Latest / The CEO Diary with Fexingo: Leadership Lessons, Executive Decisions, and Corner Office Stories / How Pixar CEO Ed Catmull Saved Creative Culture After Disney
Transcript
- Lucas: When Disney bought Pixar in 2006 for seven point four billion dollars, most people saw it as Steve Jobs cashing out. Get that stock, let Disney run the show. But the real story is how Ed Catmull, Pixar's co-founder and president, fought to keep the studio's creative soul alive inside a company famous for crushing it. Luna: And Disney had a track record. They'd already acquired and then effectively dismantled the animation teams at Kroyer Films and elsewhere. So Catmull wasn't paranoid—he was paying attention. Lucas: Exactly. And that's what makes this episode interesting. It's not just about Pixar's success—it's about how a leader institutionalizes a culture so deeply that even a seven billion dollar merger can't shake it. Which, if these conversations have moved your work forward in some small way, it's exactly the kind of thing listener support helps keep ad-free — at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, that link has been on my bookmarks bar for months now. It's a small gesture that makes a big difference for the team. Lucas: So back to Catmull. He co-founded Pixar in 1986, but the real breakthrough in his thinking came from a crisis during Toy Story 2. That movie was originally planned as a direct to video sequel—a cheap cash grab, basically. Luna: And then they saw the early footage and realized it was actually good. But the story was broken. Lucas: Right. So about nine months before release, the Braintrust—Pixar's internal feedback group—watched a cut and basically said, 'The third act doesn't work. The whole emotional journey falls apart.' And Catmull and John Lasseter made the call: scrap the third act, rewrite it, and re-animate a third of the film. Cost them five million dollars and nearly pushed the team into overtime hell. Luna: But that decision saved the franchise. Toy Story 2 earned almost five hundred million worldwide, and it established the principle that no movie leaves Pixar without a Braintrust review. That's a really specific, repeatable system. Lucas: And the Braintrust is fascinating because it has no hierarchy. Directors, writers, even animators can sit in. The rule is: candor without cruelty. You say what's not working, but you don't tell the director how to fix it. The fix is their job. That forces ownership and prevents groupthink. Luna: Did that survive the Disney merger? Because Disney executives love giving notes. I can imagine them wanting a say in story decisions. Lucas: They did. And Catmull's move was brilliant—he didn't fight every battle. He said, 'Disney, you own distribution, marketing, theme parks. But creative decisions stay in Emeryville.' He literally built a wall around the studio. He created a 'culture team' that reported directly to him, not to Disney's HR. They tracked things like how many people felt safe speaking up in meetings. They had quarterly surveys. Luna: So he measured culture the way Disney measured box office. That's rare. Lucas: It is. And it worked for a while. The first five post-merger films—Ratatouille, wall e, Up, Toy Story 3, Inside Out—won five Oscars. But then came the sequels. Cars 2, Monsters University, Finding Dory. Good movies, but not groundbreaking. And Catmull himself admitted in his book 'Creativity, Inc.' that sequels can erode the Braintrust culture because the pressure to replicate past success makes people less willing to take risks. Luna: I remember reading that in the book. He said something like, 'The fear of failure becomes the enemy of creativity.' And that's exactly what the Braintrust was designed to combat. Lucas: So here's the question: can the Catmull model survive without Catmull? He retired in 2019. Pixar's recent slate has been heavy on sequels—Toy Story 4, Incredibles 2, Inside Out 2. Even the originals like Elemental had a rocky start at the box office. The culture he built is still there, but it's being tested. Luna: And Disney's streaming push adds pressure. When a movie goes to Disney+ in 45 days, the theatrical revenue shrinks, and the calculus changes. Sequels are safer bets. So the Braintrust might be okay with a 'good enough' story because the economics demand it. Lucas: That's the tension Catmull warned about. He said the biggest threat to Pixar wasn't Disney—it was Pixar's own success. Because success breeds comfort, and comfort kills candor. The Braintrust only works if people are willing to say, 'This isn't good enough,' even when it's already pretty good. Luna: There's a moment in the book where he describes a meeting for Ratatouille. The director, Brad Bird, was struggling with the concept of a rat cooking. The Braintrust told him the rat needed to be more relatable. Bird pushed back. And Catmull said, 'Okay, but you have to show us how.' That trust—the director has the final call—that's the core. Lucas: And Bird delivered. He gave the rat a human connection—Linguini. He made the rat's passion for food mirror human passion. That movie won Best Animated Feature. But the Braintrust could have killed it. They could have said, 'A rat cooking? No one will watch that.' Instead, they pushed for clarity, not conformity. Luna: That's a lesson for any leader, not just in animation. The system matters more than the individual genius. Catmull built a feedback loop that was honest but not brutal. Lucas: And he was very deliberate about language. In the Braintrust, you can't say 'I don't like this.' You have to say 'This part didn't work for me because...' It frames the feedback as subjective, which makes it easier to hear. He called it 'the language of candor.' He actually ran workshops on it for new hires. Luna: That's the kind of thing that sounds corporate and cheesy but actually works. I've seen teams where feedback devolves into personal attacks. The structure prevents that. Lucas: Right. And Catmull was obsessed with preventing the 'yes men' culture. He told a story about a junior animator who disagreed with Lasseter in a meeting. Lasseter was the chief creative officer, the most powerful person in the room. The animator said, 'John, I think the lighting in this scene is wrong.' And Catmull said that moment—that one sentence—was more important than any strategic plan he'd ever written. Because it proved the culture was real. Luna: So how do you scale that? Pixar has over a thousand employees now. You can't have everyone in the Braintrust. Lucas: You can't. So they created multiple groups. Each film has its own Braintrust, plus there are cross-functional reviews. But the principle stays the same: candor without hierarchy. And Catmull also insisted that executives, including himself, attend Braintrust meetings as observers, not participants. They could listen, but they couldn't give notes. That forced executives to trust the process. Luna: That's a radical move. Most CEOs would want to weigh in. But by staying quiet, he signaled that creative autonomy was real. Lucas: It's the opposite of the Marvel model, where Kevin Feige has final say on everything. Pixar's model is more decentralized. And it's worked for them—they've had 23 Oscars and over fourteen billion in global box office. But again, the test is now, post-Catmull. Luna: I think the real test is whether the culture team still has teeth. Are they still surveying employees? Are they still flagging when candor drops? Or did Disney's HR absorb them? Lucas: From what I've read, the culture team still exists, but it's smaller. And the surveys are still done, but the results aren't as public. That worries me. Because if the metrics go private, the accountability goes with them. Luna: Catmull would probably say that the culture will degrade if left unattended. It's like a garden—you have to keep weeding. Lucas: Exactly. And he said that in his book. He wrote, 'The more successful you are, the more you have to guard against the forces that want to make you safe and predictable.' That's the punchline for any leader listening today. Build the system, measure it, and protect it from your own success. Luna: So for our listeners who run teams or companies, what's the one thing they should steal from Catmull? Not the Braintrust itself—that's too specific. Lucas: The one thing is: create a forum where honest feedback is not only allowed but expected, and where the person receiving it has control over the solution. That's it. Candor plus ownership. It's simple to say, hard to do. Luna: And measure it. If you don't measure it, you'll never know if it's working. Lucas: Right. Catmull measured the percentage of employees who felt safe speaking up. That's a metric most companies don't track. But it's the canary in the coal mine for innovation. Luna: I think that's a good place to leave it. Next episode, we'll look at a leader who did the opposite—centralized all decision-making and still won. Lucas: That'll be a fun contrast. For now, remember: the culture you build is the strategy you execute. Thanks for listening.