Building Pixar, Working With Steve Jobs, and Cultivating Creativity | Ed Catmull

1. 0:00 – 4:28

   Most Companies Are Full Of Shit

   1. DSDavid Senra0:00

      [intro music] Right before we started recording, you said that you had some Steve Jobs stories and that you had wanted to add something to it. What were you gonna say?

   2. ECEd Catmull0:09

      Well, th-this is a result of just thinking a lot about the last many years as we were... a-and a lot of it's reflection, but also trying to understand the nature of change and the process that y-you have of trying to come to an understanding or, or gain insight. In the book, I talked a lot about the Braintrust. The Braintrust is such a mechanism. Different companies have different ways of trying to arrive at, at truth and getting, um, insight out there. Every company says they do that. Most of them are full of shit. All right. They... What they've got are people around them who are telling them what the leader wants to hear, and the leader thinks 'cause they're hearing what they wanna hear, that they've, he got this really insightful group. Um, but it's not really about diving deep. It's, it... There's an overlay of the politics and where I am, what's my career, and so forth. All of which gets in the way. In the case of the Braintrust, we worked out a way for people to be honest with each other and feel comfortable about it. And, and we thought a lot about how to do that and what the personal dynamics are, what the psychology is that might get in the way and how we address it. But Steve had a very different approach in order to get insight, and I would say the others do too, so it's just like the different ways of doing it, but he did understand what he was trying to do. He did understand at an intuitive level there's no upside in being wrong. As soon as he understood something, he would change quickly. But here's the thing that most people don't know about, and that is that Pixar was a public company for ten years, starting in ninety-five when we went public, until ten years later when we were acquired by Disney. In that ten-year period, Steve fired two members of the board of directors at Pixar. The reason he fired them was that they never disagreed, and he said, "If they don't disagree with me, then they aren't bringing any value to the company." That's an unusual way of thinking, and he really believed that. Our board meetings were lively, they were loud, and they were thrilling. And, you know, we, we made great progress. Uh, and they were arenas of disagreement, and these were people on the... The rest of the people on the board had very strong opinions, did not agree, and Steve loved that. And I would say a, a lot of ex- uh, executives probably say they want that, but Steve really meant it. Uh, he and I disagreed a lot. We didn't argue. We disagreed, and we'd, we'd have, uh, long, [laughs] week-long discussions about something. And in the end, about the third time, I would realize he was right, and about a third time, a third of the time, uh, uh, he would realize I was right. But the other third of the time, uh, I just did what I wanted, uh, and he was fine with that because we had discussed it. Uh, the whole point is, how do you get to the insight? How do you get... How do you surface things? 'Cause it's hard to get underneath things. I would say that a lot of people like to go down one layer. You get on the one layer and you, you form a decision. Can't do that. You gotta keep peeling away the layers to figure out what's really underneath it. And it's a shortcut to make a decision quickly based upon a little bit of information. And getting at underlying factors, uh, is i-inherently a long-term strategy, and it's a difficult one and it's timely, and you need different mechanisms within an organization in order to get to better insight.

   3. DSDavid Senra4:07

      What are some of these mechanisms? Because Steve has famously said, and I've heard a few other people say this, that he learned more about the art of management from you than anybody else that he ever met.

   4. ECEd Catmull4:18

      Boy, he didn't tell me that. [laughs]

   5. DSDavid Senra4:21

      [laughs]

   6. ECEd Catmull4:22

      I would say we were just completely different.

   7. DSDavid Senra4:24

      But what are these mechanisms you're saying to, like, get to these other levels

2. 4:28 – 10:13

   The Brain Trust Mechanism

   1. DSDavid Senra4:28

      that you used?

   2. ECEd Catmull4:28

      Well, one of them is the discussion is always about the topic. It isn't about who's right. So for me, the example would be in a, a healthy Braintrust meeting, 'cause you've got people working on a film. So what are the dynamics when you, you come together as a group in order to discuss something, and you're discussing something that has problems? Just the nature of all these films is it may be a great idea underneath it, but it's not gelling or it's not working right. The creative team presenting it know that it doesn't work, but it also means they're vulnerable. They feel vulnerable, and they're presenting it to their colleagues and people who are very successful. So if you're aware of that, then you can actually, uh, give them space in order to listen, 'cause that's what we really want, is for them to listen. But there are other dynamics that are going on. There are people in the room who may be new to the room, and they may wanna demonstrate that they're capable of contributing. So if they put out an idea and it doesn't work, then they may feel like they've embarrassed themselves or they haven't shown themselves worthy. They're now thinking about their relationship to it rather than about the problem. So that's a psychological thing that happens in the group. I throw out an idea. Is it accepted or rejected? That becomes a personal thing

   3. DSDavid Senra6:03

      Well, how do you manage that? How do you avoid people not saying an idea, like letting em- potential embarrassment stop them from sharing an idea?

   4. ECEd Catmull6:13

      Well, the original group started off, uh, as, as a small group who were already all, all that way. That is w-- and they're starting on Toy Story. They'd had these intense discussions, and it was really about solving the problem.

   5. DSDavid Senra6:28

      So they didn't have any fear of embarrassment?

   6. ECEd Catmull6:30

      No. It was like a forum.

   7. DSDavid Senra6:31

      Okay.

   8. ECEd Catmull6:32

      But then they're-- [laughs] so they're working together on the same thing, and their very nature is they're working on the problem. When we started, we had that group that worked together, but we also had something else that, I think Andrew Stanton and I r-recognize, I think, most clearly, was that we had an outside force that was a, a corrective.

   9. DSDavid Senra6:54

      An outside force?

   10. ECEd Catmull6:55

       An outside force.

   11. DSDavid Senra6:56

       Okay.

   12. ECEd Catmull6:57

       Because our contract was with, was with Disney, and so the person who was in, in charge of Disney Animation at the time was Tom Schumacher, who later moved back to Broadway to be over theatrical there. But he would come in as a person who had a vest- a vested interest in our success, and he would tell us what he thought, and often he would disagree with what we had. So it was good to have someone come in with like a different perspective in case you get caught in a little loop 'cause you're building this thing in your head that's kind of fragile, and sometimes you need somebody to say, "Well, that's not working," and jar you from that fragile thing that's in your head. He would only see it once in a while, and we valued that. Bug's Life was the next film, and then Toy Story 2 was-- as the next one. Uh, uh, the first one was, you know, just obviously was the first. Like that was getting going, but we were getting our, our legs under us as, as we figured all of this out. We also had a group of people who were consciously trying to figure out the process. It was just everything about it, not just the movie, but how we worked with each other. Um, but as we were getting better at this and starting to rise, and by this time we're a public company distributing through Disney, Disney is starting to go downhill, and we are aware that, uh, Tom Schumacher was going to leave 'cause he was going to New York, which meant we were going to lose our outside force. Andrew came up with the idea that this group that we had we would call the Braintrust, and that as we, uh, elevated other people to become directors, we would bring in others or the, the writers or, or certain experienced people into a room. It was a small group to solve the problems, but the Braintrust would then see somebody else's film and act as an outside force. That was the idea.

   13. DSDavid Senra9:04

       So other directors looking at another director's film and giving feedback.

   14. ECEd Catmull9:08

       Yes. Now, uh, it would-- it was to replace what Tom Schumacher was doing. It didn't work. The problem was they weren't outside. They're in the building. They're all the time, and they always know what's going on, uh, so the notion of them being on the outside isn't, isn't true. However, what we discovered was they had this immense capability of giving ideas to each other and helping each other, which wasn't the same thing, and it's a subtle difference to have this outside force. Instead, it was this problem-solving group, so the Braintrust was a, was a way of running a certain kind of meeting, uh, for every screening of a film or occasionally at an offsite. It wasn't that we, we ran every meeting, 'cause they have different dynamics. It was a particular thing that took place after a screening, and everybody learned how this worked. We had to get another outside force, and the outside force was Steve Jobs.

3. 10:13 – 17:48

   Why Steve Jobs Was Banned From The Braintrust

   1. DSDavid Senra10:13

      Because you banned him from being part of the Braintrust, correct?

   2. ECEd Catmull10:18

      Yes.

   3. DSDavid Senra10:19

      Why?

   4. ECEd Catmull10:20

      Because he would not be an outside force. In other words, as a... He, he's now on the board, and he sees it, uh, once per screening, so he doesn't see it very often. And now he would, he would come into this meeting and, uh, he's, he's fresh. Um, he hasn't seen anything since the last one. He would usually call me the morning of. I was in my little gym my-- in my home there working out, and I'd get a call in the morning. I could count on it.

   5. DSDavid Senra10:58

      [laughs]

   6. ECEd Catmull10:58

      And he'd say, "How's it going, Ed?" And I'd say, uh, "Well, I think we've got problems." "Okay, nice to know. I'll see you later."

   7. DSDavid Senra11:06

      [laughs]

   8. ECEd Catmull11:06

      I would never tell him what to think. All right? That was part of the relationship. Steve was smart enough that I could say there's a problem or that I think there's something, but I was not gonna tell him how to think. Or I might say, uh, "I think it's going pretty well." "Nice to know. We'll see you later today." That was it.

   9. DSDavid Senra11:24

      What do you think was the purpose of that phone call?

   10. ECEd Catmull11:26

       He knew, 'cause I'm in the middle of this, that if, if there's, uh, if there are problems in there, that, uh, that there is a need for someone to come in and say something strongly. And, and but he... But at that point, it was... it had to be from him.

   11. DSDavid Senra11:46

       'Cause it couldn't be to him, right? Were people afraid in Pixar to share like harsh feedback or like fight with Steve?

   12. ECEd Catmull11:53

       No, no, not with Steve. No. It was, uh, uh... Actually, people, they, they, they would talk back with him. I mean, was there a little bit of fear in he was obviously- It's, you know, so well known that some people-- a lot of people are nervous. It was-- I mean, there are people who are nervous about me too, just-

   13. DSDavid Senra12:12

       Yeah

   14. ECEd Catmull12:12

       ... because the position. That's just a reality is when you're a position of either power or perceived power, that people react to you in a different way, and it's critical to be aware that that phenomenon takes place because nobody will tell you that, [laughs] right? They wouldn't admit it, but it happens. So if you're aware of it, then you can just sort of be a little more tuned in. There was another reason why he didn't go to the Braintrust meetings is that in order to get the dynamics right, that the people with power, either real or perceived power, needed to shut the hell up for the first ten to fifteen minutes.

   15. DSDavid Senra12:50

       And he couldn't do that?

   16. ECEd Catmull12:52

       It wasn't that. The, the logic of that is if a person with power speaks, they tend to set the tone for the rest of the discussion. So you don't want them to speak at the beginning. You want the discussion to start, and then you enter the discussion. But in this case, they're entering as filmmakers with the others, and it doesn't derail the discussion. Steve had such a powerful voice that it didn't matter when he spoke, he was going to have this extremely strong effect on the dynamics of the room, and he understood that. So it was the reason he didn't come. I said, "You-- it, it... basically, the dynamics don't work if you're in the room and that we need you for this." And he understood that, and that's the way it worked, and it worked great. It was an interesting phenomenon because, uh, Steve would, would, at, at-- would come into the meeting that the Braintrust or... Excuse me, it wasn't a Braintrust meeting now. It's the meeting of the board of directors. That's when he would see it. The whole board of directors would see it in the theater with a certain-- with a subset of the, of the company. We didn't have the whole company see it all at once. It was always trying to make sure there were some fresh or people who hadn't seen it before. Um, so we'd-- there'd be some audience there. But really the, at the end of it, the board of directors would come together with the filmmakers and each would give their comments, and Steve would give his comments. He was extremely articulate and, uh, he would give his notes, and most of the directors would say at some point that Steve gave them notes and he saw things in the films that nobody else saw, that they'd never heard before. However, I'm in every one of these meetings. There was nothing that Steve ever said that had not been said by some of the-- somebody else before in one of those meetings. Now, what's the difference?

   17. DSDavid Senra15:04

       What's happening there? Explain that.

   18. ECEd Catmull15:06

       Well, part of it is that when you know some- somebody really well, then you can also learn how to disregard what they say. Like they're saying sort of thing they might be expected to say, and you, you, you disregard it or you don't hear it. With Steve, you-- it wasn't possible to do that. He was so clear and articulate that saying the same thing would actually break through in ways that, that, uh, that you wouldn't hear from the others. And there are a couple examples of them where I can't, I, I can't actually tell the story because of the, [laughs] the people involved.

   19. DSDavid Senra15:41

       [laughs]

   20. ECEd Catmull15:42

       But people... sometimes people were, uh-- felt betrayed because their colleagues hadn't told them about the problem before. But they had. As I say, I was there [laughs] and, and I heard all this, and they all felt like they were not being listened to. And then Steve came, and all of a sudden, you know, um, the, the director hears that and now it's like new, a new revelation even though it's been there all along. That's the reality of people with strong opinions of the dynamics and I... Honestly, m-my job there, while it was fun to give note, my job was to look at the dynamics. And I, and I will tell you that in general this worked very well. Everybody figured this out, that this is how it works and it was great and they loved it. And even though there were apprehension, they wanted the notes and they engaged correctly with it.

   21. DSDavid Senra16:42

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4. 17:48 – 23:27

   Your Job Is To Manage The Dynamics

   1. DSDavid Senra17:48

      You're running the company. Steve's there almost never. Why-- I've never heard anybody, a CEO describe their job as your job is to observe and manage the dy- the dynamics. What do you mean by that?

   2. ECEd Catmull17:59

      Well, like in, in, in the case of, let's say, the, the Braintrust just as, as an example, is that in general it works pretty well. Uh, every once in a while you go off the rails To go off the rails and then, you know, you, you have to figure out why it went off the rails, what got in the way, and then usually you have to reconvene with a smaller group, 'cause the dynamics, as we all know, are, are different when you got a small group. If things are going well, you like a bigger group because you're training other people to feel comfortable in this way of working. But if the problem is really serious, when you go to a smaller group, where they're sort of past that stuff and they can focus on the problem. So oc- occasionally it's off the rails, usually it works very well, and once or twice per, uh, film, then magic happens. By magic, I mean that ego has left the room. You have these intense discussions, and somebody can say something and it doesn't work, and they're not thinking about my idea wasn't there. They're, they're always back on the problem, and it's, it's, you know, described in, like, in sports as flow or in areas like that as flow, but it's like a group getting into that state. And that's the ideal place to get. This is so important to get this, all this working right, that this is what our product's based upon, is this group of people working well together. So paying attention to the dynamics of those rooms is the job. They're the ones that are making the movies. I'm not making the movie. I'm just trying to make sure they work well together. [laughs] From the point of view of directing a company, you know, like a board of directors, it's how do they work together? And, and sometimes board of directors are there, and the, the CEO just wants sort of protection from them doing it, so he wants to craft everything th-that goes to the board of directors. W- that's not the way Steve worked.

   3. DSDavid Senra20:01

      What is the way he did it?

   4. ECEd Catmull20:03

      Well, it was just like we knew what the problems were. We'd come in, you'd have these, uh, people with, with, you know, very strong opinions. Well, we had the number one attorney from, uh, Silicon Valley with us, uh, Larry Sonsini at the time.

   5. DSDavid Senra20:19

      Apart from who was on the board, how was it-- how did Steve manage the board differently than other CEOs?

   6. ECEd Catmull20:26

      You know, we had a f- a, a few of the critical issues out of the company. Uh, we were a production-only company. Uh, we-- all of our films were marketed through Disney. So, uh, and then there was a limited time span in our contract with Disney. So there are a number of things we have to do to figure out where the company's going, what the relationship is, how do we make it strong or where is it threatened, and, and, uh, at the time, through a lot of this time, um, uh, Michael Eisner was the CEO, and the, and the, and the CEO of Disney, Michael Eisner, did not get along [laughs] well with, with Steve.

   7. DSDavid Senra21:09

      Steve hated him.

   8. ECEd Catmull21:10

      The real reason f-for that, well, there were, there were two things there. One of them was that, um, Michael testified before Congress about ripping, 'cause there was some testimony a-about it with audio.

   9. DSDavid Senra21:26

      Ripping?

   10. ECEd Catmull21:26

       Yeah.

   11. DSDavid Senra21:26

       What's ripping?

   12. ECEd Catmull21:27

       Copying video onto, on the... You know, if you, if you got a audio on a CD or something like that and, and you transfer it onto your computer. So there are these... It's a, it's a, it's a name for copying something.

   13. DSDavid Senra21:42

       Okay.

   14. ECEd Catmull21:43

       But it sounds like ripping off. So there's a d- which is an unfortunate use of the term. Um, so Michael Eisner was testifying against without knowing what the term actually meant. So it u- it was upsetting to Steve.

   15. DSDavid Senra22:01

       Why was that upsetting to Steve?

   16. ECEd Catmull22:02

       Well, but see, it's con- it's a congressional thing about, uh, the technology and how it's being used, only now Congress is, is getting misinformation. But the other one was that our contract with Disney, an initial contract, was to make three movies. And at the time it was signed, um, Disney perceived that Pixar was gonna produce boutique films, their word, much as they would consider, uh, A Nightmare Before Christmas, a stop-motion animated film, to be boutique.

   17. DSDavid Senra22:40

       And therefore not bringing that much money at the box office.

   18. ECEd Catmull22:43

       That's right. In other words, it w- it, they weren't gonna spend a lot on it, and, um, they thought, well, it, there's, that short film wouldn't scale up to be feature-length film. I mean, you couldn't really watch the computer graphic stuff for that long of a period of time, but it's like stop motion. It's a little quirky.

   19. DSDavid Senra23:02

       So that's what they went into the first deal with thinking-

   20. ECEd Catmull23:04

       That's what they were thinking

   21. DSDavid Senra23:05

       ...you know, limited potential here, not knowing that Toy Story is gonna come out, win all these awards, and be the highest grossing film of the year.

   22. ECEd Catmull23:11

       That's right. So that was, uh, uh, a leap 'cause it was quite... it was un- unlike the things that they'd been doing.

   23. DSDavid Senra23:18

       So Steve thought Eisner gave him a bad deal.

   24. ECEd Catmull23:21

       Well, it's not a very good deal. So Steve walked away fe- feeling like [clears throat] it's one of the worst deals he's ever struck.

5. 23:27 – 24:35

   Betting The Company On Toy Story

   1. DSDavid Senra23:27

      This is where he comes to you with the saying, "We're going to..." So you guys essentially bet the company on Toy Story. You were in dire financial straits. We're gonna bet everything on Toy Story, and the same week that Toy Story, uh, is going to be released to the, in theaters, we're going to IPO.

   2. ECEd Catmull23:42

      Yes.

   3. DSDavid Senra23:42

      Is that correct?

   4. ECEd Catmull23:43

      Yes.

   5. DSDavid Senra23:43

      What was your response when he first came and talked to you about this idea?

   6. ECEd Catmull23:47

      Well, I, I mean, I thought it was crazy. [laughs] Um, I, I, you know, I learned a lot in this process. [laughs]

   7. DSDavid Senra23:54

      [laughs]

   8. ECEd Catmull23:55

      He, he, he was right. Uh, but he had a logic, and, and the logic that he gave at the time was that because we knew this was not a boutique film, this is gonna be a big deal, after this film, we had to deliver two more films, but at the end of delivering the next two films, because now we had the experience that nobody else did, and we could We get those other two out with all the experience behind us that when we're done, that, uh, we will have created Michael Eisner's worst nightmare, a competitor

   9. DSDavid Senra24:31

      Which funded by, in part by Disney, funded their own competitor.

6. 24:35 – 36:51

   Engineering Eisner's Worst Nightmare

   1. ECEd Catmull24:35

      Yes. And he said, "And Michael cannot let that happen, so Michael will want to renegotiate the deal." At this point, and this is part of the change in Steve's life, because he would typically shoot for the moon on a lot of things, uh, you know, at Apple and at, at, and at Next, and some- and often overshoot. But he recognized it because he's very smart. And so what he said at the time was that if we renegotiate, uh, then we have to come in as equal partners

   2. DSDavid Senra25:08

      Which means we need money, which we don't have at the time.

   3. ECEd Catmull25:11

      Yes. So we have to go public to do it. It was very compelling, and it also turns out to have been exactly what happened. So that was, that was fine. So we negotiated a new deal, and the new deal was now a f- now five-picture deal, but sequels didn't count. So if we made a sequel, and the idea was there'd be a sequel to Toy Story-

   4. DSDavid Senra25:37

      Why would sequels be excluded?

   5. ECEd Catmull25:39

      Disney wanted to get as much as they could, and their, that was their way of differentiating between an original film and one f- that was presumably easier to make. So th- that was the assumption. The second is that, that Disney had been selling sequels on VHS at the time. Until that time, the only s- the only theatrical sequel that Disney had ever made was, uh, to, uh, Rescuers Down Under.

   6. DSDavid Senra26:08

      Hmm.

   7. ECEd Catmull26:08

      That was for Rescuers was the original. Rescuers Down Under was a sequel. Uh-

   8. DSDavid Senra26:14

      Did that movie do well? 'Cause I've never even heard of it.

   9. ECEd Catmull26:16

      Well, the answer is no.

   10. DSDavid Senra26:18

       [laughs]

   11. ECEd Catmull26:19

       But it, it also should be noted, it is the first motion picture where every frame went through the computer. It was using the paint system that we had developed under contract for Disney. So this is part of our relationship, is we wrote this software. It was used on Rescuers Down Under, the whole thing. It looked great. The reviewers said it looked great, better than, than the looking through the acetate. The story was only so-so. Didn't do all that well, wasn't noticed, but they then had the confidence to, to really go all out on their next film, which was Beauty and the Beast. Using-

   12. DSDavid Senra27:02

       That one I'm familiar with.

   13. ECEd Catmull27:03

       Yeah, using the same software. Beauty and the Beast came out in 1991, you know, a k- a pivotal year, which we should come back to in a minute. But in '91, uh, Beauty and the Beast came out. It also had some 3D graphics in it, but largely it was the, the painting of the, of the cells with the CAPS system, which was written by Pixar under the contract. Uh, and Disney had some people who were working on that system also. And they got an Academy Award for it, for what it... But the film itself was a sequel, theatrical sequel. So Disney did not perceive of a sequel as something which was worthy of going out in the theaters. So when they s- they, we had the deal to make the additional films, then sequels were now perceived of as not at the same level of quality or anything else as a theatrical release. So that was the logical rationale for it. At this point, we, uh, uh, we're now working on Bug's Life. We're already working on it. We start working on the sequel to Toy Story, and I knew we had a problem, you know, even before we started. I thought, "There's something about this which is wrong," because we're, you know, we're building a company, and everybody has, um, a belief about the quality that we shoot for because we released Toy Story. We were proud of it. Now we're working on Bug's Life, and we're trying to make it even better just in, uh, in, in every way that we can. And now we start another film which is supposed to be lesser because it's going direct to video.

   14. DSDavid Senra28:46

       Yeah, 'cause Disney... Originally, Toy Story 2 was going to... Disney wanted you to just forgo theaters and release it direct to video.

   15. ECEd Catmull28:53

       Yeah, that was the, that was the plan. That was one of the reasons why it wouldn't count. So we almost immediately said we think it needs to be theatrical. Disney didn't push back on that at all. I mean, they agreed that it should go theatrical, but it didn't change the terms of the contract. It just came out, and then it turns out it was a huge success. And once it was a huge success... Well, the thing though was it was the first, uh, animated, uh, successful film of any kind ever.

   16. DSDavid Senra29:26

       Yeah, for a sequel.

   17. ECEd Catmull29:27

       Basically, it changed the thing. Now, now of course you... it's common for there to be, um, theatrical releases or theatrical sequels.

   18. DSDavid Senra29:36

       Yeah.

   19. ECEd Catmull29:36

       But at the time, it was a sort of a breakthrough. It changed everybody's mind because it never happened before. So the issue now came with Toy Story 3, 'cause Toy Story 3 would be a sequel. And Steve said, uh, to Michael, says, "Michael, we're a public company. Our investors are expecting that the... We're coming to the end of the contract. If the... and the, it, it is no longer, it's no longer true that this is just a sort of second-class sequel, that this is really a first-rate theatrical film, and it should count." And Michael stuck with the letter of the agreement. That's what pissed him off But, but pissed off Steve. So it was just sitting there and, uh, the, the, the, the deal was that if we wouldn't make it, they could. So at some point, a few years later, they started to make their own version of it

   20. DSDavid Senra30:43

       Which would kill the morale on your team because they don't think of these peop- this is, like, just the, the, the amount of effort and energy they put into the character is almost like your child. It's like saying, "Now somebody else is raising my child."

   21. ECEd Catmull30:55

       Yeah.

   22. DSDavid Senra30:55

       And they're gonna do a terrible job. They're not gonna do a better job than John Lasseter and Ed Catmull and the, the talent that you have at Pixar.

   23. ECEd Catmull31:01

       It put in that strain between them. Now, our relationship with, with the studio and with marketing was very good, so that was between Steve and Michael.

   24. DSDavid Senra31:11

       Did it strain your relationship? Like, how did... Did it change the way you viewed Michael Eisner? 'Cause I know Steve's pissed off, but aren't you as well?

   25. ECEd Catmull31:18

       Oh, yeah. Yeah.

   26. DSDavid Senra31:19

       Okay.

   27. ECEd Catmull31:20

       No, no, I was, I was not a f- a fan of his. A war was now brewing between Michael Eisner and Roy Disney, who didn't like what was going on there.

   28. DSDavid Senra31:30

       And Roy was on the board of Disney.

   29. ECEd Catmull31:32

       Roy was on the board, but was forced off.

   30. DSDavid Senra31:34

       Yeah.
7. 36:51 – 38:44

   Bob Iger's Crappy Hand

   1. ECEd Catmull36:51

      But he knew it, and he told Steve that he didn't know how to find anybody, and the only one, uh, the only ones he knew who knew how to run animation, that was Pixar. So can we talk? And Steve says, "Yes, as soon as you're ready." So that was their conversation. Steve was blown away because Bob Iger starts the conversation by saying, "I've got a crappy hand. Can we talk?" And for him, it's like that's a show of honesty that's unusual.

   2. DSDavid Senra37:24

      Usually you don't start a negotiation by saying, "Hey, other party, you have all the leverage here." [laughs]

   3. ECEd Catmull37:29

      That's right. Bob just started off by being completely honest, and Steve said, "Okay, this is somebody I can be a good partner with." And they formed a very close bond and relationship, you know, throughout the rest of Steve's life.

   4. DSDavid Senra37:44

      And Bob's solution was, we want to buy Pixar.

   5. ECEd Catmull37:47

      Yes. But that's the first thing he wants to do. And he, and he talks about in the book 'cause the board does not want it. But so he... But here's what we see is, uh, and I will say incidentally, u-up to this point, we're now, uh, almost... It's fifteen years since our original signing of that first contract with Disney in nineteen ninety-one. That contract gave them the right to look at everything we did and all of our processes. As we started to become successful, nobody from Disney ever came and said, "What are you guys doing?" Now they're starting to go downhill. I think their last really big hit was, uh, uh, Lion King. Then it started to go down from there. We're going up and, uh, we show them the films. We, we take them down and, and, you know, get notes from them and so forth. Uh,

8. 38:44 – 43:48

   Why Disney Never Asked What Pixar Was Doing

   1. ECEd Catmull38:44

      but nobody ever asked what we're doing or what's different. Why is it that Pixar is so different? It was very curious. So now for me, it's just, uh, you know, observations like, okay, why aren't they curious? Why aren't they asking? Then we sign the, the contract, the pipe picture contract to continue it, which continues that, uh, right to see everything that we're doing. Now we're very successful, and they're very unsuccessful, and still nobody ever ask, you know, "What's going... What are you doing?" And there are no secrets. We're not hiding anything ever.

   2. DSDavid Senra39:21

      What's going on there?

   3. ECEd Catmull39:22

      I have a theory. Uh, part of it I think that it... This has to do with you go to your first conclusion, and you stop thinking. In this case, they would've thought that this is the reason Pixar is successful is because they've got some combination of, it's like it's John Lasseter who's got it, or John and Ed, or John and Ed or Steve. Some combination of the three. We don't have them, and that's the, the secret to their success. So we can't copy that. Now that's just a shallow way of thinking. The, the, the real question is, what is it that's being done that's different? Everybody's different than, you know, but what are they doing? And there was a logic behind the way we built Pixar and the culture at Pixar, which is unlike anything else in the entertainment industry. There's nothing secretive about it. Nobody cared to know. Bob decided to come up as soon as, you know, he was made the CEO. He came up to Pixar and, and, uh, the idea was to s-spend a day with us, uh, seeing what we were doing, how we thought about things, and what we had in the works. And when he came, he walked up our walkway to the building alone. No assistant, no entourage. You know, a driver dropped him off. He came up alone, spent the whole day going around. And, uh, the first thing is like from the people at Pixar, the fact that he came alone was, um, very impressive, right? No group of people coming around, so very personal. Um, Bob loved what he saw, and then he went back, and he said, "Okay, we have to do this." And, and that was his first major battle with the board, which he did write in the book. He said th-this was too big of a risk and too much money.

   4. DSDavid Senra41:24

      What did he see that day that made him arrive at that conclusion?

   5. ECEd Catmull41:27

      Just how the way we worked, the interaction, the ideas that we worked on, that we were working on, the style, the, uh... A-a-and honestly, it's the way I look at any film that we're working on is when we're working on a, a film and you've got a s- a group trying to solve the problems, and as I've said many times, when you start off, these films aren't done. Right? They're beginning. They just, they, they have many problems. They suck and all sorts-

   6. DSDavid Senra41:57

      I think in the book you say, "Embrace that early work will always suck." [laughs]

   7. ECEd Catmull42:02

      Yeah. So, so basically, if that's true, then how do you measure whether or not you should keep doing it? What, what... It, it sucks. Well, let's keep on doing it. [laughs] So what's your basis for, for proceeding? And for me, the basis was what's the spirit of the team? Because we all know it doesn't work, but if they're really working together and they're, you know, they're laughing and then they're angsting and all that together Then that's when you say, "Okay, we just keep going. We s- you know, keep trying to solve it." I-- Along that line, before I left, we completed twenty-one of the twenty-two films we started. So but this is bizarre in that world. And at Disney, we completed, by the time I left, ten of the eleven that we'd started. So it was just a different way of thinking about it, is we're going to fix the problem, and a hard problem is more likely to lead to an interesting film.

   8. DSDavid Senra43:07

      Say more about that.

   9. ECEd Catmull43:08

      Well, if it's easy, then you're-- essentially it's more derivative. Like, you know how to write a script, you know what the three-act structure is, you know all these elements of storytelling, and you put together all the pieces, and you've got a story. Is it a great story? Is it emotional? Well, sometimes yes, sometimes no, but the statistics, uh, actually aren't terribly good. It, it's-- But it's fairly easy to come up with something which is mediocre. It's cheaper, too. If you take on hard things, then you need to spend more time trying to figure-- You have to-- You're trying to figure out how to be different

9. 43:48 – 44:38

   Take The Hard Problem

   1. ECEd Catmull43:48

      in what you're doing. So if you take on a hard problem and y- and you just keep pushing at it, then the fact that it was hard is what's going to make it different. So if you're gonna make a movie about a rat that wants to cook, all right, that's not a slam dunk [laughs] . Not only that, it's, you know, a lot of people wanna keep their project secret. This is one where you could tell everybody, "We're gonna make a b- movie about a rat that's gonna cook." Nobody's gonna copy it [laughs] . But what is the measure? 'Cause sometimes, uh, things don't go right. So we will, uh, change up. We've changed out some directors.

   2. DSDavid Senra44:32

      Including on Toy Story 2. Was that the first time you changed directors?

   3. ECEd Catmull44:36

      Yes.

10. 44:38 – 48:48

    The Director Can't Lose The Team

    1. ECEd Catmull44:38

       'Cause the, the, uh, the, the reasoning is that the one thing that the director can't do... They, they can screw up in all sorts of ways, but they can't lose the team. That, that was, that was our guiding light. If the team is together-

    2. DSDavid Senra44:53

       The faith, you mean the team's lo-lo-lost faith in the director

    3. ECEd Catmull44:56

       ... in the director, right. So that's what we-- Then, then our, our phrasing was the director can't lose the team. But w-we are-- we're doing everything we can to help them, because sometimes you got new directors, and sometimes these are really-- they're really good people. You, you gave them the, the, the position because you believe they can do it. And even though they've, they've been close to it and they've watched it, holding the mantle is a different kind of, of thing. And, uh, it's pretty difficult. It isn't like, let's say baseball, where you can give credit to the starting pitcher and the middle pitchers and the relief pitchers, and they all get credit. With, with, uh, directors, everything sort of goes to the, the, the final [laughs] name that's up there. The reality is everybody was contributing, even that first person that was there. And it's really hard on people to do that. So most of the, of the behind-the-scenes work is to shore them up, help provide guidance, because you really want everybody to succeed. But if they lose the team, then, then we have to make a change. But the result is we push things all the way through. And in, in the case of, of... I, I said we completed twenty-one or twenty-two films we started. What's the one film we didn't, uh, finish? Well, that one we actually did assign to another director to complete, and he took a pass at it. And, uh, and it-- and this was Pete Docter. And Pete said, "You know, uh, this is... You know, we're, we're getting this film going now. Uh, it's such an uphill thing that there's actually an idea that I, I have been rolling around in my head that I, I think might be better, and it's, it takes place inside the mind of a little girl."

    4. DSDavid Senra46:57

       And this is Inside Out.

    5. ECEd Catmull46:59

       Yes. So we said, "Uh, you're right." [laughs] But also you're, you're relying on the passion. So, um, Pete Docter, who's, uh, very well loved at, at Pixar, and he wants to tell this rather emotional film, and we says, "Okay, we're in." So twenty-second became one of the other films that was completed [laughs] . But that's just the, the process. There are no real strict rules. It's ju-- We're just trying to get to the quality and we're trying to get it to work and have those teams work.

    6. DSDavid Senra47:31

       I found one of my all-time favorite quotes when I was reading the book Zero to One. The quote says, "The single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas." That is exactly what AppLovin has done with their advertising platform Axon. Axon connects you with over a billion potential new customers inside mobile games. Axon allows you to capture undivided attention. Axon ads are full-screen video ads that are watched for an average of thirty-five seconds. That is retention that blows other ad platforms out of the water. You can launch on Axon in minutes. You set the goal, and Axon achieves it. There's no complex setup, no expertise needed, and Axon scales quickly. They can put your ads in front of over a billion potential customers. Other businesses have seen immediate results, have scaled to hundreds of thousands of dollars of spend per day, and increased their revenue by millions. So you wanna get started quickly before all your competitors are on Axon, and you can do that by going to axon.ai/senra. That is axon.ai/senra.

    7. ECEd Catmull48:45

       When you do that switchover from

    8. DSDavid Senra48:47

       Uh,

11. 48:48 – 52:32

    Quality Is The Best Business Plan

    1. DSDavid Senra48:48

       Toy Story 2, John Lasseter was put in charge of that movie, if I'm not mistaken.

    2. ECEd Catmull48:51

       Yes.

    3. DSDavid Senra48:52

       And that's when you come up with this mantra that you would repeat your... in, inside, um, Pixar, which is, I think comes directly from John Lasseter, where he said that quality is the best business plan.

    4. ECEd Catmull49:04

       I like what he says because it's, um, a- although it, it, it wasn't the mantra for the rest of the studio, but it was like an implicit one.

    5. DSDavid Senra49:14

       It was his one.

    6. ECEd Catmull49:16

       Yeah. Pa- part of it is that, um, uh, my own personal belief is we never had a mission statement. Um, a- and the reason for not having a mission statement, and I don't wanna generalize to everybody else, but a mission statement is an answer when typically w- we should always be asking questions, "What are we doing?" And, uh, if you, if you immediately say, "Oh, well, we go back to the mission statement, we're doing this," um, it actually ended up being stronger to have it so that there was always sort of this questioning, are we doing the right thing, and are we going in the right direction? We always had that question that was going on. But in terms of quality is the business, best business plan, it's, you know, this is related to this, this great book, The, The Man Who Broke Capitalism-

    7. DSDavid Senra50:11

       Oh, yeah

    8. ECEd Catmull50:11

       ... about Jack Welch.

    9. DSDavid Senra50:13

       Oh, okay.

    10. ECEd Catmull50:14

        Great book. 'Cause... And the, um, I think in the year 2000 is when it was Forbes magazine had, had named him as the CEO or, or manager of the century. Utter disaster. People who were there because they, they had this really, uh, high, uh, uh, compound growth rate for 10 years, something like that. So people who were raised under the system were considered to be the very best. Whereas General Electric today-

    11. DSDavid Senra50:50

        Yeah

    12. ECEd Catmull50:50

        ... is split up into pieces. Uh, and it was completely fragile, um, not robust because he gutted it, gutted it of, of the future research. But the, the people that were there were hired and considered to be valuable because they'd grown up in that system. Two of them which went on to become leaders of Boeing, applying the, the same principles they learned from Jack Welch at Boeing with the conse- consequences that we, we now see. So this is an, uh, the opposite of quality is the best business plan because the reality is that quality in, in products, whether it's phones or movies or airplanes, is the quality's very important. That is kinda inherent in the business plan. But too many, it was the, the short-term annual growth rate-

    13. DSDavid Senra51:46

        Yeah

    14. ECEd Catmull51:46

        ... we're all aware-

    15. DSDavid Senra51:46

        Which is the opposite of what Lasseter would... is preaching in that statement.

    16. ECEd Catmull51:50

        That's right. Uh, we were not the lowest cost producers of animated films, that's for sure. We may have been even the highest cost.

    17. DSDavid Senra51:58

        I wanna pick your brain about, you had two childhood heroes you write about in the book, one being Albert Einstein, the real... the other one being Walt Disney. I've read everything I can get my hands on on Walt Disney. I find him fascinating, and him and his brother would fight over this 'cause, you know, his brother's the one who's supposed to be in charge of the money, and Walt was the innovator, and he's just like, "How much is this gonna cost?" And they would have this argument, and he goes, uh, "We're innovating. I'll tell you when I'm done." [laughs] Like, "I don't know what the cost is. Like, I'll figure it out at the end. I'm not trying to make the lowest cost product. I'm trying to make the best." So what are some of the things that you learned from Walt Disney that you think you apply to Pixar?

12. 52:32 – 59:25

    What Walt Disney Taught Him

    1. ECEd Catmull52:32

       Initially, as a kid watching that, what I'm seeing is the result. Now, as an, as an adult who's-

    2. DSDavid Senra52:37

       What do you mean you're seeing the result?

    3. ECEd Catmull52:38

       In other words, I'm, I'm watching the movies and going to Disneyland as a, as a kid.

    4. DSDavid Senra52:44

       And then also watching... What was the show he was doing for ABC when he's talking about building Disney, the first Disneyland? It was The Wonderful World of-

    5. ECEd Catmull52:53

       I think it was The Wonderful World of Color because it, that... I think, uh, when it first started, they meant it, it was The Wonderful World of Disney or something like that. But when color TV became popular, they changed it to The Wonderful-

    6. DSDavid Senra53:04

       And you were like nine years old or something like that, watching in your living room.

    7. ECEd Catmull53:07

       Yeah, something like that.

    8. DSDavid Senra53:08

       Yeah.

    9. ECEd Catmull53:08

       Incidentally, when Disneyland opened, um, my wife's father worked as a sound editor for them.

    10. DSDavid Senra53:16

        Mm.

    11. ECEd Catmull53:17

        And so she was at Disneyland on opening day. She was also there for the 50th anniversary, [laughs] uh, uh, later, 50 years later. Um, so the, the other thing, of course, was Disneyland itself, which was extremely inf- influential in just terms of going there and being there and knowing that all this came from the drive of, of, uh, of Walt and his way of thinking. Now, I've thought a lot about this since because his brother was Roy Disney, and Roy Disney had a son who's Roy Disney Jr., who later was part of the hostile takeover-

    12. DSDavid Senra54:03

        [laughs]

    13. ECEd Catmull54:03

        ... in which Roy Disney, with the Bass brothers, did the hostile takeover of Disney, which led to Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg coming into Disney. And, uh, and we got to know Roy Disney pretty well. But now if, if I now think of it in terms of technology, if I go back to, to Disney, Disney understood better than anybody else at that time that, that technology was invigorating the studio, and he was... He believed it so much it also led to Disneyland. He just loved this stuff. But it's when, uh... Well, before it was blue screen matting, then it was sodium, yellow sodium matting. He would use it, and, and adopting sound-

    14. DSDavid Senra54:47

        Any new technology that came out, Disney embraced it-

    15. ECEd Catmull54:49

        He was embracing it

    16. DSDavid Senra54:49

        ... every single time. He was one of the first people on the frontier

    17. ECEd Catmull54:52

        So like when the Xerox machine came out, they worked with Xerox, and they built a room that was a Xerox camera. So I was in that room when I was in college, and there's a lens in the wall with a platen on the other side where the light's there and people could put the cells on it.

    18. DSDavid Senra55:11

        Wait, Disney partnered with Xerox to build this camera?

    19. ECEd Catmull55:14

        Yeah, to build a, a room that was a camera.

    20. DSDavid Senra55:17

        Okay.

    21. ECEd Catmull55:18

        So in one side of the room there's a lens, then there's a conveyor belt going in one side, another one going out the other. So in the room itself, there's like, like a red light, and you've got these zinc plates or something like that with carbon would go on it. So these plates would come in the conveyor belt. They're clean. They'd be put up, and then they would snap the photograph and then put this, um, carbon, um, uh, on it, you know, the little, um, particles, rub it around. So now you've got a, a copy on there. And then it would go out, and then they'd fuse it with, with, with... Well, actually they'd apply acetate to it and transfer the carbon onto it. So now they had a Xerox copy on the acetate, which then could go off and later get painted. In- interestingly, when I later became president at, of Disney, I walked by a room there in their building, which had only been built, by that time it was only ten years old, but I walked by a room that said ink and paint. So I stuck my head in and I said, "We still have an ink and paint department?" And she said, "Yes." And I said, "Can I see it?" [laughs] 'Cause it turns out all those reports to me. I, I just was there. [laughs] Didn't even know about this. So we went over. The same room was there.

    22. DSDavid Senra56:46

        [laughs]

    23. ECEd Catmull56:47

        That was really cool. It turns out that having technology was in Walt's DNA, but it was not in the DNA of the company. At that point, you know, they were still making films, but the quality's starting to go down. They're moving off in other directions. The thing that actually, i- in my opinion, that kept Disney together from, kept it from being broken up was the theme parks itself, for that's such a unique phenomenon. It isn't like the filmmaking. Roy, when, uh, when he, when now he came in because he's part of the rescue of Disney and is this hostile takeover, he's the one who said, "We need to bring some technology into the studio because we're stayed." He's the one that initiated the contact with us at Pixar.

    24. DSDavid Senra57:38

        There's an interesting story in your book where you had tried to bring some technology into Disney, what, fifty... I think you were in graduate school?

    25. ECEd Catmull57:45

        I was in graduate school, so nineteen seventy-three.

    26. DSDavid Senra57:46

        And the people running Disney Animation is like there's like these nine old men. I think there's only a few left at that point.

    27. ECEd Catmull57:52

        Yeah. I went in the office of, uh, uh, Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas. They were still working at the time.

    28. DSDavid Senra57:59

        They did not have technology in their DNA. [laughs]

    29. ECEd Catmull58:01

        Well, no, actually, it, it turns out that wasn't... I might have assumed that at the time, b- but they weren't the ones that we were talking about doing this and you sort of deal with. All, all that Utah wanted was I was gonna go there as an exchange, and they'd send an animator at, to Utah. And they had no interest in that. Instead, they offered me a position to work on the new Space Mountain ride at Disney World.

    30. DSDavid Senra58:26

        And this is a very interesting part of... 'Cause I love the fact that you're mission-oriented. So, you know, we should back up, I guess. There's context for the people who haven't read your book. You knew you wanted to be an animator. You're sitting there watching this when you're like nine years old, and you see that, I think it was Donald Duck come, come to life or whatever. Then you realize, "Oh, shit, I'm not... Like, I, I don't have the technical skills to, to be an animator." You also love technology. Then you have this idea, this mission, that I'm gonna combine my two loves, and I'm actually gonna make... My mission is going to make the first, you know, feature-length computer animated film, okay? But you're like obsessed with Disney, but you go to Disney, they offer you a job, but it's not... It's in conflict with your mission, and you didn't... I think in the book it says, you didn't think twice. You turned them down immediately, correct?
13. 59:25 – 1:08:48

    George Lucas And The Motion Blur Problem

    1. ECEd Catmull59:25

       George Lucas. So after Star Wars, and because ILM, which was the high technology at the time in terms of the optical process-

    2. DSDavid Senra59:35

       Industrial Light & Magic

    3. ECEd Catmull59:36

       ... Industrial Light & Magic.

    4. DSDavid Senra59:37

       George's company-

    5. ECEd Catmull59:39

       Yes

    6. DSDavid Senra59:39

       ... that he started because he couldn't buy the technology he wanted to apply to special effects and filmmaking, correct?

    7. ECEd Catmull59:44

       That's right. He, he, he got this group together. It's down in LA is where they started. And they figured out how to get what he wanted, and one of the things they were able to solve, this is a subtle thing that most people aren't really aware of. It has to do with motion blur. It turns out with film, it was Thomas Edison who discovered that it was easier to show every frame twice on the film before advancing it in order to overcome the flicker frequency of the eye, but not use nearly so much film. But it had a, a, a consequence with the eye in that if something was in perfect focus and y- you're tracking it, like let's say a, a, uh, broomstick is gonna move in front of the camera, then, then it's flash, flash, frame moves, flash, flash. But your eye is tracking this broomstick across the camera. So it, you, you... it's flash on your back of your eyeball, your eyeball moves, and it's, it's flash in a different place. So the edge doubles up The reason you didn't see this with live action films is that everything moves in the direction of that it's moving because the camera's open for a certain length of time. So you've got this natural blur. There's no sharp edge for the eye to cue on. Everything works fine. Doesn't work with animation or stop frame animation or Ray Harryhausen's stop motion animation in these, these movies because of this artifact.

    8. DSDavid Senra1:01:21

       What's the experience of the person viewing this? They become nauseous?

    9. ECEd Catmull1:01:25

       No. It's just like you, well, you, you just happen to notice that the edges double up.

    10. DSDavid Senra1:01:29

        Okay.

    11. ECEd Catmull1:01:30

        And they called it strobing, and it's distracting. So what they did at ILM, which was used for Star Wars as the first film, was they, they would, would... They would move these little cameras, because they had motion control of the camera, against a blue screen, uh, a layer of green scheen- screen background, and then they would capture the motion blur and then maintain that blur as they went through these different phases of transfer through internegatives and negatives and, and so forth. And it was v-very difficult. That's why these guys were, like, the masters of doing this, because, uh, the photochemical processes that are being developed at Technicolor is a nonlinear process, so it's hard to maintain the quality of these blurred edges. But they did it. From George's point of view, they were using computers and they were really good at the optics and they were very successful, and people were watching this movie, and it didn't have these artificial, um, things that you see typically with special effects of, of this sort. That was their beginning. George could then look at that and say, "Oh, I brought in these really smart guys, and there's a lot that's happening in the outside world." And George is not a technologist. He knew that things were changing rapidly and that it's probably gonna happen with, um, audio and with video, and he knows enough about it to know that it's changing quickly. So he went out to look to find somebody who could put this together.

    12. DSDavid Senra1:03:14

        This is gonna be the beginning of Graphics Group?

    13. ECEd Catmull1:03:17

        Yes.

    14. DSDavid Senra1:03:18

        Which is going to be where you... You are, you're... You have a very unique, uh, experience, because you were inspired by Walt Disney. You worked for Steve Jobs longer, consecutive, uh, for like 26 consecutive years, I think longer than almost anybody else.

    15. ECEd Catmull1:03:31

        Yeah.

    16. DSDavid Senra1:03:31

        But you also meet a young George Lucas. This is after the first Star Wars when you, when you go to interview with him?

    17. ECEd Catmull1:03:36

        That's right. He's still working on Empire Strikes Back.

    18. DSDavid Senra1:03:39

        You're both in your early 30s.

    19. ECEd Catmull1:03:40

        Yeah.

    20. DSDavid Senra1:03:41

        You did something very different. They're, they're recruiting these technologists, right? You're one of them. And they're... The interview process before you get to George, the first question in the interview is, "Who else should we be talking to?" And I wanna bring this up because let's say there's half a dozen other people that are going for the job just like you. You were the only one that started listing off all these names, and you find out later that the rest of them were essentially threatened by competition or maybe insecure, whatever the case is, and they didn't... They were not as free-flowing with information, which is something that you maintained throughout your entire career.

    21. ECEd Catmull1:04:11

        They wanted the job. [laughs] It was like a, a plumb job-

    22. DSDavid Senra1:04:15

        But, but this instinct, I wanna just focus on your time and what you learned from George Lucas, but this instinct that to constantly share knowledge is something that happened in grad school, and you seem to perpetuate that throughout your entire career, correct?

    23. ECEd Catmull1:04:29

        Y-Yes. I... Th-There was a succession of insights for me just at a personal level. One of them was at grad school as I was graduating, I can look back and, and did and, and just say that this was a fantastic four years. I loved my time and I loved the people. I loved the way the professors worked. I loved the support and the environment. It was invigorating. We all had different interests, and it was like, I, I, I said to myself, "This is the kind of experience I want to have for the rest of my life." So that became one of the foundational things for me, is that way of working is a great way of working. We accomplished a lot. And I went to New York Tech, and I had a bunch of theories about how to manage. And the, uh... And, and what I found as I got into it was that some of my theories were a complete crock. I mean, I didn't know what I was doing. I'd never managed anything in my life [laughs] . So, uh, and, and I boxed myself into a corner. Uh, uh, but at the same time, I, I also recognized there was something about the position I wa- I was in that, that some of the newer people were treating me a little bit differently, even though I didn't feel I was different. So for... This was an inter-interesting psychological phenomenon that was going on, which I found interesting because when I went there, I, I didn't really want to be a manager. I kinda liked the idea of being in charge, but I didn't want to do the hard part of managing. But as we went into this and I was making mistakes and trying to correct them, I found that that part was interesting, too, as well as the technology was interesting. We also, uh, published everything. Uh, and part of this was the realization that the people that we wanted were the people who wanted to be part of the bigger community. At this time, the computer graphics community, called SIGGRAPH, was just starting, and they wanted to be able to, to publish. So publishing everything meant that we could draw in the best people, 'cause Long Island was not a place that computer graphics people were going.

    24. DSDavid Senra1:06:50

        Yeah.

    25. ECEd Catmull1:06:50

        It was not a, a hotbed of computer science [laughs] at the time. So, um, you, you, you basically wanna use the culture of your approach as a way of getting the best people together. And, uh, that worked very well. Part of it when George was out looking is that we were already doing a lot of things that he wanted, uh, to build this, this group up. So I was hired to go to Lucasfilm, um, but that was also a point of reflection for me because I can look back on my time at, uh, at New York Tech and say, well, about half of my theories were right and half were a crock. So now-

    26. DSDavid Senra1:07:37

        In managing.

    27. ECEd Catmull1:07:37

        In managing.

    28. DSDavid Senra1:07:38

        Okay. Deel is how the best founders turn the world into their talent pool. I've been studying how history's greatest founders operate for a decade, and one thing they all have in common is they understand that recruiting and hiring the very best talent is your most important priority. A players recognize other A players, which is why top companies like Ramp, Shopify, Eleven Labs, Uber, and DoorDash all use Deel. Many of the top founders I know have personally invested in Deel after using their product, and what they discovered is that Deel is the best company in the world at building infrastructure for global hiring. Deel will help your business hire, pay, and manage any worker anywhere in the world, so you can retain the best talent anywhere and spend the rest of your time focusing on what you do best, delivering value to your customers. The founder of Eleven Labs has a great description of the value Deel can give your company. He said, "We built Eleven Labs to break down language and communication barriers. With Deel enabling us to hire and support exceptional talent anywhere, we can accelerate our innovation and bring more voices, stories, and ideas to every corner of the world." Deel is trusted by over forty thousand businesses. Learn how they can help your business today by going to deel.com/senra.

14. 1:08:48 – 1:13:31

    Now What's The Point Of My Life

    1. DSDavid Senra1:08:48

       That is deel.com/senra. I guess we should give some context 'cause like I've read your book three times. I've been a massive fan of you. I've been making episodes on my first podcast, Founders, like a decade ago about your book. Like, I think it's essential reading for anybody trying to build any kind of organization. But the book starts with you explaining this, you know, multi-decade... You had just achieved what you thought was gonna be your life's work, twenty years of, you know, making mistakes and, and trying to maneuver and get into a position where you can actually build-- make the world's first computer-animated film. And then you were shocked, which I think is super important re-- especially reading the first chapter. I mean, you read the whole book, but alm-- not depression, I don't know what you would call it, but almost like, "I achieved what I worked for two decades, I got it," and now you're kind of like maybe thrilled for a little bit, but, you know, now what is my-- what's the point of my life? What am I going to do now?

    2. ECEd Catmull1:09:39

       Yeah, what's the next thing?

    3. DSDavid Senra1:09:40

       Yeah. And then it takes you, I think, a while, maybe a year-

    4. ECEd Catmull1:09:42

       It was a year.

    5. DSDavid Senra1:09:43

       Yeah, to figure out, oh, and you start studying all these other... This is what I love, the, the first opening of, uh, the book where it's like, yeah, but I've been around. You know, you were working-- you were observing Silicon Valley, too. It's like all these people would start a company and do really well. The founder would wind up on the Fortu-- uh, the cover of Fortune magazine saying, "These are the new titans." And then they would do something obviously stupid, and then, uh, they would essentially expand and pop like a bubble. And you were like, "I want Pixar to outlive me. My new mission is to figure out how to build a culture where this is sustained and we don't make these mistakes."

    6. ECEd Catmull1:10:19

       It took me a year to, to wrestle that down. But before that one, there's, there's one other thing I, I should comment about when I went to Lucasfilm, and that was that in realizing that about half my theories were wrong, that that ratio would c- would probably continue at Lucasfilm and probably for the rest of my life. And, uh, and the reason I think this is, is important is, uh, in fact, I, I said this to somebody at Disney, an executive there. I, I said that ratio would continue of half right and half wrong for the rest of my life. And he said, "No, actually, you have a better record than that." But, but I realized, no, actually, I don't. I do think that if I know that I'm wrong half the time, that I catch it earlier. I special-- I spend less time on the wrong decision. So it looks like the ratio is different. But the reality is, I'm just wrong half the time. And I think it's important to think that way, and that allows you to, to say, "Okay, maybe this is one of those times, I would-- and I would rather catch it sooner rather than later." And that was, that be-- that was important for me going forward. Now, moving forward, when, when Toy Story came out, because it had been this clear focus point, uh, it was almost like a North Star. Now, in retrospect, I have to say, uh, the real North Star was, was an implicit one, which I didn't fully understand because we didn't talk about it, and it has to do with the technology. When Toy Story came out and it was a big success, and we read all these reviews, then almost all the reviews only spent one or two sentences saying it was done on the computer, and the rest were about the movie. What I loved and felt proud about was that the technical people felt like that was their big success, is that, is that people weren't talking about the technology. The implicit North Star was the quality of the long-term goal of making a good film. That was the real North Star, and I didn't even realize that fully at the time. It was more like we achieved the goal, and then I had to, to figure out what a next goal was and, and while still running the company, 'cause now we're a public company and we're working on the next film. But it isn't just like you wanna go into a rinse and repeat cycle It's like, what, what is it we're doing here? In which case, it's, it is what is the culture that we're building that's sustainable and, and is always changing and has the ability to change? During that year, I also wrestled with another problem. After the movie came out, there was that thing in me which said, "Since I started down this path a long time ago, how much of this was me?" And I wrestled with

15. 1:13:31 – 1:16:10

    How Much Of This Was Me

    1. ECEd Catmull1:13:31

       that for a year.

    2. DSDavid Senra1:13:31

       What, what does that mean, how much of this was me?

    3. ECEd Catmull1:13:33

       Well, in other words, since I started on this path, you know, then it, you know, this... We wouldn't have gone down this path if I wouldn't have done this, so how much of this, our success is attributable to me? I... It's a selfish question to ask, uh, which is why I didn't talk to people about it, because I knew it was a selfish question to ask, but I couldn't help but think about it. And, uh, a- and I, I bring this up because some companies that are successful, then the person who leads it actually believe it's all due to them.

    4. DSDavid Senra1:14:06

       Did Steve?

    5. ECEd Catmull1:14:08

       No. I think some people think he did, and I, I was interesting there, but, but no, he didn't. He was very... We talked about this. He was ve- very clear about it. Like any, any project, you know when you, when you work on something, there are a lot of people around that are working on it that are helping. They're all part of it. So and I can look at people and say they were a, a, a critical part of it, and, and many of them are well-known, so people would know about John or Steve or, uh, Andrew, uh, but they typically wouldn't know who the technical people were, who were absolutely critical to doing this, and they were all necessary. But the important thing that, that I came away with was that asking the question might have been a natural thing to ask, but trying to answer it is an act of separation. That's the problem with it, 'cause I'm trying to say, "How am I separate from others?" And really, I never was. It's like none of this would have happened without a lot of things coming together, and the notion of separating or trying to figure that out, you know, is act- was- wasn't good for... It wasn't good for my soul. I've seen people do this. We had... Somebody made a short film once, and, uh, at the end left because what he said was, he wanted to see if he could do it without the safety net. So he viewed the Brain Trust as his safety net. It's, it's not a safety net. These were your colleagues trying to do things. And so what he's saying, "Well, how much can I do on my own?" It's not the right question. It's, how much can I do with others?

    6. DSDavid Senra1:15:53

       I wanna go back to George Lucas. You meet him. You're both in your early 30s at this time. Speak to, like, his interest in technology is not for technology's sake. He's a very practical person, I think is the way you describe him in the book. It's can this technology... His, his interest in this technology begins and ends with can it help me make the film that I'm trying

16. 1:16:10 – 1:25:11

    George Lucas Wanted The Whole Industry Healthy

    1. DSDavid Senra1:16:10

       to make?

    2. ECEd Catmull1:16:10

       A little stronger than that. George actually has a very, uh, strong sense of wanting to contribute to the entire field.

    3. DSDavid Senra1:16:18

       What does that mean?

    4. ECEd Catmull1:16:18

       He wants to affect the entire industry.

    5. DSDavid Senra1:16:21

       Of filmmaking.

    6. ECEd Catmull1:16:21

       Of filmmaking.

    7. DSDavid Senra1:16:22

       Because you said in the book it was a really exciting place for you to work because you're in your early 30s, and you're developing technology, and then the world's greatest filmmakers are dropping in, seeing what you guys are making. Like, Spielberg shows up, and Scorsese shows up at this time. Is that what you mean, like he's trying to contribute to not only what he's doing, but his friends and even people that he doesn't know?

    8. ECEd Catmull1:16:42

       Part of it was he wanted the technology for filmmaking. That's, that's true, but he also wanted to share it. So the fact that we would say, "This is how we're doing editing," or, or, "our graphics techniques or audio," was what he wanted. He was trying to affect the industry as well as build tools for himself.

    9. DSDavid Senra1:17:00

       Why, why do you think he wanted to affect the industry? That's an int- uh, that's interesting.

    10. ECEd Catmull1:17:03

        To some extent, the, uh, the entertainment industry is, it's a different kind of competitive landscape. If you've got a movie out in the theaters, then you would actually like all the other films not to be there 'cause you want everybody [laughs] to come to yours. But if you don't have a film out there, then you want people to enjoy going to the movies. That is, people that you might call your competitors are producing things that it, that other people enjoy. You have a vested interest in wanting the rest of the industry to be healthy. I know a few other fields like that, where, yes, there's competition, but the other is you really want everybody else to do well too. It isn't cutthroat. It isn't like real estate.

    11. DSDavid Senra1:17:50

        Okay.

    12. ECEd Catmull1:17:51

        You know, with the realtors or car salesmen, you know, it's a very different kind of, of, of structure and, and mindset, or with a lot of companies.

    13. DSDavid Senra1:18:00

        It, it's more positive sum. I remember, um, there's this great biography of George Lucas written by Brian Jay Jones that I've read a few times, and they talked about, you know, a lot of them, when they... Way before they did Star Wars or, or Steven Spielberg did Jaws, they were friends.

    14. ECEd Catmull1:18:13

        Yeah.

    15. DSDavid Senra1:18:13

        And they shared and collaborated. They'd watch each other mo- each other's movies. They would do these, like, brain... They didn't call it a brain trust. It was kind of-

    16. ECEd Catmull1:18:19

        Yeah

    17. DSDavid Senra1:18:19

        ... similar to what you're saying. They'd screen a movie before it came out, and they were like, "This is shit," or, "This is great." And I think to the point where George talks about this, where I think they were riding around together. I think Spielberg was in his car the day that Star Wars came out, and I think they went to go have lunch, and they're like, "Why are all these people..." There's like a line around the block. They didn't even know what was happening. It was all the people were in line to watch Star Wars. And then after that, George is with Spielberg, if I remember correctly, on the day that Jaws comes out, and they both were celebrating, like, each other's success because it's like, well, if you go watch Star Wars today and Jaws tomorrow, J- no one loses in that situation.

    18. ECEd Catmull1:18:56

        That's right. So it's... You know, for, for George, having a healthy industry is very important, and he just, because of, of, of his experience with others- He didn't think about competition in the way that others might. It's not-

    19. DSDavid Senra1:19:11

        That's a great insight, Ed. I didn't pick up on the fact that he was actually developing technology that makes this entire industry stronger. That's fascinating.

    20. ECEd Catmull1:19:19

        Yeah, and he, and he would say that while we were working on it.

    21. DSDavid Senra1:19:23

        Wow.

    22. ECEd Catmull1:19:24

        We're in, we're in a process, and when we actually get there, it's, it's gonna be very different than the act of traveling. He was using analogies like, uh, prairie wagons going across, and when you actually arrive there, you don't live in the prairie wagon anymore. [laughs] You're-

    23. DSDavid Senra1:19:39

        Oh-

    24. ECEd Catmull1:19:39

        You're doing something different.

    25. DSDavid Senra1:19:40

        Thank you for reminding me that. One of my favorite parts of the book is you talking about he speaks in like a folksy manner, like almost like a Yoda. He was talking about building a business, too, and I think it applies to filmmaking, is like, you know, we start on this journey, we get in this wagon, you know, we're gonna go across the country. We get to the end, the composition of the team is gonna be some people died along the way, [laughs] some people quit, whatever. But even then, once they get to the destination, there's some people that just like the journey, so they jump off, and that's as it should be. He's talking about the composition of the company and the team constantly changing. Which I thought was one of the best metaphors of building a business I've ever heard, too.

    26. ECEd Catmull1:20:12

        And that's the way he did it. So for him, when we, we published everything and we were engaging with others, that's what he wanted to do.

    27. DSDavid Senra1:20:22

        People might not know why y- Pixar, or I guess the precursor to Pixar, the precursor to Pixar, it's called Graphics Group. It's inside of George's company. He goes through a divorce, which now he's run-- like, he's in a different financial position. That causes him to look around to, I think him and his, uh, accountants and attorneys look around to what he can sell, what assets he could sell for this. Graphics Group is one of them, which is you're, you're running at the time, correct?

    28. ECEd Catmull1:20:45

        Yes.

    29. DSDavid Senra1:20:46

        Okay. Would that have happened if George never got divorced?

    30. ECEd Catmull1:20:49

        We probably would have end up as part of ILM.
17. 1:25:11 – 1:32:38

    Refusing To Let Anyone Feel Second Class

    1. ECEd Catmull1:25:12

       that with the exception of John, everybody else was technical And wh-when I visited a lot of companies while at Lucasfilm, the one thing I noticed was there was a weird sort of first class, second class. It's not a terminology that people would use, um, because people wouldn't say that they're first class.

    2. DSDavid Senra1:25:33

       [laughs]

    3. ECEd Catmull1:25:33

       But sometimes people will say they felt like they're second class. But it's true in a lot of companies, unless you're in that sort of pivotal rung of people who have this visible-- make a visible difference to the company, then you can have this feeling of being second class within the company. We were determined that we did not want this to happen to us. So as we brought in the other-- the animators and the artists, Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter, then it was ex-- it was extremely important that they come in and that we were all peers with each other. And that, that's still true to this day, is it isn't like the technical people there are in service of the filmmakers, the filmmakers are there just to show off the technology, is we're all on this to make really great movies. And that culture was very strong, I believe, because we worked so hard to make sure there wasn't this distinction. Didn't mean everybody was the same even within the different fields, but as a group it felt like, oh, I'm working with world-class people in art or in production or, uh, or in sound. Like they're all, they're all world-class. And if you feel that way about everybody, then it actually changed the dynamic within the group. And it's very important for us to do this, and I think we paid more attention to it 'cause one of the things I don't think any of the studios understood was that real relationship a-about the-- or this balance. It's too subtle. [laughs] And I can describe it and everyone would nod their heads that that's rather what they do, but they don't.

    4. DSDavid Senra1:27:17

       Say more about what they don't understand.

    5. ECEd Catmull1:27:18

       Well, I, I mean, if I take the entertainment industry, you know, the, the, the actually experienced people don't report directly to the CEO. They might have a chief technology officer, but the mindset of the people, uh, on the top isn't the same as actually having in that group, like in that brain trust, the real expertise. Instead, they, they, uh, they, they... the-they're the financial, they're the, quote, strategic people and so forth, but it's not really-

    6. DSDavid Senra1:27:48

       So you just remove the silos in Pixar? I don't know if I'm understanding.

    7. ECEd Catmull1:27:51

       The idea was to remove the silos. I say that because there were three times in the history of Pixar in which a group arose that felt like they were second class, and we, and we missed it, and we were looking for it. So this is really hard, and it's very subtle. A-as an example, after we're successful, we bring in some young people, and they hear the early stories because in the early stories that, uh, you know, when we're making Toy Story, people are spending a lot of time there in the, in the building, and there's a lot of clowning around and, um, uh, these little hand scooter races around the building and, you know, you know, funny things like that, all, all sorts of gags and so forth. So you hear those stories, but now for somebody new in the building, what they see, 'cause it's a few years later, is these people who have had a lot of fun and were pretty irreverent, were now married and had kids, and at night they went home to their kids. So regardless of what you say, they don't want to look like they're out of place with these people they respect because they're very successful. It doesn't matter what you say, they're emulating the behaviors that they see, and what they see are people who are going home at night. Meanwhile, the people that are going home at night to their families are saying to each other, "What's wrong with these new people we're hiring? They don't have any sense of fun. They're not doing what we're doing. They're very, they're very different." So, but they don't say anything. Neither group talks about the problem. So this, like, festers for a while, and they finally realize, "Oh, oh, I see. Um, they've got these feelings, but they're not saying them because it seems inappropriate." You don't wanna sort of stand out or you don't wanna look bad, so you don't say anything. Once they realize that, then the question is, okay, how do we get this sense of fun in there? But sense of fun isn't something that you organize top-down.

    8. DSDavid Senra1:29:53

       Yeah. It's 3:00 P.M., guys. Come on, let's go, let's go take an hour to have fun.

    9. ECEd Catmull1:29:56

       I know. It's just, you know, or you, you... I mean, we do have company parties or, or big events. Yeah, I mean, they're organized, but, uh, the, the best things happen are, you know, happen from bottom up or the, or the managers in their group, they decide to do something. So in that case, what we would do is I went to some people who were instigators and, uh, you say, "You know, can you just sort of make something happen?" And they would go off, and they would do something, but there'd be nothing that was official from the c- the corporate. It's just like to tell those people who are instigators to get things to happen. So it's like a, this is like a signal. So when people start to do something which is, uh, you know, sort of irreverent or, you know, even closer to the edge and-- but what they see is okay, then it frees people up to do more things like that. And so we had a lot of activities that were just-- they were self-organized.

    10. DSDavid Senra1:30:59

        So my understanding, what you're saying is like these problems are very subtle. They're hard to notice. If left unchecked, they fester, and the solutions can also be subtle.

    11. ECEd Catmull1:31:09

        It's recognizing the value of signals, both signals that you're looking for, 'cause they're not saying them, so you have to look for subtle signals But in order to make it safe is you have to, in turn, make sure there are signals given back.

    12. DSDavid Senra1:31:24

        And it wouldn't work if it's just this top-down edict.

    13. ECEd Catmull1:31:26

        Yeah, if you get on this-- look, what, what are you-- you get in front of a company meeting and say, "Okay, everybody, lighten up. Have some fun."

    14. DSDavid Senra1:31:32

        [laughs]

    15. ECEd Catmull1:31:32

        Okay. All right? You-- [laughs] and th- and, and they'll, they'll nod and say, "Oh, okay." It doesn't mean anything. They actually need genuine things. Uh, so we have, we had a few people who did things which were a little too far out there that would've gotten them fired in other studios. People know that, that that happens, and what you're doing is you're saying the tent is wide. A lot of things can happen there, and you want them to happen. Uh, and so I didn't-- I don't like to have a lot of rules. If somebody violates a rule of common sense, people do once in a while, you call them on the, the carpet. You tell them you can't do it, but you don't make a rule so that nobody else makes the same mistake. Um, because as soon as you make more rules, then people are worried about what are all these rules? Who do I have to ask for permission? So what we wanted was that people would do things without feeling they need to ask permission for everything. There was one thing, I think I mentioned this in the, in the book, but, um,

18. 1:32:38 – 1:34:36

    The Truck In The Building

    1. ECEd Catmull1:32:38

       the animation group over a weekend dissembled-- disassembled a truck, brought it into the building. It's still there. I was just there a couple weeks ago. [laughs]

    2. DSDavid Senra1:32:49

       [laughs]

    3. ECEd Catmull1:32:50

       So we show up, all of a sudden there's a truck in the middle of their area.

    4. DSDavid Senra1:32:53

       [laughs] And, like, with their offices, like, their-- 'cause everybody would custom... And you talk about in the book, you, you would encourage them to custom design their workspaces. Is this in their workspace, this truck now?

    5. ECEd Catmull1:33:03

       Yeah, it's in their workspace.

    6. DSDavid Senra1:33:04

       [laughs]

    7. ECEd Catmull1:33:06

       I hadn't been there for a while because once I retired, um, I, uh, what it means is if, if I go there and somebody doesn't like something, I do not want to be a back channel.

    8. DSDavid Senra1:33:17

       Mm-hmm.

    9. ECEd Catmull1:33:17

       That would not be healthy. So I, I would, I would go there on, on occasion, but I, I went there maybe a week ago. We went through the animation, and it was-- it had radically changed, uh, in, in terms of its design, which I thought was so damn cool because they're still doing it. In other words, they're still redecorating. Like, they keep remodeling everything-

    10. DSDavid Senra1:33:41

        Okay

    11. ECEd Catmull1:33:41

        ... and redecorating and making it their own spaces and, uh, and that's a sign of health. Like they, they feel like that's part of their legacy and their heritage is to keep making that place look different.

    12. DSDavid Senra1:33:55

        Yeah, too many rules, you know, stifle the creativity that the-- that's the engine of the entire company.

    13. ECEd Catmull1:33:59

        Yeah.

    14. DSDavid Senra1:34:00

        Ed, that's a perfect place to end. Really appreciate you welcoming me into your home and taking the time, uh, to have this conversation today. Really enjoyed it.

    15. ECEd Catmull1:34:07

        Oh, my pleasure. I have fifty years of rabbit holes to go down. [laughs]

    16. DSDavid Senra1:34:11

        [laughs] Maybe we'll do this again soon. Thanks for your time.

    17. ECEd Catmull1:34:13

        A lot of fun. Well, thank you.

    18. DSDavid Senra1:34:14

        I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening and leave a review, and make sure you listen to my other podcast, Founders. For almost a decade, I've obsessively read over four hundred biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs, searching for ideas that you can use in your work. Most of the guests you hear on this show first found me through Founders. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 1:34:37