Ed Catmull, Pixar: Keep Your Crises Small

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Strong rec 10ren · 2010-05 · on “Animating a Blockbuster: How Pixar Built Toy Story 3”

fantastic business talk by Ed Catmull (pixar co-founder) at Stanford [this video] btw: I find it hard to believe that Toy Story 3 could be any good (because of the "3"). Is it?

Strong rec alexqgb · 2011-04 · on “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.

Strong rec henryprecheur · 2011-07 · on “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.

Strong rec pooriaazimi · 2012-11 · on “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

Strong rec danielvf · 2017-02 · on “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]

Recommends 10ren · 2010-06 · on “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

Recommends panic · 2011-05 · on “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 tha

Recommends 6ren · 2013-05 · on “Inside Pixar's Leadership”

Ed Catmull, Pixar: Keep Your Crises Small , Stanford Graduate School of Business [this video] (54:11) Long. Worth it.