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
3 times
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 heard about it

  • Spotted at Amazon Books at Washington Square, Tigard — December 2018 (Books photo album)

  • A reply to @WillManidis — named in answer to his question “what is the single best book you can read that will explain an entire industry?” in a thread on X, June 2025. The full set of replies lives on what is the single best book… (tweet).

  • In Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s Full Reading List (Investor Field Guide, 2016) — the archive of his monthly book-club recommendations, saved by Kyle in April 2020 — Full Reading List (Investor Field Guide).

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.

Referenced in