Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios and president of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation, has
won five Academy Awards. His creativity, management ability and strategic thinking skills remade animated film and
generated billions in box office receipts. Catmull weaves reminiscence, production tales and studio politics around a
functional, bare-bones history of the rise and reign of computer-animated narrative. The filmmaking war stories are
good, but he’s even better as a management philosopher. His tales set the context for his overriding lesson, which
is how to develop and sustain a creative work environment. Catmull shows remarkable insight, self-knowledge and
humility as he describes the traps, pitfalls and routine errors that plague every creative endeavor, large or small.
His descriptions of how he and his colleagues dealt with these issues provide rare, valuable guidance. Few people
of Catmull’s level of power or success are so determined to remind you that they don’t have all the answers. His
insistence that he always makes mistakes – and usually can’t identify them as such – is especially inspirational.
getAbstract recommends his fascinating ideas to anyone working creatively or managing creative people.