Kyle Harrison
to-read

Creativity, Inc.

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration
Author
Ed Catmull
Published
2014
Pages
368
Recommended
Once
Buy on Amazon ↗

Why it’s on the list: Catmull on how Pixar was run — the Braintrust, candour as a management practice, and the argument that protecting a new idea while it is still bad is the whole job.

Where I saw it: In the reply thread to @WillManidis’s question, “what is the single best book you can read that will explain an entire industry?” (June 2, 2025) — a crowd-sourced list Kyle recovered by hand and saved to his Apple Note “Books To Read”; the full set of replies lives on what is the single best book… (tweet). It was listed there as “Creativity, Inc.”.

Connections

  • Ed Catmull — Author and Pixar co-founder.
  • Pixar — The company the book is about.
  • Film — The industry it explains from the inside.
  • Management — The book’s actual subject.
  • Steve Jobs — Pixar’s owner through the period the book covers.
  • what is the single best book… (tweet) — the thread this recommendation came from.