Ed Catmull, Pixar: Keep Your Crises Small

Stanford Graduate School of Business
14 HN recommenders · recommended in 15 months, 2010–2019
YouTube
217K views · 17 years ago · talk · evergreen

Ed Catmull, president of Pixar, speaks at Stanford's business school about how Pixar runs its creative teams. He talks about learning from success, surfacing problems early and keeping crises small.

HN treats it as a top talk on building creative organizations, mainly for the point that success hides problems and good teams work through them.

“one of the most useful talks of all time for building organizations”
Design leadership & org
#pixar#edcatmull#creativeteams#management#culture

24 comments from Hacker News

d
@danielvf2017 · in “Ask HN: What are some 'must watch' talks?”
Rich Hickey's talk on simplicity is a must watch. link And one of the most useful talks of all time for building organizations is by Ed Catmull (of Pixar) ▶ this video
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@pooriaazimi2012 · in “What they don't tell you about being a game developer”
It's "The Pixar Story"[1]. A great documentary, highly recommended. But Pixar wasn't all roses either - during the tight production of Toy Story 2 (because they changed almost all of the story and had to rush it for christmas), a couple (who were both animators) forgot that their 1-year old was in the car (and not in the day care!), and the girl was there for almost 10 hours... She lived, but still a pretty horrible story. The source for this unpleasant anecdote is [2]. It's a long talk by Ed Catmull, but I can't recommend it enough. It's really, really awesome. Success hides problems (Ed Catmull) Want to know why Pixar was awesome for soooo long? It wasn't luck, and it wasn't because they had great animators. It wasn't even (entirely) because they told terrific stories. It was because they constantly learned from their "successes"... Watch (or listen) to Catmull's talk. I guarantee that you won't regret the 55 minutes you spend on it... [1]: link [2]: ▶ this video
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h
@hodgesrm2017 · in “Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers”
It's worth thinking about the team in advance, especially to understand what things you do well and where you need complementary talents. Good teams also work through the problems that are inevitable in new products. There's a great speech by Ed Catmull that makes this point well. (▶ this video) Of course this is useless advice if you are doing a one-person business. :)
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b
@bla22016 · in “Google Canceled the Launch of a Robotic Arm”
Google seems to be doing ok to me. I like your point that success can hide problems though; Ed Catmull presents it very well here: ▶ this video It looks like people were suggesting that Google takes this advice more to heart six years ago already: link
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6
@6ren2013 · in “Inside Pixar's Leadership”
Ed Catmull, Pixar: Keep Your Crises Small, Stanford Graduate School of Business ▶ this video (54:11) Long. Worth it.
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@gdubs2012 · in “Ed Catmull of Pixar on why successful companies fail (VIDEO 2007)”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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@henryprecheur2011 · in “A conversation with Ed Catmull”
Keep Your Crises Small, ▶ this video It's a lecture from Ed Catmull. I highly recommend it, many gems from a brilliant developer turned brilliant manager.
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v
@vpdn2011 · in “Ed Catmull, Pixar: Keep Your Crises Small ”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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@panic2011 · in “Ideas Matter”
Ed Catmull, president of Pixar, has made the same comment about their films. The entire video is worth watching, but the quote in question is at ▶ this video - The other thing to note is, there is a confusion, I think, that the people have and is — the books and press kind of work this way in that we think about "an idea." When we think of ideas for movies, we think about ideas for products. And it's usually thought of as some singular thing. But the reality is, these successful movies — as with all successful products — have got thousands of ideas. It's just all sorts of things necessary to make it be successful. And you have to get most of them right to do it. And that's why you need a team that works well together.
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@alexqgb2011 · in “Microsoft's office: Why insiders think top management has lost its way”
I believe Ed Catmull refers to this as 'keeping your crises small.' That is to say, it's much better to actively surface problems before they leave the shop than it is to ship with issues, and try to deal with implosions after the fact (ahem, Vista). Here he is, giving a really good talk at Stanford Business School, in which he covers this (among other good ideas). About an hour, but worth much more. ▶ this video Interestingly, an ethos like this suggests that the fate of Microsoft is NOT inevitable. It's only becomes that way when you no longer care about shipping garbage. Exhibit B: Detroit in the 70's and 80's.
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@dataminer2010 · in “Ed Catmull on Why do successful companies fail and how to avoid it”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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1
@10ren2010 · in “Pixar’s leaders want to make their creative powerhouse outlast them”
Article is a little shallow. Great video by Catmull to Stanford business school on it: ▶ this video (54 minutes) And here's an article by him: link e.g. Toy Story 2 was an impetus to creating the present review system; the reason for saying 5 good things is just to make the people feel better about the criticisms: the last thing you want to do after years of exhausting work is point out what sucked. Catmull is the main guy driving these standards; Lasseter is busy being a creative; BTW: I thought I'd discerned a hidden pattern of pixar having the writer voice the primary mentor role - Brad Bird voiced Edna Mode in The Incredibles; Andrew Stanton voiced Crush in Finding Nemo - but... Brad Bird didn't voice Gusteau in Ratatouille
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