“When it come to creative inspiration, job titles and hierarchy are meaningless.” — Ed Catmull Creative Copy Share Image
“Be patient. Be authentic. And be consistent. The trust will come.” — Ed Catmull Authenticity Copy Share Image
“That’s how much candor matters at Pixar: It overrides hierarchy.” — Ed Catmull Candor Copy Share Image
“To be a truly creative company, you must start things that might fail.” — Ed Catmull Business Copy Share Image
“Merely repeating ideas means nothing. You must act—and think—accordingly.” — Ed Catmull Copy Share Image
“Craft is what we are expected to know; art is the unexpected use of our craft.” — Ed Catmull Art Copy Share Image
“Negative feedback may be fun, but it is far less brave than endorsing something unproven and providing room for it to grow.” — Ed Catmull Copy Share Image
“What makes Pixar special is that we acknowledge we will always have problems, many of them hidden from our view; that we… — Ed Catmull Disney Copy Share Image
“The key is to view conflict as essential, because that’s how we know the best ideas will be tested and survive. You… — Ed Catmull Conflict Copy Share Image
“The bottom line was that while everyone was rowing the boat, to use Andrew’s analogy, there was no forward movement.” — Ed Catmull Bottom line Copy Share Image
“We had done the impossible. We had done the thing that everyone told us we couldn't do. And we had done it… — Ed Catmull Copy Share Image
“But as always, my focus was on the challenges ahead and on staying true to our goal of recognizing problems early and… — Ed Catmull Challenges Copy Share Image
“good leadership can help creative people stay on the path to excellence no matter what business they’re in.” — Ed Catmull Business Copy Share Image
“societal conditioning discourages telling the truth to those perceived to be in higher positions.” — Ed Catmull Telling the truth Copy Share Image
“ARPA’s mandate—to support smart people in a variety of areas—was carried out based on the unwavering presumption that researchers would try to… — Ed Catmull Right thing Copy Share Image
“While the allure of safety and predictability is strong, achieving true balance means engaging in activities whose outcomes and payoffs are not… — Ed Catmull Balance Copy Share Image
“A better measure of our success is to look at the people on our team and see how they are working together.… — Ed Catmull Copy Share Image
“Instead of talking about whether it’s easier to lower a price than raise it, we should have been addressing more substantive issues… — Ed Catmull Customer Copy Share Image
“most people interpret this assertion is that mistakes are a necessary evil. Mistakes aren’t a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all.… — Ed Catmull Creativity Copy Share Image
“We had learned long ago that while everyone appreciates cash bonuses, they value something else almost as much: being looked in the… — Ed Catmull Long ago Copy Share Image
“So I tell myself that I have time, even when I don’t. As in, ‘Okay, I’m going to proceed as if I… — Ed Catmull Time Copy Share Image
“Since making movies is such a messy process, we need to be able to talk candidly, among ourselves, about the mess without… — Ed Catmull Business Copy Share Image
“WHILE I THINK the reasons for postmortems are compelling, I know that most people still resist them. So I want to share… — Ed Catmull Lessons learned Copy Share Image
“That they liked so much of what they were doing allowed them to put up with the parts of the job they… — Ed Catmull Copy Share Image
“Ideas come from people. Therefore, people are more important than ideas. Why are we confused about this? Because too many of us… — Ed Catmull Creativity Copy Share Image
“Toy Story went on to become the top-grossing film of the year and would earn $358 million worldwide. But it wasn’t just… — Ed Catmull Business Copy Share Image
“One of the first people I interviewed was Alvy Ray Smith, a charismatic Texan with a Ph.D. in computer science and a… — Ed Catmull Computer science Copy Share Image
“Think of it like a patient complaining of knee pain that stems from his fallen arches. If you operated on the knee,… — Ed Catmull Copy Share Image
“The trust comes from knowing that we are safe, that our colleagues will not judge us for failures but will encourage us… — Ed Catmull Failure Copy Share Image
“To our surprise, they readily agreed. Suddenly, we were making two ambitious feature films at once—doubling our theatrical output overnight. This was… — Ed Catmull Cinema Copy Share Image
“I WANT TO end this list by talking a little more about the founding of Pixar University and Elyse Klaidman’s mind-expanding drawing… — Ed Catmull Action film Copy Share Image
“This was a success in itself, but it came with an added and unexpected benefit: The act of thinking about the problem… — Ed Catmull Copy Share Image
“When a new company is formed, its founders must have a startup mentality—a beginner’s mind, open to everything because, well, what do… — Ed Catmull Business Copy Share Image
“It is natural for people to fear that such an inherently critical environment will feel threatening and unpleasant, like a trip to… — Ed Catmull Nature Copy Share Image
“I’m not trying to be modest or self-effacing by saying this. Pixar films are not good at first, and our job is… — Ed Catmull Creativity Copy Share Image
“Here’s what turns a successful hierarchy into one that impedes progress: when too many people begin, subconsciously, to equate their own value… — Ed Catmull Animal instinct Copy Share Image
“You can’t manage what you can’t measure” is a maxim that is taught and believed by many in both the business and… — Ed Catmull Copy Share Image
“Who better to teach than the most capable among us? And I’m not just talking about seminars or formal settings. Our actions… — Ed Catmull Education Copy Share Image
