A conversation with Ed Catmull

There are a lot of very talented people at Pixar but I think Catmull is really the heart and soul of the company. He's one of those ridiculously rare people that are both a brilliant engineers and expert managers of people. Working at Pixar for ten years taught me just how crucial the character of a CEO can be to the success of a company.

Key quote:

   ...when most people talk about "the new," they're actually talking 
   about it after the fact. They look back and say how brilliant you were 
   at seeing all this, and so forth. Well, it's all nonsense. When it 
   is new, you don't know it. You're creating something for the future, and 
   you don't know exactly what it is.

I used this quote as a point of departure for "Early Adopters Have Already Let Go of the Past" at http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2011/01/07/early-adopters-have-...

Keep Your Crises Small, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc

It's a lecture from Ed Catmull. I highly recommend it, many gems from a brilliant developer turned brilliant manager.

When I saw his name, I wondered if it was the same Catmull from the Catmull-Rom splines that you can find on a number of 3d design programs such as 3dsmax.

Turns out it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Catmull

I love his analysis about the training in arts. Too many people discount the artistic side of things in the technical world, but it is quite obvious after working in the animation industry that there's nice parallels and inteconnetions between the two seemingly bifurcated fields.

I liked the part about "finding good ideas" vs "finding good people". I think this is why devs are annoyed by postings looking for someone to implement their great idea. "I have a great idea for a fantastic product. I just need you to implement it. You'll get paid when the project makes money."