Instead of just trite sayings, you walk away from each new piece of wisdom understanding where it came from and how it affected the culture of Pixar.Įd Catmull is a true engineer, with an analytical mind that loves digging into problems to find and fix the root cause rather than applying patches to hide the symptoms.

There’s much sage advice, generously sprinkled onto the meat of the original problems, their underlying causes, and anecdotes revealing them. Stories of early Pixar and the trials and successes from the many movies they’ve made since are interspersed with the hard lessons learned along the way. It was only after several years of low sales and struggles that they finally settled into their now familiar role of animated motion picture powerhouse. The sale stagnated for over a year until Steve Jobs stepped in to buy them and forge them into an independent hardware and software company. The core group that became Pixar started as a Lucasfilm department that Lucas ended up selling while going through a costly divorce. In truth, there’s often years before that where the person or company bounce around from idea to idea, learning and growing. It’s a refreshing start because so many stories of success begin at the first successful project. The book opens with Ed Catmull’s background and Pixar’s humble beginnings.

Our purpose was not merely to build a studio that made hit films but to foster a creative culture that would continually ask questions. The real truth is that I could probably highlight the entire book. that I wanted to be able to remember and pull out later. I’m not the type of person to highlight parts of a book (ebook or normal), but there were too many great thoughts in Creativity, Inc.

Creativity inc