Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull

Finally finished listening to Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull this week.

Took me longer than expected because I kept abandoning it every few days. I’d heard going things about the book, but it wasn’t until Nav recommend that I pushed it up the queue.

I think the book is a bit slow because of how sincere it is. Unlike many other Business/Leadership books which always have some sort of recipe for being as successful as X — Ed Catmull is upfront about how hard having a continuously creative company is.

Sometimes the book felt bittersweet in how removed the problems are from my daily work experience but YMMV. But these cases were more than compensated by relatable and detailed accounts of issues encountered by Pixar and how they addressed them. In some cases even unsuccessfully.

Finally there’s the whole Steve Jobs angle. Listening how Jobs intersected the Pixar story from the point of view of a colleague and (later) a friend, was interesting for the fanboi in me.

I have no problem recommending this book. My only asterisk would be that: it is not a book to find out what you need to do. Rather, it gives the proper mindset to figure out what you should do.

non-fiction management