Creativity, Inc.
Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration
by Ed Catmull
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More Recommenders
Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Meta Platforms
“An amazing, amazing book. | Brilliant book | Creativity,Inc. by Pixar's Ed Catmull: One of the Best Business Books of All Time | If I could hand any five books to a would be entrepreneur, I’d pick 1. Positioning by Ries + Trout 2. Zero to One by Thiel 3. 7 Powers by Helmer 4. The Outsiders by Thorndike 5. Creativity, Inc. by Catmull Bonus: Nobody Wants to Read Your ShT by Pressfield | Pixar has made some of the greatest stories of our time, but the author’s personal story, is perhaps the greatest story that has come out of Pixar.”
Source →“An amazing, amazing book. | Brilliant book | Creativity,Inc. by Pixar's Ed Catmull: One of the Best Business Books of All Time | If I could hand any five books to a would be entrepreneur, I’d pick 1. Positioning by Ries + Trout 2. Zero to One by Thiel 3. 7 Powers by Helmer 4. The Outsiders by Thorndike 5. Creativity, Inc. by Catmull Bonus: Nobody Wants to Read Your ShT by Pressfield | Pixar has made some of the greatest stories of our time, but the author’s personal story, is perhaps the greatest story that has come out of Pixar.”
Source →“An amazing, amazing book. | Brilliant book | Creativity,Inc. by Pixar's Ed Catmull: One of the Best Business Books of All Time | If I could hand any five books to a would be entrepreneur, I’d pick 1. Positioning by Ries + Trout 2. Zero to One by Thiel 3. 7 Powers by Helmer 4. The Outsiders by Thorndike 5. Creativity, Inc. by Catmull Bonus: Nobody Wants to Read Your ShT by Pressfield | Pixar has made some of the greatest stories of our time, but the author’s personal story, is perhaps the greatest story that has come out of Pixar.”
Source →“An amazing, amazing book. | Brilliant book | Creativity,Inc. by Pixar's Ed Catmull: One of the Best Business Books of All Time | If I could hand any five books to a would be entrepreneur, I’d pick 1. Positioning by Ries + Trout 2. Zero to One by Thiel 3. 7 Powers by Helmer 4. The Outsiders by Thorndike 5. Creativity, Inc. by Catmull Bonus: Nobody Wants to Read Your ShT by Pressfield | Pixar has made some of the greatest stories of our time, but the author’s personal story, is perhaps the greatest story that has come out of Pixar.”
Source →“An amazing, amazing book. | Brilliant book | Creativity,Inc. by Pixar's Ed Catmull: One of the Best Business Books of All Time | If I could hand any five books to a would be entrepreneur, I’d pick 1. Positioning by Ries + Trout 2. Zero to One by Thiel 3. 7 Powers by Helmer 4. The Outsiders by Thorndike 5. Creativity, Inc. by Catmull Bonus: Nobody Wants to Read Your ShT by Pressfield | Pixar has made some of the greatest stories of our time, but the author’s personal story, is perhaps the greatest story that has come out of Pixar.”
Source →“An amazing, amazing book. | Brilliant book | Creativity,Inc. by Pixar's Ed Catmull: One of the Best Business Books of All Time | If I could hand any five books to a would be entrepreneur, I’d pick 1. Positioning by Ries + Trout 2. Zero to One by Thiel 3. 7 Powers by Helmer 4. The Outsiders by Thorndike 5. Creativity, Inc. by Catmull Bonus: Nobody Wants to Read Your ShT by Pressfield | Pixar has made some of the greatest stories of our time, but the author’s personal story, is perhaps the greatest story that has come out of Pixar.”
Source →“An amazing, amazing book. | Brilliant book | Creativity,Inc. by Pixar's Ed Catmull: One of the Best Business Books of All Time | If I could hand any five books to a would be entrepreneur, I’d pick 1. Positioning by Ries + Trout 2. Zero to One by Thiel 3. 7 Powers by Helmer 4. The Outsiders by Thorndike 5. Creativity, Inc. by Catmull Bonus: Nobody Wants to Read Your ShT by Pressfield | Pixar has made some of the greatest stories of our time, but the author’s personal story, is perhaps the greatest story that has come out of Pixar.”
Source →“An amazing, amazing book. | Brilliant book | Creativity,Inc. by Pixar's Ed Catmull: One of the Best Business Books of All Time | If I could hand any five books to a would be entrepreneur, I’d pick 1. Positioning by Ries + Trout 2. Zero to One by Thiel 3. 7 Powers by Helmer 4. The Outsiders by Thorndike 5. Creativity, Inc. by Catmull Bonus: Nobody Wants to Read Your ShT by Pressfield | Pixar has made some of the greatest stories of our time, but the author’s personal story, is perhaps the greatest story that has come out of Pixar.”
Source →“An amazing, amazing book. | Brilliant book | Creativity,Inc. by Pixar's Ed Catmull: One of the Best Business Books of All Time | If I could hand any five books to a would be entrepreneur, I’d pick 1. Positioning by Ries + Trout 2. Zero to One by Thiel 3. 7 Powers by Helmer 4. The Outsiders by Thorndike 5. Creativity, Inc. by Catmull Bonus: Nobody Wants to Read Your ShT by Pressfield | Pixar has made some of the greatest stories of our time, but the author’s personal story, is perhaps the greatest story that has come out of Pixar.”
Source →“An amazing, amazing book. | Brilliant book | Creativity,Inc. by Pixar's Ed Catmull: One of the Best Business Books of All Time | If I could hand any five books to a would be entrepreneur, I’d pick 1. Positioning by Ries + Trout 2. Zero to One by Thiel 3. 7 Powers by Helmer 4. The Outsiders by Thorndike 5. Creativity, Inc. by Catmull Bonus: Nobody Wants to Read Your ShT by Pressfield | Pixar has made some of the greatest stories of our time, but the author’s personal story, is perhaps the greatest story that has come out of Pixar.”
Source →Recommended by 12 notable people, including Tim Ferriss and Patrick O'Shaughnessy
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Reading Profile
Should I read this?
Reading like a backstage memoir from Pixar’s co-founder, this book interweaves company history with a management philosophy built on protecting creative candor. The most useful part is its granular depiction of the Braintrust—a meeting designed to surface honest, sometimes brutal feedback without hierarchy—and the postmortem culture that forced the studio to learn from failure. However, the advice is inseparable from Pixar’s exceptional circumstances, and the book can feel like a polished victory lap. If you’re looking for replicable tactics rather than inspirational narrative, the anecdote-driven approach may leave you wanting more concrete tools.
Read this if...
- •A studio head or creative director trying to institutionalize honest feedback without crushing morale—Catmull’s Braintrust rituals are directly stealable.
- •A project manager in a large corporation who needs to protect a fragile innovative idea from early-stage corporate skepticism; the stories of shielding early work provide a persuasive argument.
- •A startup founder designing the first team retreat who wants to bake creative candor and psychological safety into the company’s DNA from day one, not after dysfunction sets in.
Skip this if...
- •If you’re a team lead hungry for a feedback playbook, you’ll put this down after the first few chapters—it’s a memoir that trades step-by-step advice for Pixar history, never delivering the concrete templates you need.
- •you'll likely put it down in the middle when the book bogs down in film-production minutiae (think fur-rendering woes and lunchroom redesigns) that only obsessive Pixar fans will find worth the slog.
- •Annoying if you distrust CEO victory laps: by the final third, the consistent portrayal of Pixar as a uniquely exceptional, near-flawless culture starts to feel self-congratulatory and too tidy to replicate.
Before You Buy
Reading Specifications
Difficulty:medium
Length:338 pages (Medium)
Audience Fit
- A studio head or creative director trying to institutionalize honest feedback without crushing morale—Catmull’s Braintrust rituals are directly stealable.
- A project manager in a large corporation who needs to protect a fragile innovative idea from early-stage corporate skepticism; the stories of shielding early work provide a persuasive argument.
- A startup founder designing the first team retreat who wants to bake creative candor and psychological safety into the company’s DNA from day one, not after dysfunction sets in.
- If you’re a team lead hungry for a feedback playbook, you’ll put this down after the first few chapters—it’s a memoir that trades step-by-step advice for Pixar history, never delivering the concrete templates you need.
- you'll likely put it down in the middle when the book bogs down in film-production minutiae (think fur-rendering woes and lunchroom redesigns) that only obsessive Pixar fans will find worth the slog.
- Annoying if you distrust CEO victory laps: by the final third, the consistent portrayal of Pixar as a uniquely exceptional, near-flawless culture starts to feel self-congratulatory and too tidy to replicate.
Check formats, pricing, and availability options for Kindle, physical print, or audiobooks directly.
View available editions on AmazonKey themes
Why recommended
Recommended by 22 sources and appears in Creativity, Creative Thinking, and Management.
Recommended by notable people
People and public figures who have recommended this book.
Recommendation Signals
Recommendation proof is sourced from public posts, interviews, reading lists, and cited references.
Tim Ferriss
Author and podcaster
“An amazing, amazing book. | Brilliant book | Creativity,Inc. by Pixar's Ed Catmull: One of the Best Business Books of All Time | If I could hand any five books to a would be entrepreneur, I’d pick 1. Positioning by Ries + Trout 2. Zero to One by Thiel 3. 7 Powers by Helmer 4. The Outsiders by Thorndike 5. Creativity, Inc. by Catmull Bonus: Nobody Wants to Read Your ShT by Pressfield | Pixar has made some of the greatest stories of our time, but the author’s personal story, is perhaps the greatest story that has come out of Pixar.”
View sources (6) ▾80%
Appears In
Not sure if this is the right fit?
Consider Principles by Ray Dalio. Recommended by 61 sources.
“This is Dalio’s operating manual for life and work—part memoir, part handbook. He distills his hedge fund’s culture into repeatable 'principles' for radical transparency and systematic thinking. The useful part is the concrete algorithms for error-logging and group decision-making; the annoying part is the cultish fervor around his own brilliance and the implication that his way scales universally. It reads like a boss’s extended memo, sometimes riveting, sometimes eye-rolling.”
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Each recommendation is collected from a public source — interviews, articles, or curated lists — and linked to its original URL. Books with many verifiable recommendations from respected people rank higher.