Pixar’s Ed Catmull: Throw out your rules

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1:22When Steve Jobs bought us, At the beginning, to be honest, we were nervous because we did know what Steve was like and what the reputation was. And I have to say for several years, I didn't see any sense of humor at all. That's Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, recalling Steve Jobs as a creative genius. Yes, but a genius who was demanding, brash, abrasive. And that's putting it mildly. I would say from 91 to 95 was a dramatic change in him as a person. He became more empathetic and caring. He paid attention to people. You actually begin to see him having a sense of humor. But this reputation stuck with Steve, even after the changes Ed is talking about.

2:18So when the stories were written about him, they're about the early public stories, because frankly it's kind of sexy to talk about bad behavior or various things like that. It makes for more dramatic television.

2:36A good example of that dramatic television is the 1999 TV movie Pirates of Silicon Valley. Noah Wiley had played Steve in a television movie that was fairly derogatory towards Steve. I want beauty, not incompetence. Are you listening to me? Are you listening? Yes, I'm listening! I'm so sick of your abusiveness! That's all you know, tearing people down, throwing tantrums, you miserable son of a... Shortly after the film came out, was the annual Apple Showcase, Macworld 99. It meant the image of Steve Jobs as an intense, humorless taskmaster was fresh in the minds of attendees. That didn't stop them from going wild as the light-stimmed and a turtleneck figure strode out to the center of the stage.

3:34Welcome to the Macworld 99 stage, Steve Jobs.

3:42This is going to be a great Mac world. What you can hear in the audience, sort of this increasing titter, as people begin to laugh because they realize it wasn't Steve. In fact, it was Noah Wiley that came out. You know, everybody at Apple has been thinking different for the last couple of years. We're selling a lot of computers. But there's something else happening here. The resurgence of Apple. So this went on for a couple of minutes and then reached the point where Noah Wiley says something like an extreme version of what Steve used to say. Some really great new products. Some insanely great new products.

4:28Some really, totally, wildly, insanely great new products. We have got products that are going to make... And then Steve came out. That's not me at all. That's not me at all. You're blowing it. You're supposed to come over here, open the water. Now Steve, with this lighter sense of humor, thought it would be a great idea to have Noah Wiley come out on the stage and pretend to be him. And they just demonstrated the depth of humor to be able to do that. It's a insanely great thing. We stopped using that 100 years ago. This moment of levity was a clear indication of how Steve had changed. It's a change Ed had been tracking for a long time, even if most of the world overlooked it.

5:22And it had a huge effect on how Steve worked. Part of his change over time was that in recognizing why things weren't going the way expected he could then change the way he worked and thought about people and throughout his life he kept learning and growing as we all should be doing as a result of that Steve and Apple had a major transformative effect in the world. The MacBook, the iPod, iTunes, and the iPhone. These are some of the vastly impactful things that Steve Jobs shepherded into the world. And I'd argue these were all so successful in part because Steve learned to change his approach, his process, and even the way he saw himself.

6:18I believe you need to constantly tweak, hack, and reinvent the ways you work to keep at the top of your creative game. You've got to have incredible talent at every position. It's like this huge push. There are fires burning when you're going home. Can you believe it? Such an idiot. And then you go back to, this is totally going to be amazing. There are so many easy ways. I have no idea what to do. Sorry, we made a mistake. But you have to time it right. Oops. Working out of a three-bedroom apartment. Stuff that just seems absolutely nut balls. Ten years later, we're like, well, that's just how you do it.

6:52We haven't made it just how you do it. This is Masters of Scale.

7:06I'm Reid Hoffman, partner at Greylock, co-founder of LinkedIn, and your host. And I believe you need to constantly tweak, hack, and reinvent the ways you work to keep at the top of your creative game. Imagine the challenges involved in trying to teach chess to a toddler. First, you've got to try to explain the complex set of rules in a way that a three-year-old can understand. Then there's the question of their short attention span. But probably the biggest challenge you'll face is playfulness. What young kid could resist picking up a knight and galloping it across the board, or grasping a bishop and pretending it's a rocket ship?

7:50In short, your patience is going to be tested. But imagine you manage to push through this initial frustration, perhaps alter your goal. Instead of teaching a kid chess, you're going to use the pieces and the board to engage with them on their terms. Okay. Once you adapt to the new rules of the game and accept they'll keep on changing, you can even have fun and start getting creative. As a leader, you need to be ready to do more than adapt to new ways of playing the game. You need to embrace them and then come up with your own rules in response. Accepting that the rules you play by need to be constantly tweaked, hacked, or reinvented opens you up to new ways of doing things.

8:36Instilling this attitude throughout your organization will help you be boldly differential in your experimentation. I wanted to talk to Ed Cottmall about this because he literally wrote the book on creating a dynamic and sustainable creative culture. Creativity Inc. has become a foundational text on how to presume dynamism throughout an organization. Ed was an early pioneer of computer graphics and went on to co-found celebrated animation studio Pixar. which counts Toy Story, The Incredibles, and Elemental among their many beloved hit movies. In his role as president of Walt Disney Animation Studios, his push to reinvigorate the creative process resulted in a string of successes, including Frozen and Zootopia.

9:23Ed was first switched on to the magic of animation by the art form's most famous pioneer. I grew up when Walt Disney was on television every Sunday night. And both showing programs that were available, plus animation, including how things worked. And it was pretty amazing. Even as a kid, I knew that they were stimulating something in my head. And what I imagined myself doing was becoming an animator. The TV show that had Ed glued to the sitting room floor of his family home in Salt Lake City was The Wonderful World of Disney. The more Ed watched Walt reveal the tricks in the Magic Kingdom spellbook, the more enthralled he became.

10:12But Walt wasn't the only great mind of the 20th century to capture Ed's imagination. I loved taking science classes in physics. And the other iconic figure of that time was Einstein. There was something pretty magical about what he was doing and what he'd figured out. So I would read the books about it.

10:38Throughout his childhood, Ed dove deep into both of his passions, becoming a skilled artist while pursuing his scientific curiosity. While he was studying for his bachelor's in physics at the University of Utah, Ed found himself drawn to another cutting-edge field. I'd always wanted to be at the frontier where you discover something. And when I took a computer science course, I thought, well, this is like being at the front of the Easter egg hunt. You're just going to go out and find things and gather them up. And it made it exciting. In 1969, Ed graduated with two degrees, one in physics and the other in computer science.

11:19He then doubled down on computing as his path. When I returned to graduate school, it was initially to study computer languages. with some thought about artificial intelligence. It's tempting to take a brief pause and consider an alternative universe in which I'm speaking with Ed Catmull, pioneer of AI, rather than pioneer of animation. There are deep parallels between the huge advances in computing underway at this point in Ed's story and the seismic impacts of the current AI revolution. Like AI, the computational wave that Ed was immersing himself in was going to inform sweeping changes in technology, industry, and society.

12:02And like AI, it was impossible for anyone to predict what these changes would be. People were feeling their way through the possibilities and potentialities of the computer revolution. For Ed, one of these routes proved especially tantalizing. Soon, another unplanned encounter changed Ed's destiny. The first course I took was one in computer graphics. And that blew me away and basically changed everything. It's like all of a sudden, bam, things came together. And the art and the technology and the physics, like, wow, they're all mixed together. And this is a new direction. And it was actually thrilling.

12:43This new area of computer graphics was a dynamic combination of Ed's passions, animation, science, and technology. And the way the classes were taught reflected this, with students largely left to create their own projects and curriculum. We were all discovering things together and providing support for each other. There was something about having to discover what to do when there really wasn't a curriculum. All they could say is solve the next problem. You figure out what the curriculum is. This environment was radically different to what you would normally expect of a graduate class. The course leaders had tossed out the very notion of a curriculum, partly because the field was so new, but also because they knew that this was the best way to stimulate the creativity of their students.

13:37And it was soon helping to push the boundaries of this new technology. There's some software so that people can make pictures. But I looked at that and said, you can't do anything with that. So I decided to write my own software to make a model of my hand. So I made a plaster Paris model. I then digitized it by looking through a piece of plastic with a grid on it to figure out where all the points were on this surface. I wrote a program to animate it, to move it around. not only move the fingers, but also look around inside the hand with the camera. It had never been done before, and it was exciting.

14:23You can see the results for yourself by searching for A Computer Animated Hand by Ed Catmull on YouTube. The video also contains the work of a fellow grad student of Ed's, Fred Park. He also wrote his own software, and he digitized the image of his wife's face. And we were the only two that stayed in computer graphics because we were the ones that rejected what was already in place and said, we need something new. These are foundational works in the history of computer animation, and they only came about because Ed and Fred were prepared to throw out the existing animation software available to them and then create their own.

15:01One of the first things I look at when considering an investment is whether the founders are rejecting the status quo. If I'd been asked the fun projects in Ed and Fred's class, I'd have been drawn to the two students who are breaking out of the constraints of the tools available to them. Because when you see someone asking the question, why this way, it signals a willingness to create your own rules. This willingness is at the core of entrepreneurial success.

15:34Ed's graduate work brought him back to his first love, animation. It inspired him to set a new goal to someday create a full-length computer animated feature film. Okay, this can get to the point where it's going to change filmmaking, but I had no illusions about us almost being there. The advice from one of Ed's graduate professors meant Ed wasn't deterred by this time frame. Ivan Sutherland, the father of computer graphics, who built the first AR and VR system, for Ivan, you can have a big vision, but you've got to go a step at a time. And so everybody understood in this environment that our task was to take the next step.

16:21And in the process, we may change what we think is going to happen, but we do it by taking these steps based upon what's there. Ivan Sutherland understood that no matter how revolutionary your scale idea is, you need a path to get there. The answer is largely through small, iterative steps. You need to build your creative environment around this process. That graduate course gave Ed not just an ambition, but a guiding principle by which to achieve it. When I graduated, the most important thing I got out of it was that this environment was awesome. I loved it. And while I had this vision of making an animated film and it set the course of my life, the thing I wanted to do was to have this kind of environment wherever I went.

17:14and that needed to be something that was a principle for me, was how do you have this kind of environment? In 1974, Ed earned his doctorate in computer science. Within a year, he took on the role of director at the newly created Computer Graphics Lab. This was at the New York Institute of Technology, also known as New York Tech. Ed set about building his own creative environment. He took inspiration from his freewheeling graduate school, but he also added his own elements. So right at the beginning at New York Tech, we said, we're going to publish everything we do. And it turns out the president of New York Tech was fine with that.

17:59Because the most important thing we can do is to be engaged with the community. And if we're engaged with them, then we get the best people. Many times, being open is much better than being closed, because what gives you your competitive advantage is not your hidden secret thing. It's the fact that you're in motion with a great team. Creative people are attracted to places where they can innovate. Publishing their cutting-edge animation techniques sent out a clear signal that Ed was building an environment that made creativity its top priority. We had some rather phenomenal people come in, but we were not in a community that really understood filmmaking and storytelling.

18:41And we knew that was one of the weaknesses. So if the tech was so great, why not just share it with filmmakers? No studio was interested at all in anything that computers might do. I mean, there was zero interest. They didn't even think it was relevant. That was until 1977, when a set of events from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away changed everything. Star Wars is probably the single most impactful movie in the history of the motion picture industry. I mean, it really changed a lot of things. One of those things was catapulting the bar for movie special effects. The spectacle of lightsabers and space battles had audiences thirsting for more immersive, mind-blowing sequences.

19:31To realize his vision, director George Lucas had set up his own special effects division, Industrial Light and Magic, or ILM. George was successful with this newly formed group of ILM who had just really basically taken special effects to a whole new level. George understood that technology was going to impact moviemaking. George was the first person with credibility in the industry who thought this was going to be important, and he was willing to fund it. So this was pretty special. George Lucas had intently followed Ed's work at New York Tech. Like Ed, George was frustrated at how slowly the film industry was adopting computer technology.

20:20So in 1979, George recruited Ed to establish and run Lucasfilm's computer division. It was another opportunity for Ed to build a creative, dynamic environment from the ground up. Again, he planned to build on what he had learned at graduate school and New York Tech. When I left New York Tech and now went to Lucasfilm, I looked back at this period and said, well, you know, about half of my theory is about how to get the thing I experienced at Utah. worked, and half of them didn't work at all. So now I'm going to Lucasfilm, I'm going to come up with new ways of doing things, and I'm going to hang on to the things that work.

21:01However, Ed soon discovered something at Lucasfilm. There's no such thing as a perfect creative environment. One of the important realizations coming out of that was that I thought that that ratio, about half right and half wrong, would continue for the rest of my life. the value of it was that I knew that I was going to be wrong more than I thought I was. And I thought that was, in retrospect, I think it was a benefit to think that because it's true. Well, having read Creativity, Inc., I think part of the model that I came away from that was that part of the goodness of the mindset of being half right and half wrong is it's dynamic.

21:44It's focused on learning. It's focused on iterating to the next play. I presume that's kind of what you mean here by that principle guiding you through life about being half right and half wrong. That is what it's about. When you do something that's new, by virtue of the fact that it's new, which means you haven't done it before, then if you define yourself in terms of being a leader who gets it right the first time, then it's like your ego gets in the way. That process of doing something new is an iterative process, and it requires a lot of people. The most damaging thing is if the leader thinks their job is to be right and to know the answer, well, you're kind of shutting things off when you think that way.

22:30It's like, well, I don't know. Let's work it out together. We're all in this together. Ed brought this collaborative approach to his work at Lucasfilm. He and his team set about applying increasingly powerful computer technology to special effects. One major project was a specialized machine that could digitally combine special effects with live-action footage. They named it the Pixar Image Computer. However, while George shared Ed's enthusiasm for using computers in moviemaking, he didn't share Ed's ambition to create a full-length computer-animated movie. Meanwhile, Lucasfilm was put under financial strain by George's 1983 divorce settlement.

23:14Although Ed's computer graphics division was making huge strides in technology, it wasn't making money for its parent company. So George made the decision to spin it off. Honestly, it was a brutal year. It was high stress, things were not going right. Ed was desperate, not only to find a buyer, but a buyer who would understand and preserve the dynamic approach to creativity that Ed had built. It turns out that just such a buyer was currently on the lookout for new opportunities, having recently parted ways with a computer company he'd founded. The company's name was Apple, and that buyer was Steve Jobs.

23:55We'll hear that story and more after the break.

24:02Real leaders don't back down when the stakes are high. They innovate, they push forward, and then they take the stage at the Masters of Scale Summit. Join us in San Francisco, October 7th to 9th, to hear from the CEO of the New York Times, scientists using cutting-edge technology to find cures, the leader of crypto powerhouse Coinbase, a retired four-star general, and many, many more. Apply now at mastersofscale.com slash apply25. That's mastersofscale.com slash apply25. If you're ready to take your startup from idea to impact, then AWS is your launchpad. From data storage to machine learning to secure app hosting, AWS gives you the tech trusted by the world's fastest scaling startups.

24:52And here's the best part. Join AWS Activate today and you could score up to$100 ,000 in AWS credits tailored to your stage and network. Go to aws.amazon.com slash activate and start building. Expanding your business in the U.S. can feel like a maze. Every state has its own payroll, benefits, and compliance rules, which can pull your focus away from growth. That's why founders use Deal. Deal is the professional employer organization or PEO that gives you a dedicated HR expert plus Fortune 500 level benefits for your team. The National Association of PEOs says businesses can grow twice as fast if they use one.

25:36So if you're scaling, make it simple with Deal. Go to deel.com slash MOS and get up to three months free.

25:51We're back with Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull on how to keep the creativity flowing. Before the break, we heard how Ed found himself in the midst of a brutal year. Although his computer division at Lucasfilm was making huge strides in technology, it wasn't making money for its parent company. So George Lucas made the decision to spin off Ed's division. Ed was desperate to find a buyer who would realize the potential of what his team was doing and also let them preserve their dynamic creative environment. After over a year of searching, they found their buyer. Steve Jobs did believe that the potential for graphics was going to become important in the future.

26:36Steve wasn't saying, I know how to make a business out of this right now. This is going to be of value in the future, so let's figure out what we do to get there. In February 1986, Steve Jobs paid$5 million to buy Lucasfilm's computer graphics division of 40 or so staff and establish it under a new name, Pixar. It meant Ed and his team were financially secure. For now.