20 Quotes by Ed Catmull

But I should caution that if you seek to plot out all your moves before you make them—if you put your faith in slow, deliberative planning in the hopes it will spare you failure down the line—well, you’re deluding yourself. For one thing, it’s easier to plan derivative work—things that copy or repeat something already out there. So if your primary goal is to have a fully worked out, set-in-stone plan, you are only upping your chances of being unoriginal.

Unleashing creativity requires that we loosen the control, accept risk, trust our colleagues, work to clear the path for them and pay attention to anything that creates fear. Doing all these things won’t necessarily make the job of creating culture easier, but ease isn’t the goal. Excellence is.

It isn't enough merely to be open to ideas from others. Engaging the collective brainpower of the people you work with is an active, ongoing process. As a manager, you must coax ideas out of your staff and constantly push them to contribute.

The roller coaster came to a stop and a good friend got off, but what a ride we'd taken together. It had been one hell of a trip.

At the U of U, we were inventing a new language. One of us would contribute a verb, another a noun, then a third person would figure out ways to string the elements together to actually say something.

Negative feedback may be fun, but it is far less brave than endorsing something unproven and providing room to grow.

I feel like the only reason we’re able to find some of these unique ideas, characters, and story twists is through discovery. And, by definition, ‘discovery’ means you don’t know the answer when you start.

I know that a lot of our successes came because we had pure intentions and great talent, and we did a lot of things right, but I also believe that attributing our successes solely to our own intelligence, without acknowledging the role of accidental events, diminishes us.

Trust doesn't mean that you trust that someone won't screw up— it means you trust them even when they do screw up.