Ed's graduate professors met Ed wasn't deterred by this time frame. Ivan Sutherland They

Father's computer graphics. Who built the first? A R and V R system. For Ivan. You can have a big vision.

But you've gotta go a step at a time. And so everybody understood in this environment That's it. Our task was to take the next step. And in the process we may change what we think is going to happen.

But we do it by Taking these steps based upon what's there. Ivan Sutherland. Understood that no matter how revolutionary your scale idea is. You need a path.

To get there. The answer. is largely through small Steps. You need to build your creative environment.

Around this process. That graduate course gave Ed not just an ambition. But a guiding principle by which to achieve it. When I graduated The most important thing I got out of it.

Вас інвармент Was awesome. I loved it. And while I had this vision of making An animated film, and it was set the course of my life. The thing I wanted to do was to have this kind of environment

Wherever I went. And that needed to be something that was a principle for me. How do you have this kind of environment? In N сеventy four. Ed earned his doctorate.

In computer science. Within a year. He took on the role of director. at the newly created computer graphics lab. This was at the New York Institute of Technology.

Also known as New York Tech. Ed said about building his own creative environment. He took inspiration. From his freewheeling graduate school.

But he also Added his own elements. Sure. Right at the beginning. A New York Tech, we said.

We're gonna publish everything we do. Yeah, it turns out. New York Tech was fine with that. Because

the most important thing we can do is to be engaged with the community and if we're engaged with them Then we get the best people. Many times being open is much better than being closed, because what gives you your competitive advantage is not your hidden secret thing. It's the fact that you're in motion. With a great team.

Creative people are attracted to places where they can innovate. Publishing Their cutting edge animation techniques sent out a clear signal that Ed was building an environment that made creativity its top priority. We had some rather phenomenal people come in. But we were not in

A community that really understood filmmaking and storytelling, and we knew that was one of the weaknesses. So if the tech was so great. Why not just share it with filmmakers? No studio. was interested.

At all. in anything that computers might do. I mean there was zero interest. They Didn't even think it was relevant.

That was until nineteen seventy seven. When a set of events from a long time ago. And a galaxy. Far, far away. Changed everything.

Star Wars probably the single most impactful movie in the history of the motion picture industry. I mean it really changed a lot of things. One of those things. Was catapulting the bar from movie special effects. The spectacle of lightsabers and space battles had audiences thirsting.

For more mercy. Mind blowing sequences. To realize his vision. Director George Lucas had set up his own special effects division. Industrial.

Light and magic. Or I L M. George was successful with this newly formed group of I L M who had just Really? Basically taken special effects.

To whole new level. George understood that technology was Going to impact Movie making. George was

The first person With credibility. in the industry who thought this was going to be important. And he was willing to fund it. So this was pretty special.

George Lucas had intently followed Ed's work at New York Tech. Like Ed, George was frustrated at how slowly the film industry was adopting computer technology. So in nineteen seventy nine. George recruited Ed to establish and run Lucasfilm's computer division.

It was another opportunity for Ed to build a creative, dynamic environment. From the ground up. Again, he planned to build on what he had learned at graduate school. And New York Tech. When I left New York Tech and now went to

Lucas Film. I looked back at this period. And said, Well you know about half of my theories about how to get the I experienced at Utah.

Worked. And half of'em didn't work at all. So now I'm going to look at some gonna come up with new th ways of doing things and I'm gonna hang on to the things that work. However, Ed soon discovered something at Lucasfilm. There's no such thing.

As a perfect Creative environment. One of the important realizations coming out of that. Was that I thought that that ratio of about half right and half wrong would continue for the rest of my life.

The value of it. Was that I knew that I was gonna be wrong more than I thought I was. And I thought that was In retrospect, I think it was a benefit.

To think that. Because it's true. Well, Having read creativity, ink I think part of the model that I came away from that was That part of the goodness of the mindset of being half right and half wrong is it's dynamic.

Focused on learning. It's focused on Iterating to the next play. I presume that's kind of what you mean here by that principle guiding you through life about being half right and half wrong.

That is what it's about. When you do something that's new By virtue of the fact that it's new, which means that you haven't done it before. then if you define yourself In terms of being a leader who gets it right the first time.

And it's like your ego gets in the way. That process of Doing something new. It's an iterative process. And it requires a lot of people. The most damaging thing is

If the leader thinks their job is to be right and to know the answer, well You're kind of shutting things off when you think that way. Exactly. Well I don't know. Let's work it out together.

We're all in this together. Ed brought this collaborative approach. to his work at Lucasfilm. He and his team set about applying increasingly powerful computer technology to special effects. One major project was a specialized machine that could digitally combine special effects with live action footage.

They named it the Pixar Image Computer. However. While George shared Ed's enthusiasm. For using computers and movie making. He didn't share Ed's ambition to create a full length

Computer animated movie. Meanwhile. Lucas film was put under financial strain. by George's nineteen eighty three divorce settlement. Although Ed's computer graphic division was making huge strides in technology.

It wasn't making money. For its parent company. So George made the decision to spin it off. Yeah. Honestly, this it was a brutal year.

High stress, things were not going right. Ed was desperate. Not only to find a buyer. But a buyer who would understand and preserve the dynamic approach to creativity that Ed had built. It turns out that just such a buyer was currently on the lookout for new opportunities, having recently parted ways with a computer company he'd founded.

The company's name. was Apple and that buyer. У Стив Джобс. We'll hear that story. And more.

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With Picks our co-founder, Ed Katmall. on how to keep the creativity flowing. Before the break. We heard how Ed found himself in the midst. Of a brutal year.

Although his computer division at Lucasfilm was making huge strides in technology. It wasn't making money. For its parent company. So George Lucas made the decision to spin off Ed's division. And was desperate to find a buyer.

Who would realize the potential of what his team was doing. And also let them preserve their dynamic. Creative environment. After over a year of searching. They found their buyer.

Steve Jobs. Did believe. that the potential for graphics was going to become important in the future. Steve wasn't saying I know how to make a business out of this right now. This is gonna be of

Value in the future, so let's figure out what we do to get there. In February nineteen eighty-six, Steve Jobs paid five million dollars to buy Lucasfilms computer graphics division of forty or so staff and establish it under a new name. Pixar It meant Ed and his team. Or financially secure.

For now. The newly established Pixar. Now desperately needed clients. It didn't take long for one of the biggest names in the business to come knocking. This was

Roy. Disney Jr. Walt's nephew. Roy had recently rejoined the Disney company. As vice chairman.

Disney's output was creatively stagnating. And its films were doing poorly. Roy was determined. To inject some dynamism. Back into the family business.

Royce said He knew That Walt Disney believed. That changing technology of filmmaking brought

Energy. Into the creative process. It wasn't in the rest of The company. Roy was prepared.

To go to extraordinary lengths. To reignite Disney's creative spark. They wanted us to write software to color The cells for hand drawn animation. Now the truth was

They did a financial analysis. And the financial analysis says there's no benefit to using computers. And Roy said. I don't care. We're going to do it anyway.

Because we need to That energy. Coming in. Roy saw the shakeup. As a vital

Long term creative investment. Even If it meant taking a short term financial hit. And then it's Technology changed over time. We made sure their software continued to work.

То і сенсіум а левост. With Disney. As people who were going to stay th with them all the way through to make sure everything worked. The partnership to supply software to Disney.

Was a creative success. However. Pixar's main focus at the time. Was selling hardware. Namely.

It's specialist. Pixar imaging computer. With an initial price tag. Of one hundred twenty two thousand dollars, the low volume of sales wasn't enough to keep Pixar afloat. It was difficult for Steve. We were costing a lot of money.

We put together what we thought was a long term plan. Because we knew That underlying this industry was the exponential change. in computer power. And that

The economics were not right and wouldn't be Or Several more years. But we had a Plan to get ready for it.

And Steve believed there was Value in that. So we supported us as we did this, even though we were Hurting on the business side. In the end, he actually did stick with us. Part of Ed's long term plan.

Along with commercials. To showcase the technical And creative advances that Pixar was spearheading. In nineteen eighty six, Pixar released the animated short film.

Look so junior. It featured the desk lamp. That would go on to become the company's mascot. It was also the first three D animated computer film to be nominated. For an Oscar.

Then Nineteen eighty eight's Tin Toy. Won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. This caught the attention. A Pixar's partners at Disney.

Disney had already had this resurgence, so they were doing very well. They thought that's the same. Some boutique films. So The president of

Disney animations, Peter Snyder at the time. Called me into his office. Instead. We'd like you to do A feature film.

And I said, well, you know, we're not quite ready yet. We plan to do a half hour Special first, and then we'll be ready. And Peter said.

You can do a half hour you can do seventy five minutes. And my instant reaction was Yeah, you're right. So at this point Steve recognizing the advantage that was there came in and

Negotiated with Pixar to do a three picture deal. With Disney. Notice how Ed quickly overcame his initial reluctance to take on the making of a feature film so soon. It's easy to internalize arbitrary limits and restrictions that hold us back.

You need to be able to quickly Those self imposed constraints and throw them aside. So in nineteen ninety one Pixar Disney struck a new deal. Disney would fund three Pixar movies.

Which Disney would distribute. And owned. Now there was the simple task. Of making the film. Inside

Of Pixar. Nobody had ever made a computer animated film before. Alright, anywhere. So

None of us knew what we were doing. There was much more writing. On the film's success than Ed's ambition. To make a feature film. Pixar

was a loss making enterprise. Steve Jobs had kept it alive. through numerous cash injections. Steve was now expressing frustration. At the situation.

So failing now. Could mean the end. For Steve's support. And by extension, the end of Pixar. If we didn't get the film done, if we didn't solve the problem.

Then That was it. It was all over. And everybody knew it. So

Everybody had to figure it out, with nobody having any experience whatsoever. And there was something about having to do that which was transformative to people. I've always liked that. It's like, okay, don't forget that. Don't assume that you have to have all this experience to get something done. You get some smart people who are on the right arc.

They can do more than you expect. Ed had faith that the dynamic, collaborative environment he'd built at Pixar would let them succeed. But he also realized they needed to set some constraints. The film focused on toys because toys are all on flat surfaces and they're made of plastic.

So It's easier to do, so some of what drove the topic was the limitations of what can be done. Computers at the time. Pixar had its creative template set for the film and began developing a story. It would revolve.

around a toy cowboy named Woody. Who becomes jealous when his owner gets a new toy named Buzz Lightyear. Disney greenlit the concept, but Ed and his team still had to manage. Disney's expectations. At Disney

All the films should be musicals with five to seven musical numbers and a funny sidekick. But there were certain things about that. That just was not something that the people at Pixar wanted to do. Ed and his team were determined to hue to their vision. They spent over a year.

Storyboarding the new film. But through those early drafts, they also took feedback from Disney. And the story and characters begin to drift away. Pixar's original vision. The creative crisis came to a head.

When they showed the first version of the movie to Disney execs. The first version. Just didn't work. Even Roy Disney when he looked at our first cuts, he said, Oh, this isn't gonna work. This is bad. At one point I get a call saying

You guys need more help. Move the entire company down to Los Angeles. Ed declined the offer. Knowing that inviting more help from Disney Would dilute the dynamic.

If unorthodox. creative process of Pixar. It also knew. At this crisis point. Could actually fuel.

Rather than deflate his team. We knew it didn't work. If we don't turn this around quickly and demonstrate that it's going to work. It all falls apart. The team

Figure it out take. that was theirs. And they turned it around fairly quickly. In doing that. They also gained some confidence about what they wanted. And what it meant to be a good filmmaker.

This is one of the key advantages of being prepared. Constantly revise your creative processes. Your team knows that the one reliable constant Is change. This will make them.

More resilient. And adaptive. When crisis hits. Ed and his team sprinted to overhaul Toy Story. As we start to get near the end.

It was then apparent that we had something which was Really big. There was another key person. Who shared their confidence. Steve said.

This is a big deal. This is an actually really going to change animation. In typical Steve Jobs fashion, he had an audacious plan. That none of Ed's team saw coming.

We need to go public. Just how the film comes out. had a response. That's kind of nuts. Let's do a couple more first.

Steve Jobs also predicted that a successful IPO Would mean a change in the relationship for Pixar with Disney and its then CEO. Michael Eisner. Steve demonstrated his Brilliance and how we thought about this.

Which was that When the film is Comes out. Then Michael I will. Realize he's just created his worst nightmare.

Because with two more films. Yeah. The deal's over with. But now were a free and independent company.

And so we then become a competitor. So Steve said this is going to happen. So he will want to renegotiate. But this didn't simply mean asking for more funding or film deals. From Disney.

Steve realized that. It wasn't a matter of getting A good deal over somebody else. You actually need to think of them as Equal partners. So in order to do that

We have to be able to put up half the money. For the films. So that we can genuinely say coming into the negotiation. We are partners at every level. Steve New

That for the creative magic of Pixar to continue to work. It needed to be on an equal footing with Disney. Both creatively. And financially. So

Sure enough, when the film came out, it was a big success. One week later we went public. Toy Story. Was a creative triumph. А інвестор флот то пішро сток.

The listing raised$140 million for Pixar. And beat Netscape. As the biggest IPO that year. Steve had been right about the appetite for Pixar stock after the release of Toy Story. He was also right.

But something else. Sure enough, few months later. Michael is me wanted to renegotiate the deal. Oh. Steve called this exactly right.

That's impressive. With a deal renegotiated. Pixar was now in an equal partnership with Disney. And in his team. Set about working on their next films.

A bug's life? And Toy Story Two. So We're Drawing on things we learn from Toy Story.

And again trying to correct the things wrong and then making a new set of errors. Ed needed to quickly scale up his team. While keeping the high level of creativity that had made Toy Story. Such a success. This particular group that had made Toy Story was extraordinarily good.

At helping people solve problems. So we called it the brain trust. The creative team behind Toy Story. Couldn't simultaneously. Take the lead.

On Toy Story Two. A bug's life. and the other projects in development. So Ed developed a method. For making that team's creative excellence available to the rest of the company.

That's not to say production on Toy Story Two. Went smoothly. Far from it. You can learn the fascinating. From Ed's book.

Creativity Inc. What I wanna focus on here is how Ed and his team Iterated. on what the brain trust was and how it operated as Pixar grew. And face new challenges.

One example. Is the composition. Of the brain trust. So this brain trust actually Morphed.

From an identifiable group. Into a way of thinking. Абат совінь проблем. The Brain Trust roots lay in the original creative team.

behind Toy Story. Initially. It was made up of those specific people. But keeping it that way. Would have been impractical as Pixar scaled.

So instead The brain trust. Rather than a group. It became a way of sharing candid and objective criticism with directors and their teams every few months.

During a production. Over the years. The precise way the brain trust operates has changed. But some basic principles have emerged.

This really needs to be composed just to filmmakers. Okay. Their peers who are talking with each other. Another principle was You just have to be truthful.

The other one was uh recognition that the directors No, they have a problem. So they're a little bit vulnerable. The next principle. Is one you should file. Under

Genius creativity hack. We had to remove the power from the room. Were powerful. We're not supposed to talk for fifteen minutes.

Because if a person with authority Starts the room. Then everybody's For lines up behind that. The agenda's been set.

If the person with power Doesn't say anything. And Entering the discussion has an entirely different dynamic. The brain trust.

What they were supposed to do was to point out the problems, discuss it. Make suggestions. But they couldn't tell people. How to solve the problem.

The director. And All this frankly was just To get it so that the director was free to listen.

For Ed. The brain trust. Is all about sparking. And sustaining creative magic. For me the magic means

That people Throw out ideas. And they're not attached to them. If they help. And accept it good.

If they don't help. And they're not used. That's okay too, because you're not attached to the What we're trying to do is to figure out how to get more In the state were

People are not attached to what they're saying. Which also makes people more likely to listen, and it just sort of changes the dynamic of the film. So That's an ongoing process. Notice how at the root of all of these principles

Is the drive. To share honest and constructive opinion. While also making sure People still feel secure. And the roles.

This is something to keep front of mind. as you iterate on your creative process. You want to encourage candid feedback. In order to learn. And get better.

But you need to make sure that feedback Is given with compassion. If your organization has a culture of aggressively shooting down imperfect ideas, then people will be less likely to give voice to their thoughts. This will have a chilling effect. on your team's ability to learn.

Be bold. An experiment. I asked Ed to go into more detail about the challenges Pixar faced. When it came to scaling. The creative process.

Well one of the things that I think is part of the amazing story about what you led at Pixar is how to Systematize An environment where you have creative solution to unknown problems as you're encountering them.

So brain trust is one of the things. What are the other things that then made That scale and repeat. Process with Pixar. We went through a process of growing our output. And frankly growing her output was

Very difficult. Because we had to figure out what are our bottlenecks. There's so many unknowns that are going on. We have to approach H

Problem. Something that's new to us. Why is it not working? What are the obstacles, what are the impediments. There aren't really any fast answers.

Most problems actually require going down a few levels just to understand them and pick at the problem. Bottlenecks can be hard to spot. Especially as you scale. But it's important that you do spot them.

and resolve them. There is sign. That there's a deeper problem. With the processes you've established in your company. Some of these will be conscious processes that you set up for a very good reason.

But have now outlived their usefulness. Others. Will be things you do unconsciously. that have become an unnoticed part of your culture. Either way.

Once you identify them. You need to change them. But be aware. The better you get at identifying bottlenecks. Memorial spot.

Something Ed knows. Full well. We put together a culture that was supportive that other people owned the problem. So if you walked into a meeting with people

Saying okay, who's gonna solve this problem for me, who's responsible for this They all owned it. And it's a different kind of discussion. When everybody owns the problem.

This will also make for an environment in which people will proactively identify problems. Just as importantly, people won't be afraid to give input on your decisions. Of course, owning the problem. It's just part of the challenge. You need to be able to act quickly to solve it.

Asked Ed how to do this as an organization scales. What are some of the ways that you tried to keep the organization And the leadership and the problem solving Nimble.

To that next. problem and realizing the game would be constantly changing. In the case of nimbleness, It turns out that different groups have

different notions of how to be nimble. And I like the fact they've got their own approaches to it. Because they're going to bring something to the Table. Well that a notion that

is always going to be uniform across. the company. In two thousand six, Disney acquired Pixar. For seven point four billion dollars. And remain president of Pixar.

And also became president. of Walt Disney Animation Studios. It was one of the many title changes across management that signaled a closer merging of Disney and Pixar. Including Steve Jobs taking a place on the Disney board of directors. There was a clause in the deal, guaranteeing that Pixar remain a separate entity.

I believe the stipulation was vital. In preserving Pixar's dynamic approach to creativity. Although With some important guidelines. You could not do production work for the other.

But on the other side You could beg, borrow, and steal ideas from each other. Because we did not want them to be An existential threat to each other. We

Wanted them to have a good relationship and want the others to succeed. And feel ownership that they fixed their own problems. This helped Pixar's culture. Of constant refinement.

Spread across all Disney's filmmakers. Must she then Includes I L M and Marvel in terms of the sharing of information.

An industry that's changing quickly. As this one is. We're far better off If the individual studios Can actually bring their own view to it.

And move quickly. And not become ponderous because we've merged everything together. The conventional move would have been to merge those different production units to save overhead. But Ed new. It was incalculable value.

І preserving the different creative approaches of Disney, Pixar, Marvel. Lucasfilm and others while still encouraging them to reach out to each other for help. They just call up their counterpart at the other place, though Give an idea that'll say what they're doing. And we ended up with this really healthy ecosystem.

And it worked. And I feel very proud about that. As your organization scales. There's a tendency For silos to form.

Visions to narrow in scope. And layers of management. To pile up. But that's precisely why. You need to instill a willingness to constantly reassess.

And retool. Your creative process. It will help you cut through all these layers. Short circuit. Creative blocks.

And clear. Bottlenecks. You'll just need to accept. One thing. There isn't the recipe, there isn't that sweet spot and you get there and you've

Made it. This stuff is fundamentally Unstable. There is no stable point. You have to keep doing this.

Over. And over again and it's always different. You could have Path. And you really commit to it.

But while you're committing to it with Passion. If it doesn't work, you change. I'm Reed Hoffman. Thank you for listening.

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