Ed Catmull, Co-founder of Pixar

Summary

Podcast Summary: David Senra hosted by Scicomm Media
Episode: Ed Catmull, Co-Founder of Pixar
Date: June 14, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this engaging discussion, Ed Catmull, co-founder and longtime President of Pixar Animation Studios, shares stories, personal reflections, and hard-won insights about building Pixar’s uniquely creative culture, collaborating with Steve Jobs and George Lucas, organizational psychology, the nature of innovation, and sustaining creative excellence. The conversation traverses the evolution of Pixar, breakthrough innovations, management philosophy, and behind-the-scenes tales from the legendary partnership between Pixar and Disney.

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Main Themes & Topics

• The creation and purpose of the Pixar "Brain Trust"
• Truth-seeking mechanisms in organizations
• Steve Jobs’ evolution as a leader and board manager
• Navigating the Disney-Pixar relationship and key contract negotiations
• The subtle dynamics of organizational culture and managing creative teams
• Stories from Pixar’s production history (e.g., Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Inside Out)
• Lessons from Walt Disney and George Lucas on technology and industry change
• Recognizing, embracing, and learning from being wrong

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. On Surfaces Truth and Organizational Dynamics

• Brain Trust vs. Conventional Leadership
  Ed emphasizes that while many companies believe they create space for honest feedback, most "are full of shit" (00:39). He describes the "brain trust" as Pixar’s method for honest, psychologically safe dialogue:

  “Most of them are full of shit. What they've got are people around them who are telling them what the leader wants to hear.” (00:28 – Ed Catmull)

• Steve Jobs’ Unique Approach
  Steve Jobs didn’t want yes-men; during Pixar’s public years, he “fired two members of the board… because they never disagreed.” (01:25)

  “He said, if they don’t disagree with me, then they aren’t bringing any value to the company.” (01:30 – Ed Catmull)

  Board meetings were “lively, loud, and thrilling, arenas of disagreement”—and Steve truly welcomed dissent. (01:43)

2. Psychology of Creative Problem-Solving

• Vulnerability in Creative Teams
  Discussing feedback meetings, Ed notes the psychological pressure:

  “The creative team presenting… feel vulnerable.” (05:07 – Ed Catmull)

  Newcomers are especially worried about embarrassing themselves, which can inhibit sharing potentially groundbreaking ideas.

• The Role of an Outside Force
  Early on, Disney’s Tom Schumacher served as an “outside force,” providing vital external feedback. When Tom left, Pixar attempted to formalize the Brain Trust as a substitute, but internal colleagues were not truly ‘outside.’

  “It was to replace what Tom Schumacher was doing. It didn’t work. The problem was they weren’t outside.” (09:08 – Ed Catmull)

  Steve Jobs, who was banned from Brain Trust meetings but served as an outside voice at board screenings, provided a valuable external perspective.

3. Steve Jobs: Leadership and Transformation

• Jobs’ Influence—Why He Didn’t Attend Brain Trust Meetings
  Steve’s presence would unduly influence dynamics due to his authority—he understood this and chose to remain outside. (12:18)

  “Steve had such a powerful voice... 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.” (12:55 – Ed Catmull)

• Impact of Jobs’ Feedback
  Even when Steve repeated what others had already said, it “broke through” only because he was so articulate and had such presence.

  “There was nothing Steve ever said that had not been said by somebody else before… but Steve… would actually break through in ways that you wouldn’t hear from the others.” (15:06 – Ed Catmull)

4. Managing Board and Partner Dynamics

• Pixar-Disney Negotiations: Deals, Friction, & Breakthroughs
  • Steve Jobs felt the early Disney deal was a “bad deal.” Catmull recounts betting everything on Toy Story’s theatrical release and a simultaneous IPO (23:26).
  • The transition to a five-picture deal, and the controversial exclusion of sequels from the contract, is detailed.
  • Disney’s attempt to develop Toy Story 3 independently nearly ruptured the relationship.
  • Bob Iger’s humility and honesty upon becoming Disney CEO opened the door for Pixar’s acquisition (36:15).
  • Bob's candor—“I’ve got a crappy hand. Can we talk?”—won Steve’s trust for a sustained partnership (37:24).

5. The Culture of Sustained Innovation

• Quality as the Core Principle
  John Lasseter’s personal mantra “Quality is the best business plan” became an implicit Pixar value (49:04).

• Resisting Rigid Systems
  Ed resisted mission statements and rigid rules because “we should always be asking questions,” not just following a formula (49:16).

• Change, Flow, and Team Spirit
  Ed explains that success means team members feel free to challenge each other, risk embarrassment, and—crucially—lose attachment to personal ownership for the sake of the best solution:

  “Once or twice per film, magic happens… ego has left the room… They’re always back on the problem.” (17:59)

• When to Replace a Director
  Pixar’s “one rule”: a director cannot lose the team’s faith. If so, even beloved directors are replaced for the sake of the collective mission (44:56).

6. Technology’s Role in Animation and Storytelling

• Walt Disney’s Legacy
  Walt Disney “understood better than anybody else… that technology was invigorating the studio.” Every new tech, from sound to color to the Xerox camera, Walt embraced as foundational. (54:47)

• George Lucas and the Founding of Pixar
  George Lucas’ motivation for advancing technology was industrywide—the benefit wasn’t just to his films, but all filmmakers (76:17).

  “George actually has a very strong sense of wanting to contribute to the entire field.” (76:10 – Ed Catmull)

  The Graphics Group, precursor to Pixar, was spun out from Lucasfilm due to Lucas’ divorce and Steve Jobs’ intervention.

7. Ego, Reflection, and the Myth of the Lone Genius

• Personal Reflection After Success
  After Toy Story, Ed wrestled with the role of individual vs. collective success:

  “Trying to answer [how much success is attributable to me] is an act of separation… it’s not the right question. It’s: how much can I do with others?” (74:06 – Ed Catmull)

  Steve Jobs, too, recognized the contributions and limits of the “lone genius” theory.

8. Signals, Subtlety, and Culture Maintenance

• Detecting and Addressing Subtle Problems
  New hires may misinterpret company norms, and issues of “first-class/second-class” status are so subtle they often go unspoken.
  Leadership must look for signals and use informal influence (not just top-down edicts) to maintain a healthy, creative environment (89:56).

• Stories of Playfulness and Flexibility
  The persistence of a disassembled truck in Pixar’s animation department—discovered years after his retirement—is highlighted as a lasting symbol of creative freedom and culture. (93:03)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Most of [the companies] are full of shit. What they've got are people around them who are telling them what the leader wants to hear.” (00:39 – Ed Catmull)
• “If they don’t disagree with me, then they aren’t bringing any value to the company.” (01:30 – Ed Catmull, on Steve Jobs firing board members)
• “Steve loved that… a lot of executives probably say they want that. But Steve really meant it.” (02:13)
• “I learned a lot in this process. [Steve] was right.” (23:47 – on betting company on Toy Story and IPO)
• “Quality is the best business plan.” (49:04 – John Lasseter’s mantra)
• “A mission statement is an answer when typically we should always be asking questions.” (49:16 – Ed Catmull)
• “The implicit North Star was the quality, with the long-term goal of making a good film. That was the real North Star.” (71:06)
• “Trying to answer it is an act of separation… It’s not a safety net. These were your colleagues. The question is, how much can I do with others?” (74:06)
• “George… wanted to share it. He was trying to affect the industry as well as build tools for his films.” (76:42)
• “You have to look for subtle signals. But in order to make it safe, you have to in turn make sure their signals are given back.” (91:09)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:02 – 03:00: Honest disagreement & truth-seeking; Steve firing board members
• 04:06 – 06:30: Vulnerability in creative teams
• 06:57 – 09:04: Outside influences, early Brain Trust dynamics
• 10:13 – 12:50: Why Steve Jobs was banned from Brain Trust meetings
• 15:05 – 17:15: Why Steve Jobs’ feedback had disproportionate impact
• 20:03 – 26:16: Disney-Pixar contractual battles; Toy Story’s high-stakes release
• 36:15 – 37:44: Bob Iger’s approach to acquiring Pixar
• 44:36 – 46:58: “The director can’t lose the team”; switching directors
• 49:04 – 51:46: “Quality is the best business plan” vs. Jack Welch’s legacy
• 54:47 – 57:45: Walt Disney’s embrace of technology
• 63:17 – 64:29: Culture of sharing knowledge; importance of publishing
• 74:06 – 75:52: Reflection on the myth of the lone genius
• 91:09 – 93:03: Subtlety in organizational culture; signals, norms, and permissiveness

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Conclusion

This episode offers a masterclass in creative leadership—from the unique interpersonal dynamics that allowed Pixar to thrive, to the personal transformations of its co-founders and close partners. Ed Catmull’s stories and philosophies reveal how the search for truth, comfort with disagreement, humility, and a relentless focus on quality (not on formulas) shaped Pixar’s enduring legacy. Through anecdotes, quotable moments, and management insights, listeners gain a rare window into the heart and mind of one of modern entertainment’s greatest builders.

Transcript

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

Well, this is a result of just thinking a lot about the last many years and a lot of its reflection, but also trying to understand the nature of change and the process that you have of trying to come to an understanding or gain insight. In the book, I talked a lot about the brain trust. The brain trust is such a mechanism. Different companies have different ways of trying to arrive at truth and getting insight out there. Every company says they do that. Most of them are full of shit. What they've got are people around them who are telling them what the leader wants to hear. And the leader thinks because they're hearing what they want to hear, that he got this really insightful group. But it's not really about diving deep. 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 brain trust, we worked out a way for people to be honest with each other and feel comfortable about it, 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 that 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 10 years, starting in 95 when we went public, until 10 years later when we were acquired by Disney. In that 10 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 we made great progress. And they were arenas of disagreement. And these were people on the rest of the people on the board had very strong opinions, did not agree. And Steve loved that. And I would say a lot of executives probably say they want that. But Steve really meant it. He and I disagreed a lot. We didn't argue, we disagreed and we'd have long, 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 he would realize I was right. But the other third of the time I just did what I wanted. And he was fine with that because we had discussed it. The whole point is how do you get to the inside? How do you surface things? Because it's hard to get underneath things. I would say that a lot of people like to get on one layer. You get on the one layer and you form a decision. Can't do that. You got to 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 is 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.

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

Boy didn't tell me that. I would say we were just completely different.

[Alex]

But what are these mechanisms you're saying to like get to these other levels that you used?

[Ed Catmull]

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 healthy brain trust meeting, because you've got people working on a film. So what are the dynamics when 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. 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 give them space in order to listen. Because 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 want to 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.

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

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

[Alex]

So they didn't have any fear of embarrassment?

[Ed Catmull]

No, there's like four of them.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Ed Catmull]

So the. 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 Anders Stanton and I recognize, I think most clearly was that we had an outside force that was a corrective.

[Alex]

An outside force.

[Ed Catmull]

An outside force.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Ed Catmull]

Because our contract was with Disney. And so the person who was 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 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, like, a different perspective in case you get caught in a little loop because you're building this thing in your head. It'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 is the next film, and then Toy Story 2 is the next one. The first one was, you know, just obviously it was the first. Like, that was getting going, but we were getting our legs under us. 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. But as we were getting better at this and starting to rise, and by the time we're a public company distributing through Disney, Disney is starting to go downhill. And we are aware that Tom Schumacher was going to leave because 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 Brain Trust, and that as we elevated the people to become directors, we would bring in Others or the writers or certain experienced people into a room was a small group to solve the problems. But the brain trust would then see somebody else's film and act as an outside force. That was the idea.

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

Yes. Now 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. So the notion of them being on the outside 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 brain trust was a way of running a certain kind of meeting for every screening of a film or occasionally at an off site. It wasn't that we ran every meeting because 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

[Alex]

because you banned him from being part of the brain trust, Correct?

[Ed Catmull]

Yes.

[Alex]

Why?

[Ed Catmull]

Because he would not be an outside force. In other words, he's now on the board and he sees it once per screening, so he doesn't see it very often. And now he would. He would come into this meeting and he's. He's fresh. He hasn't seen anything since the last one. He would usually call me the morning of. I was in my little gym in my home there, working out, and I get a call in the morning. I could count on it. And he'd say, how's it going, Ed? And I'd say, I think we've got problems. Okay, nice to know. I'll see you later. 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 going to tell him how to think. Or I might say, I think it's going pretty well. Nice to know. We'll see you later today. Thank you. That was it.

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

He knew because I'm in the middle of this, that if there are problems in there, that there is a need for someone to come in and say something strongly. But at that point it had to

[Alex]

be from him because it couldn't be to him. Right. Were people Afraid in Pixar to share, like, harsh feedback or, like, fight with Steve?

[Ed Catmull]

No, no, not with Steve. You know, it was actually people, they, they. They would talk back with him. I mean, was there a little bit of fear? And he was obviously, you know, so well known that some people. A lot of people. Nervous. It was. I mean, there are people who are nervous about me too. Just because the position. That's just a reality is when you're in 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. 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's another reason why you didn't go to the brain trust 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 10 to 15 minutes.

[Alex]

And he couldn't do that.

[Ed Catmull]

It wasn't that. 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, 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 Steve would come into the meeting, the brain trust, or excuse me, it wasn't brain trust 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 subset of the. Of the company. We didn't have the whole company seat all at once. It was always trying to make sure there were some fresh or people hadn't seen it before, so there'd be some audience there. But really, at the end of it, the board of directors would come together with the filmmakers and each would give their comments. But Steve would give his comments. He was extremely articulate, and 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 somebody else before in one of those meetings. Now, what's the difference what's happening there?

[Alex]

Explain that.

[Ed Catmull]

Well, part of it is that when you know 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 disregard it or you don't hear it. Well, Steve, 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 he wouldn't hear from the others. And there are a couple examples of I can't actually tell the story because of the people involved, but sometimes people felt betrayed because their colleagues hadn't told them about the problem before. But they had to say, I was there 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 the director hears that and now it's like a new revelation, even though it's been all along. That's the reality of people with strong opinions of the dynamics. And I honestly, my job there. Well, it's fun to give note. My job was to look at the dynamics. 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.

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[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

Well, in the case of, let's say the brain trust, just as an example, is that in general, it works pretty well. Every once in a while, you go off the rails. If you go off the rails, then you have to figure out why I went off the rails, what got in the way, and then usually you have to reconvene with a smaller group because the dynamics, as we all know, are different. When you've 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 small group where they're sort of past that stuff and they can focus on the problem. So occasionally it's off the rails, usually works very well. And once or twice per 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 always back on the problem. It's described in sports as flow or areas like that. It's flow, but it's like a group getting into that state. That's the ideal place to get. This is so important, to get 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. From the point of view of directing a company, like a board of directors, how do they work together? Sometimes board of directors are there, and the CEO just wants protection from them doing it. So he wants to craft everything that goes to the board of directors. It's not the way Steve worked.

[Alex]

What is the way he did it?

[Ed Catmull]

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

[Alex]

How did Steve manage the board differently than other CEOs?

[Ed Catmull]

We had a few of the critical issues out of the company. We were a production only company. All of our films were marketed through Disney and 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 is going, what the relationship is, how do we make it strong or where is it threatened. And at the time, through a lot of this time, Michael Eisner was the CEO and the CEO of Disney. Michael Eisner did not get along well with Steve.

[Alex]

Steve hated him.

[Ed Catmull]

The real reason for that? Well, there were two things there. One of them was that Michael testified before Congress about ripping because there were some testimony about it. With audio. Yeah.

[Alex]

What's ripping?

[Ed Catmull]

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

[Alex]

Okay.

[Ed Catmull]

But it sounds like ripping off. So there's a. Which is unfortunate use of the term. So Michael Eisner was testifying against without knowing what the term actually meant. So it was upsetting to Steve.

[Alex]

Why was that upsetting to Steve?

[Ed Catmull]

Well, it's a congressional thing about the technology and how it's being used. Only now Congress is getting misinformation. But the other one was that our contract with Disney and the initial contract was to make three movies. And at the time it was signed, Disney perceived that Pixar was going to produce boutique films. Their word. Much as they would consider A Nightmare Before Christmas a stop motion animated film

[Alex]

to be boutique and therefore not bring in that much money at the box office.

[Ed Catmull]

That's right. In other words, they were going to spend a lot on it. And they thought, well, it does. That short film wouldn't scale up to be feature length film. I mean you couldn't really watch the computer graphics stuff for that long of a period of time. But it's like stop motion, little quirky.

[Alex]

So that's what they went into the first deal with thinking limited potential here, not knowing that Toy Story is going to come out, win all these awards and be the highest grossing film of the year.

[Ed Catmull]

That's right. So that was a leap because it was quite. It was unlike the things that they've been doing.

[Alex]

So Steve thought Eisner gave him a bad deal.

[Ed Catmull]

Well, it's not a very good deal. So Steve walked away feeling like it was one of the worst deals he's

[Alex]

ever struck this is where he comes to you with the saying, we're going to. You guys actually bet the company on Toy Story. You were in dire financial straits. We're going to bet everything on Toy Story. And the same week the Toy Story is going to be released in theaters. We're going to ipo.

[Ed Catmull]

Yes.

[Alex]

Is that correct?

[Ed Catmull]

Yes.

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

Well, I mean, I thought it was crazy. You know, I learned a lot in this process. He was right. But he had a logic. And the logic that he gave at the time was that because we knew this was not a boutique film, this is going to 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 an experience that nobody else did and we could get those other two out with all the experience behind us that when we're done that we will have created Michael Eisner's Worst Nightmare.

[Alex]

A competitor which, funded by, in part by Disney, funded their own competitor.

[Ed Catmull]

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

[Alex]

we don't have at the time.

[Ed Catmull]

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 fine. So we negotiated a new deal. And the new deal was now a 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, why would sequels be excluded? Disney wanted to get as much as they could. And that was their way of differentiating between an original film and. And one that was presumably easier to make. So that was the assumption. The second is that Disney had been selling sequels on VHS at the time. Until that time, the only theatrical sequel that Disney had ever made was to rescue us Down Under. It was for Rescuers. Was the original. Rescuers down under was a sequel.

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

Well, the answer is no. But 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 reviewer said it looked great. Better than looking through the acetate. But the story was only so. So didn't do all that well. Wasn't noticed. But they then had the confidence to really go all out on their next film, which was Beauty and the Beast. That one I'm familiar with, using the same software. Beauty and the Beast came out in 1991, a pivotal year, which we should come back to in a minute. But in 91, Beauty and the Beast came out. It also had some 3D graphics in it, but largely it was the painting of the cells with the cap system, which was written by Pixar under the contract. Disney, they had some people who were working on that system also, and they got an Academy Award for what it. But the film itself was a sequel, the adult sequel. So Disney did not perceive of a sequel as something which was worthy of going out in the theaters. So when they. 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'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 even before we started. I thought, there's something about this which is wrong. But because we're building a company and everybody has a belief about the quality that we shoot for, because we released Toy Story, we were proud of it. Now we're working on Bugs Live and we're trying to make it even better 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.

[Alex]

Yeah, because Disney originally, Toy Story 2 was going to. Disney wanted you to just forego theaters and release a direct video.

[Ed Catmull]

Yeah, that was the plan. It 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 it 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 to know was it was the first animated successful film of any kind ever.

[Alex]

Yeah. For sequel.

[Ed Catmull]

Basically it changed the thing. Now, of course, it's common for there to be theatrical releases or theatrical sequels, but at the time it was sort of a breakthrough. It changed everybody's mind because it never happened before. So the issue now came with Toy Story 3. Toy Story 3 would be a sequel. And Steve said 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 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. It pissed off Steve. So it was just sitting there. And 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, which would kill the

[Alex]

morale on your team because they don't think of these people. This is just 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.

[Ed Catmull]

Yeah.

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

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

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Ed Catmull]

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

[Alex]

And Roy was on the board of Disney.

[Ed Catmull]

Roy was on the board but was forced off.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Ed Catmull]

And when he was forced off, that's when this war took place. Because he still had a lot of shares in the company and it was very public. There was a book written about it.

[Alex]

Yeah, Me and Rob, my partner Rob, have been reading the book. Why can't I think of the title?

[Ed Catmull]

Disney War.

[Alex]

There you go. There's a war about it. It's called Disney War. And it starts out.

[Ed Catmull]

You got the book there. Yeah.

[Alex]

It starts out with Roy and something about a ferra.

[Ed Catmull]

They wanted to interview us and none of us would talk with the writers of the book. And the reason was that we didn't know how this is going to end up. But we didn't know how to skirt the relationship with the other people. None of us said anything. So even the parts of it which are about Pixar are. The things about Pixar are perceived through the Disney lens of the people who were there. It wasn't bad. I mean, it's just. It was.

[Alex]

So, yeah, in that context, Eisner, he's fighting multiple wars on multiple fronts because he's also got this war with Steve Jobs going on at the same time.

[Ed Catmull]

Well, that's a personal thing.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Ed Catmull]

From the point of view of Pixar with Disney, there isn't any war going on there. We're basically neutral in this.

[Alex]

But what is your reaction to this when they make this decision for Toy Story 3? Is this when Steve says he's breaking off the. Because there was a time period where Pixar breaks off the negotiations with Disney completely. Is this the same time?

[Ed Catmull]

Well, no, what's happening is we're just getting near the end of the contract, but we're getting close to the delivering the last film. And at which point Steve would not have let Pixar stay with Disney. Steve, at this point also knew that he had cancer. And he was. It was very, very an emotional, timeless in which actually, it's actually when he showed us the first iPhone, when it was a secret. And we're on this bridge between the one building and there's a bridge over that goes between another tall building next to it and their secret lab is where they're designing it. And he told us that, you know, he didn't know how long he was going to live, and he lived several years after that. But he wanted to make sure that his family was taken care of. He wanted to see his son graduate from high school, and he wanted to make sure that Pixar was in good shape. It was very emotional. At that time, Michael Eisner was still the CEO and he would not have continued with Michael Eisner. So since we were getting to the contract, he started discussions with other studios, which would mean, you know, them doing the distribution. Fact is, Disney is the best at marketing films, including internationally. We started those discussions and then the war over Michael Eisner got really heated up and they voted him out. But then they went through this process of who were they going to select? Bob Iger was in that group. Steve had talked with Bob Iger in the past because at the time he was like the coo because Michael Eisner was busy fighting out this major lawsuit that he was and with Disney and the board and all that. And they finally made a decision once

[Alex]

he takes the CEO role of Disney. And if I remember correctly, before.

[Ed Catmull]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Bob Iger had said when he knew the first person he called was his daughters and the second person he called was Steve Jobs.

[Ed Catmull]

Yes. So he called Steve at his home on Sunday night and said, tomorrow it's going to be announced that I'm the new CEO. So this need to be confidential until that time. He said that he's been to all the parks and he knows that all the new material is coming from Pixar.

[Alex]

There's actually an interesting story about that where I think this might have been Bob Iger's book. Might have been in yours, too. Where he's standing next. This is before he's CEO of Disney.

[Ed Catmull]

It's his book. Okay.

[Alex]

He's standing next to Michael Eisner. I think they're at Hong Kong, Disney. And Michael's like, let's watch the parade. The parade that happens at the end of every day. And all the characters are going by. And he realizes every single character that is popular in the parade was created by Pixar and not Disney Animation. And that's how he knew, no matter what, I cannot let Pixar get away.

[Ed Catmull]

What happened when he called Steve? He told Steve that, but then he said that. That he's been to Disney Animation and they say that they've got it almost fixed. Essentially, they found what the problems are and they're back on track.

[Alex]

And you would have called that bullshit at the time.

[Ed Catmull]

What Bob says is he did not believe that they were nearly fixed.

[Alex]

And you didn't believe it either.

[Ed Catmull]

Oh, no, I knew it wasn't okay. I knew that was it. He didn't have a shot at it, but he knew it. And he told Steve that he didn't know how to find anybody. And the only one, the only ones he knew who knew how to run animation now 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, that's a show of honesty. That's unusual.

[Alex]

Usually you don't start a negotiation by saying, hey, other party. You have all the leverage here.

[Ed Catmull]

That's right. Bob just started out 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.

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

Yes, but that's the first thing he wants to do. And he talks about in the book, because the board does not want it. But here's what we see is, and I will say, incidentally, up to this point, we're now almost 15 years since our original signing of that first contract with Disney in 1991. That contract gave them the right to look at everything we did in all of our processes. As we started becoming successful, nobody from Disney ever came and said, what are you guys doing now? They're starting to go downhill. I think the last really big hit was Lion King. Then it started to go down from there. We're going up and we show them the films, we take them down and. And get notes from them and so forth. But nobody ever asked what we're doing or what's different. Why is it that Pixar is so different? It's very curious. So now for me, it's just observations like, okay, why aren't they curious? Why aren't they asking? Then we signed the contract, the PI Picture contract, to continue it, which continues that right to see everything that we're doing now. We're very successful and they're very unsuccessful. And still nobody ever asked, what are you doing? And there are no secrets. We're not hiding anything ever.

[Alex]

What's going on there?

[Ed Catmull]

I have a theory, part of it, I think that this has to do with. You go to your first conclusion and you stop thinking. In this case, they would have thought that this is the reason Pixar are 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 three. We don't have them and that's the secret to their success. So we can't copy that now. That's just a shallow way of thinking. The real question is, what is it that's being done that's different? Everybody's different, 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 was nothing secretive about it. Nobody cared to know. Bob decided to come up as soon as he was made the CEO. He came up to Pixar and the idea was to spend a day with us, 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 the first thing is like from the people at Pixar, the fact that he came alone was very impressive. Right. No group of people coming around. So very personal. Bob loved what he saw and then he went back and said, okay, we have to do this. And. And that was his first major battle with the board, which he did write in book. This was too big of a risk and too much money.

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

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

[Alex]

I think in the book you say embrace that early work will always suck.

[Ed Catmull]

Yeah, so. So basically if that's true, then how do you measure whether or not you should keep doing

[Alex]

sucks?

[Ed Catmull]

Oh, let's keep on doing it. So what's your basis 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 laughing and then they're angsting and all that together, then that's when you say, okay, we just keep going. We just keep trying to solve it. Along that line, before I Left, we completed 21 of the 22 films we started. So this is bizarre in that world and at Disney we completed, by the time I left, 10 of the 11 that we'd started. So it was just a different way of thinking about is we're going to fix the problem and, and hard problem is more likely to lead to an interesting film.

[Alex]

Say more about that.

[Ed Catmull]

Well, if it's easy, then 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 actually aren't terribly good. 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 out, you're trying to figure out how to be different in what you're doing. So if you take on a hard problem and you just keep pushing on it, then the fact that it was hard is what's going to make it different. So if you're going to make a movie about a rat that wants to cook, all right, that's not a slam dunk. Not only that is, you know, a lot of people want to keep their project secret. This is one where you could tell everybody, we're going to make a movie about a rat that's going to cook. Nobody's going to copy it. But what is the measure? Because sometimes things don't go right. So we will change up people.

[Alex]

We've changed out some directors, including on Toy Story 2. Was that the first time you changed directors?

[Ed Catmull]

Yes, because the reasoning is that the one thing that the director can't do, they can screw up in all sorts of ways, but they can't lose the team. That was our guiding line. If the team is together.

[Alex]

Faith. You mean the team's lost faith in the director?

[Ed Catmull]

In the director. Right. So that's. Then our phrasing was the director can't lose the team. But 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 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 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 directors. Everything sort of goes to the final name that's up there. The reality is everybody was contributing, even that first person that was there. It's really hard on people to do that. So most 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 we have to make a change. But the result is we push things all the way through. And in the case of, I said we completed 21 or 22 films we started. What's the one film we didn't finish? Well, that one we actually did assign to another director to complete and he took a pass at it. And this is Pete Docter. And Pete said, you know, this is, you know, we're getting this Film going now is such an uphill thing that there's actually an idea that I have that's been rolling around in my head that I think might be better and it takes place inside the mind of a little girl.

[Alex]

And this is inside out.

[Ed Catmull]

Yes. So we said you're right, but also you're relying on the passion. So Pete Doc, who's very well loved at Pixar and he wants to tell this rather emotional film, he says, okay, we're in. So 22nd became one of the other films. It was completed, but that's just the, the process. There are no real strict rules. It's. We're just trying to get to the quality and we're trying to get it to work and how those teams work.

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[Alex]

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[Alex]

When you do that, switch over from Toy Story 2. John Lasseter is put in charge of that movie, if not mistaken.

[Ed Catmull]

Yes.

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

I like what he says because it's. Although it wasn't the mantra for the rest of the studio, but it was like implicit.

[Alex]

It was his one.

[Ed Catmull]

Yeah. Part of it is that my own personal belief is we never had a mission statement and the reason for not having a mission statement and I don't want to generalize to everybody else, but a mission Statement is an answer when typically we should always be asking questions, what are we doing? And if you immediately say, oh well, we go back to the mission statement, we're doing this, 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 the right direction? We always had that question that was going on. But in terms of quality as the business best business plan, it's, you know, this is related to this, this great book, the man who Broke Capitalism about Jack Welch.

[Alex]

Oh, okay, Great book.

[Ed Catmull]

And the. I think in the year 2000 is when it was Forbes magazine named him as the CEO or manager of the century. Utter disaster. People who were there because they had this really high compound growth rate for 10 years, something like that. So people who were raised out of the system were considered to be the very best. Where's General Electric today? It split up into pieces and it was completely fragile, not robust, because he gutted it, gutted the future research. But the people that were there were hired and considerably valuable because they'd grown up in that system. Two of them which went on to become leaders of Boeing, applying the same principles that they learned from Jack Welch at Boeing with the consequences that we now see. So this is the opposite of quality is the best business plan. Because the reality is that quality in products, whether it's phones or movies or airplanes, is the quality is very important. That is got inherent in the business plan. But too many, that was the, the short term annual growth rate.

[Alex]

It's the opposite of what Lasseter Wood is preaching in that statement.

[Ed Catmull]

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

[Alex]

I want to pick your brain about. You had two childhood heroes you write about in the book, one being Albert Einstein, 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 because, you know, his brother was one supposed to be charging the money and Walt was the innovator. And he's just like, how much is this going to cost? And they have this argument and he goes, we're innovating. I'll tell you when I'm done. I don't know what the cost is. 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.

[Ed Catmull]

Initially, as a kid watching that. What I'm saying is the result. Now as an adult.

[Alex]

What do you mean you're seeing the

[Ed Catmull]

result, in other words, and watching the movies and going to Disneyland as a

[Alex]

kid 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.

[Ed Catmull]

I think it was the Wonderful World of Color. Because I think when it first started, it was the Wonderful World of Disney or something like that. But when color TV became popular, they changed to the Wonder.

[Alex]

And you were like 9 years old or something like that, watching in your living room.

[Ed Catmull]

Yeah, something like that, yeah. Incidentally, when Disneyland opened, my wife's father worked as a sound editor for them. And so she was at Disneyland on opening day. She was also there for the 50th anniversary later, 50 years later. So the other thing, of course, was Disneyland itself. Which was extremely influential in just going there and being there and knowing that all this came from the drive 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 knew later was part of the hostile takeover in which Roy Disney with the Bass brothers to the hostile takeover of Disney, which led to Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg coming into Disney. And we got to know Roy Disney pretty well. But now, if I now think of. In terms of technology, if I go back to Disney. Disney understood better than anybody else at that time that technology was invigorating the studio. And he was believed it so much. That also led to Disneyland. He just loved this stuff. But it's. When was before it's blue screen matting. Then it was sodium yellow sodium matting. He would use it and adopting sound.

[Alex]

Any new technology that came out, Disney embraced it every single time. He's one of the first people on the frontier.

[Ed Catmull]

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 platinum on the other side where the lights there and people could put the cells on it.

[Alex]

Wait, Disney partner with Xerox to build this camera?

[Ed Catmull]

Yeah, to build a room that was a camera. Okay. So in one side of the room there's a lens, then there's a conveyor belt going in one side another and going at 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 carbon on it. You know, the little particles. Wrap it around. So now you've got a copy on there. And then it would go out and then they'd fuse it 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. Interestingly enough, when I later became president of Disney, I walked by a room there in their building which had only been built by that time. It was only 10 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? Turns out all those reports to me, I just. There as. I didn't even know about this. So we went over the same room as there. 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, in my opinion, they kept Disney together from. Kept being broken up was the theme parks itself, or that's such a unique phenomenon isn't like the filmmaking Roy when. 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.

[Alex]

There's an interesting story in your book where you had tried to bring some technology into Disney, what, 15? I think you were in graduate school.

[Ed Catmull]

I was in graduate School.

[Alex]

So 1973, 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.

[Ed Catmull]

Yeah, I went to the office of Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas. They're still working at the time.

[Alex]

They did not have technology in their DNA.

[Ed Catmull]

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

[Alex]

And this is a very interesting part of. Because I love the fact that you're mission oriented. So, you know, we should back up. I guess there's context for the people that haven't read your book. You knew you wanted to be an animator. You're sitting there watching this when you're like 9 years old and you see that I think it was Donald Duck come to live or whatever. Then you realize, oh shit, I'm not like, I don't have the technical skills to be an animator. You also love technology. Then you have this idea, this mission that I'm going to combine my two loves and I'm actually going to 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.

[Ed Catmull]

It wasn't going in the right direction. Nobody in the industry thinks technology is critical. I mean, they don't. They have cameras and they use certain things there. But it's more like if we can buy the product, we'll use it. We're not going to push it. The first person since Walt Disney to believe that technology was going to have an impact was George Lucas. So after Star wars and because ilm, which was the high technology at the time in terms of that optical process.

[Alex]

Industrial Light and Magic.

[Ed Catmull]

Industrial Light and Magic, George's company that

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

That's right. He got this group together 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. Has to do with motion blur, it turns out with film 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 used nearly so much film. But it had a consequence with the eye in that if something was in perfect focus and you're tracking it like let's say a broomstick is going to move in front of the camera. Then it's flash, flash, frame moves, flash, flash. But your eye is tracking this broomstick across the camera. So it's flash on your back of your eyeball. Your eyeball moves and they splash in 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 movies because of this artifact.

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

No, it's just like you just happen to notice that the edges double up. Okay. 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 would move these little cameras because they had motion control of the camera against a blue screen layer, green 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 inner negatives and negatives and so forth. And it was very difficult. That's why these guys were like the masters of doing this. Because the photochemical process is being developed at Technicolor is a nonlinear process. So it's hard to maintain the quality of these word 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 are watching this movie and it didn't have these artificial things that you see typically with special effects 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 going to happen with audio and with video. And he knows enough about know that it's changing quickly. So he went out to look to find somebody who could put this together.

[Alex]

This is going to be the beginning of graphics group.

[Ed Catmull]

Yes.

[Alex]

Which is going to be where you, you, you have a very unique experience because you were inspired by Walt Disney. You worked with Steve Jobs longer. Consecutive for like 26 consecutive years. I think longer than almost anybody else. But you also meet a young George Lucas. This is after the first Star wars, when you go to interview with him.

[Ed Catmull]

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

[Alex]

You're both in your early 30s.

[Ed Catmull]

Yeah.

[Alex]

You did something very different. They're recruiting these technologists.

[Ed Catmull]

Right.

[Alex]

You're one of them. And the interview process, before you get to George, the first question in the interview is, who else should we be talking to? And I want to 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.

[Ed Catmull]

They wanted the job. It was like a plum job.

[Alex]

But this instinct. I want to focus on your time and what you learned from George Lucas, but this instinct that to constantly share knowledge, it's something that happened in grad school. And you seem to perpetuate that throughout your entire career, Correct?

[Ed Catmull]

Yes, I. 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 did and just say that this was a fantastic four years. I loved my time. I loved the people. I love the way the professor worked. I loved the support in the environment. It was invigorating. We all had different interests and it was like 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 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 and I boxed myself into a corner. At the same time, I also recognized there was something about the position that was in that some of the newer people were treating me a little bit differently, even though I didn't feel I was different. So this was an interesting psychological phenomenon that was going on, which I found interesting because when I went there, I didn't really want to be a manager. I kind of 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 published everything. 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 publish. So publishing everything meant that we could draw in the best people because Long island was not a place the computer graphics people were going. Yeah, it was not a hotbed of computer science at the time. So you basically want to use the culture that your approach as a way of getting the best people together. And 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 to build this, this group up. So I was hired to go to Lucasfilm. But that was also a point of reflection for me because I can look back on my time at at New York Tech and say, well, about half of my theories were right and half were a crock. So now in managing and managing okay

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[Alex]

i guess we should give some context. Like I've read your book three times. I've been a massive fan of you. I was making episodes on my first podcast Founders like a decade ago about your book. Like I think it's central 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 going to be your life's work. 20 years of, you know, making mistakes 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, especially reading the first chapter. I mean, read the whole book, but 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, you may be thrilled for a little bit, but now what is my. What's the point of my life? What am I going to do right now?

[Ed Catmull]

What's the next thing?

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

It was a year. Yeah.

[Alex]

To figure out. Oh, and you start studying all these other. This is what I love, the first opening of 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. You'd do really well. The founder would wind up on the COVID of Fortune magazine saying, these are the new titans. And then they would do something obviously stupid, and then 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.

[Ed Catmull]

It took me a year to wrestle that down. But before that one, there's one other thing 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 probably continue at Lucasfilm and probably for the rest of my life. And the reason I think this is important is, in fact, I said this to somebody at Disney, an executive there, I said that ratio would continue of half right, half wrong for the rest of my life. And he said, no, actually, you have a better record than that. 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 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. I think it's important to think that way. And that allows you to say, okay, maybe this is one of those times. I would Rather catch it sooner rather than later. And that was important for me going forward. Now, moving forward. When Toy Story came out, because it had been this clear focus point, it was almost like a North Star. Now, in retrospect, I have to say the real North Star is 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, 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 are about the movie. What I loved, I felt proud about, was that the technical people felt like that was their big success, is that these people weren't talking about the technology. The implicit North Star was the quality with 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 figure out what a next goal was while still running the company because now we're a public company and we're working on the next film. But it isn't just like you want to go into a rinse and repeat cycle. It's like, what is that we're doing here? In which case it is what is the culture that we're building that's sustainable 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 that for a year.

[Alex]

What does that mean? How much of this is me?

[Ed Catmull]

Well, in other words, since I started on this path, you know, then, you know, we wouldn't have gone down this path if I wouldn't have done this. So how much of our success is attributable to me? It was a selfish question to ask, 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, 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.

[Alex]

Did Steve?

[Ed Catmull]

No, I think some people think he did and I was interesting there. But no, he didn't. He was very, we talked about this. He was 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 I can look at people and say they were a critical part of it. And many of them are well known. So people would know about John or Steve or Andrew, 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 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 because 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 wasn't good for it wasn't good for my soul. I've seen people do this. We had Sony made a short film once and 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 a safety net. 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?

[Alex]

I want to 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 in the book. It's, can this technology. His interest in this technology begins and ends with, can it help me make the film that I'm trying to make?

[Ed Catmull]

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

[Alex]

What does that mean?

[Ed Catmull]

He wants to affect the entire industry of filmmaking, of filmmaking.

[Alex]

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.

[Ed Catmull]

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 Graphics techniques or audio was what he wanted. He was trying to affect the industry as well as build tools for.

[Alex]

Why do you think he wanted to affect the industry? That's interesting.

[Ed Catmull]

To some extent, the entertainment industry is 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 because you want everybody 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 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 doesn't like real estate, you know, with the realtors or car salesman. You know, it's a very different kind of structure and mindset. Or with a lot of companies, it's more positive.

[Alex]

Some. I remember there's this great biography of George Lucas written by Brian J. 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 Steven Spielberg did Jaws, they were friends.

[Ed Catmull]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And they shared and collaborated. They'd watch each other's movies. They would do these like brain. They didn't call it brain trust. Just kind of 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, no one loses in that situation.

[Ed Catmull]

That's right. So it's. For George, having a healthy industry is very important. And he just. Because of his experience with others, he didn't think about competition in the way that others might.

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

Yeah. And he. And he would say that while we were working on it, wow, We're. We're in a process and when we actually get there, it's going to be very different than the active traveling. He was using analogies like prairie wagons going across. When you actually arrive there, you don't live in the prayer wagon anymore. You're always doing something different.

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[Alex]

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 applies to filmmaking is like, you know, we start on this journey, we're getting this wagon. You know, we're going to go across the country. We get to the end, the composition of the team is going to be some people died along the way, 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. So 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.

[Ed Catmull]

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

[Alex]

People might not know why. Pixar, or I guess the precursor to Pixar, the prehistoric 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 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 running at the time, correct?

[Ed Catmull]

Yes.

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

We probably would have end up as part of ilm.

[Alex]

Would you have left? Because that's still separate from your goal of doing a computer animated movie.

[Ed Catmull]

George was actually wanted to go down the process of merging us in there, but I had a meeting with him and I told him that what I wanted to do was to get to the point where we could make. I didn't say it's a separate group where we within Lukesom could make an animated film.

[Alex]

And what was his response?

[Ed Catmull]

He didn't say anything at the time, but the president of the company the next day said George doesn't want to make an animated film. So we were going to look to sell you.

[Alex]

A lot of people don't know. And this is in a couple biographies of Steve is Steve checked out Graphics Group, I think, even before you guys were up for sale, right? He was still at Apple at this time?

[Ed Catmull]

Yes.

[Alex]

Okay. Then I think maybe a year or two passes, whatever the timeframe is, finds out it could be for sale. You guys have this enthusiastic meeting where he is just like, you're the best in the business. I have to do this. And then he kind of ghosted what the kids would call ghosted. Right. And you're like, why didn't we hear from this guy? Like, we had this crazy meeting. He was super passionate. We didn't hear peep for two months. And then you find out it's because at that exact same time is when Steve got kicked out of Apple.

[Ed Catmull]

So the one who brought him up for that enthusiastic meeting was Alan Kay. Because Alan Kay worked there. And when Alan came up in the car, because at that point, this is like young Steve, who had not developed the skills to develop later, he went through an arc in his life. And this was early in the arc.

[Alex]

The characterization of him, especially in his last few biographies when he died was he was this jerk, he was this asshole, he was this tyrant. And you tell a much more complete story about how much he changed from the Steve you met at 30 to the person that you worked with for the next quarter century.

[Ed Catmull]

Yeah. And the problem was when the authorized biography was written and Isaacson, who was a very good writer, but he interviewed all these people. What people didn't understand or and Isaacson didn't know was that years of 91 to 95 was when Steve made this major transformation. As I mentioned, in 91, he got married, his son Reed was born. We signed the contract with Disney, Terminator 2 came out.

[Alex]

Why did that matter?

[Ed Catmull]

Well, it mattered for the film industry. The film industry in the 91, the 95 went through a major transformation. Steve went through a major transformation. Pixar went through this major transformation, and the whole industry did. So it was just like 91, these events happened. Signed the contract, Beauty and the Beast came out, Terminator 2, Steve and so forth. 93, Jurassic park came out, and the dinosaurs made with CG were so electrifying that everybody just recognized that everything the world is changing. 95, Toy Story came out, first computer graphics film, huge success. And we went public. So boom, in this period of time, all this stuff sort of falls into place. And now we're in a different world at that point in the world. That's when I've got some personal questions to answer as we transform the company from one had to figure out how to do it at all to how to do it in a sustainable and an ongoing creative way. The other one was we now came up with the next person with credibility in the film industry after George Lucas, to believe technology mattered. And this was Roy Disney Jr. Walt's nephew. The reason Disney entered into the contract with us was because Roy knew that what Walt did was he adopted new technology. He was the one that pushed on getting the contract with Pixar, which started that relationship. So all these things are sort of intertwining and coming together with each of us with a different viewpoint, but trying to pull all this together to make something very different happen. When Pixar started that, with the exception of John, everybody else was technical. And when I visited a lot of companies while at Lucasfilm, the one thing I noticed was there's a weird sort of first class, second class. It's not a terminology that people would use because people wouldn't say that they're first class. But sometimes we'll 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 the 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 who Anders Stanton and Pete Docter, then it was, 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 in service of the filmmakers. The filmmakers are there just to show the technology is we're all on this to make really great movies. And that culture was very strong. I believe we, 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 I felt like, oh, I'm working with world class people in art or in production or in sound, like they're all world class. And if you feel that way about everybody, then it actually changed the dynamic within the crew. And it's very important for us to do this. And I think we paid more attention to it because one of the things I don't think any of the studios Understood was that real relationship about or this balance. It's too subtle. I can describe it. Every would nod their heads. That's probably what they do.

[Alex]

But they don't say more about what they don't understand.

[Ed Catmull]

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

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

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 missed it and we were looking for it. So this is really hard and it's very subtle. 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, you know, when we're making Toy Story, people spending a lot of time there in the building and there's a lot of clowning around and these little hand scooter races around the building and you know, you know, funny things like that, all sorts of gags and so forth. So you hear those stories. But now for somebody new in the building, what they see, because it's a few years later, is these people who 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 different. But they don't say anything. Neither group talks about the problem. So this stepsters for a while and he finally realized, oh, I see. They've got these feelings, but they're not saying them because it seems inappropriate. You don't want to sort of stand out or you don't want to look bad so you don't say anything. Once I realized 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.

[Alex]

Yeah, it's 3:00pm Guys. Come on, let's go take an hour to have fun.

[Ed Catmull]

I know, it's just, you know, we do have company parties or big events. Yeah, I mean they're organized, but the best things happen are, you know, happen from bottom up 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 said, you know, if you just sort of make something happen and they would go off and they would do something, but there'd be nothing. There was official from the corporate just like to tell those people who are instigators to get things to happen. So it's like this is like a signal. So when people start to do something which is, you know, sort of irreverent or you know, getting closer to the edge, but what they say 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.

[Alex]

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.

[Ed Catmull]

It's recognizing the value of signals, both signals that you're looking for because 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 their signals given back.

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

Yeah. If you get on this look, get in front of a company meeting and say, okay, everybody lighten up, have some fun, okay? And they'll nod, say, oh, okay. It doesn't mean anything. They actually need genuine things. So we have a few people who did things which were a little too far out there that would have gotten them fired. In other studios. People know 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. And so 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. 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 the animation group, over a weekend, disassembled a truck, brought it into the building. It's still there. I was just there a couple weeks ago. So we show up, all of a sudden, there's a truck in the middle

[Alex]

of their area and, like, where their office. Like, they're. Because everybody would custom. You talk about in the book, you would encourage them to custom design their workspaces. Is this in their workspace? This truck now?

[Ed Catmull]

Yeah, it's in their workspace. I hadn't been there for a while because once I retired, what it means is if I go there and somebody doesn't like something, I do not want to be a back channel. That would not be healthy. So I would go there on occasion. But I went there. Maybe it was a week ago. We went through the animation and it had radically changed 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 and redecorating and making it their own spaces and. And that's a sign of help. They feel like that's part of their legacy and their heritage is to keep making that place look different.

[Alex]

Yeah. Too many rules, you know, stifle the creativity that think that's the engine of the entire company. Yeah, Ed, that's a perfect place to end. Really appreciate you welcoming me into your home and taking the time to have this conversation today. I really enjoyed it.

[Ed Catmull]

My pleasure. I have 50 years of rabbit holes to go down.

[Alex]

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

[Ed Catmull]

Lot of fun. Well, thank you.

[Alex]

I hope you enjoyed this episode.

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[Alex]

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