The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 41 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Jobs regularly noted Apple products end up in landfills while Pixar films endure
“He used to say regularly that as brilliant as Apple products were, eventually they all ended up in landfills. Pixar movies, on the other hand, would live on forever.”
Jobs: Having No Visible Problems Indicates Extreme Operational Risk
“Steve says, if you don't have any problems, you should be very, very worried.”
Andy Grove: Friendly companies should share help freely without charging
“In my view, that's what friendly companies and friends do for each other. In the long run, these things balance out.”
Ed Catmull was the most influential figure on Jobs's management style
“I think the person that was most influential on how he managed when he came back to Apple was actually the time he spent with Ed Catmull. Seeing how Ed Catmull actually ran Pixar.”
Ed Catmull: Brilliant teams fix mediocre ideas; mediocre teams ruin good ones
“If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better.”
Catmull: Assembling the right team must precede getting the idea right
“If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better. The takeaway here is worth repeating. Getting the team right is the …”
Senra: Jobs called early Pixar his only all-'A-player' company
“There's a famous quote that I read in one of the biographies of Steve Jobs, where he said, the only time he ever saw an entire company of A players was in the early days of Pixar.”
Brad Bird: Conflict is essential for testing and validating the best ideas
“The key is to view conflict as essential because you know that's how we know the best ideas will be tested and survive.”
Catmull: Steve Jobs would instantly change his mind when proven wrong
“Steve had a remarkable knack for letting go of things that didn't work. If you were in an argument with him, and you convinced him that you were right, he would instantly change his mind. He didn't hold onto an idea because he had once believed it to be brilli…”
Stanton: Rapidly choosing a wrong path is better than indecisive hesitation
“In a battle, if you're faced with two hills and you're unsure about which one to attack, he says, the right course of action is to hurry up and choose. If you find it's the wrong hill, then turn around and attack the other one. In that scenario, the only unacc…”
Pixar's Braintrust holds no authority to mandate changes to directors
“The brain trust has no authority. The director does not have to follow any of the specific suggestions given. The brain trust notes are intended to bring the true causes of a problem to the surface, not to demand a specific remedy.”
Catmull: Brilliant teams fix mediocre ideas, but mediocre teams ruin good ones
“If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better.”
Andy Grove: Friendly companies share advice freely because reciprocity balances out
“In my view, that's what friendly companies and friends do for each other. In the long run, these things balance out. I'm sorry you don't feel that way. We will be worse off as a result, and so will the industry.”
George Lucas Threatened to Fire Pixar Team Over $35 Million Divorce
“George was cash strapped from a thirty-five million divorce settlement and was threatening to fire the division's entire team if no buyer emerged.”
Steve Jobs Learned Never to Overplay His Hand From IBM Deal
“Years later, he confided in Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull That he had learned a lesson from the collapse of the IBM deal. Never overplay your hand.”
Jobs: No amount of technology can fix a bad story
“The art of storytelling is very old, and no amount of technology can turn a bad story into a good story.”
Catmull: Production Meltdowns Are Essential Business Investments in R&D
“I came to think of our meltdowns, our problems, as a necessary part of doing our business, like investments in research and development.”
Steve Jobs Stayed Out of Story Decisions at Pixar
“At Apple, he had the reputation of being deeply involved in the most minute details of every product, but at Pixar, he didn't believe that his instincts were better than the people here, so he stayed out.”
Catmull: Companies become exceptional by understanding where they fall short
“Companies, like individuals, do not become exceptional by believing they are exceptional, but by understanding the ways in which they aren't exceptional.”
Catmull: Teams will endlessly consume resources without strict imposed limits
“Unless you impose limits, people will always justify spending more time and more money by saying, we're just trying to make it a little better.”
Senra: Disney acquisition made Steve Jobs Disney's largest individual shareholder
“Steve Jobs was the single largest shareholder in Pixar. And after this deal, another interesting fact was that that made Steve Jobs the single largest individual shareholder in Disney.”
Catmull: Tech leaders fail by obsessing over competitors instead of internal threats
“What interested me was that the leaders of these companies seemed so focused on the competition that they never developed any deep introspection about other destructive forces that were at work.”
Senra: Steve Jobs became a billionaire from Pixar, not Apple
“Steve Jobs was, this actually is the first thing that makes Steve Jobs a billionaire. He was a billionaire off of Pixar stock, not Apple stock.”
Streamlining Process Over Product Quality Leads to Unoriginal Output
“A subversion takes place In which streamlining the process or increasing production supplants the ultimate goal, which goes back to what is the ultimate goal? Making something great is the goal. That supplants the ultimate goal. This kind of thinking yields to…”
Catmull: Leaders must protect ambitious employees from destructive overwork
“A motivated workaholic workforce pulling together to make a deadline could destroy itself if it's left unchecked. Though I was immensely proud of what we had accomplished, I vowed we would never make a film that way again. It is my job to protect our people fr…”
Senra: Microsoft offered $90 million to buy Pixar
“So they get an offer from, Microsoft's just one of these companies. Steve's like, hey, I want a hundred twenty million for Pixar. And, you know, he just made up the number, and Microsoft will give you ninety million.”
Jobs: Taking creative product risks requires strict fiscal conservatism in business
“You need a risk taking creative environment on the product side. And that requires a fiscally conservative environment on the business side.”
Senra: General Motors backed out of buying Pixar one week before signing
“At the last minute, General Motors comes in, like, ok, we'll take it off your hands, and then one week before that deal was supposed to be signed, they back out, and that deal falls apart”
Senra: Jobs refused to sell Pixar's proprietary technology to Disney
“Steve's, Steve's rejected Jeffrey's logic that since Disney was investing in Pixar's first movie, it deserved to own our technology as well. You're giving us money to make the film, Steve said, not to buy our trade secrets. What we brought here was our technic…”
Disney agreed to a 50/50 profit split with Pixar after Toy Story
“And a few months later, as if on cue, Eisner calls, saying that he wants to renegotiate the deal and keep us as a partner. He accepted Steve's offer of a fifty-fifty split.”
Catmull: Identifying closely with your ideas makes you take offense at feedback
“You are not your idea. And if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged.”
Disney wanted Toy Story 2 direct-to-video for home video profits
“Disney had originally wanted Toy Story II to go straight to video, and they did that not because that's gonna engender the highest quality product. They did that because they were making so much money selling like VHS and I think DVDs at this time.”
Catmull: Pixar Employees Do Not Need Permission to Fix Problems
“The responsibility for finding and fixing problems should be aside, assigned to every employee. If anyone at any level spotted a problem, Deming believed they should be encouraged and expected to stop the assembly line. Deming's approach gave ownership of the …”
Catmull: Steve Jobs tried to sell Pixar three times between 1987 and 1991
“Three times between 1987 and 1991, a fed-up Steve Jobs tried to sell Pixar, and yet despite his frustrations, he could never quite bring himself to part with us.”
Senra: Jobs paid $5M for Lucasfilm division, $5M to fund Pixar
“Steve paid five million dollars to spin Pixar off of Lucasfilm and agreed to invest another five million dollars to fund the company”
Senra: Jobs invested $54M of personal net worth into Pixar
“He puts fifty four million of his own money into this company, and I think at the time, I've heard different estimates, but he had somewhere between like 70 and, I think, 70 and ninety million, so a gigantic chunk”
Pixar originally intended to sell high-end hardware after Jobs acquired it
“When Jobs buys the, we'll get there, but when Jobs buys Pixar from George Lucas after George Lucas is going through a divorce, the idea was like, oh, they're going to sell high-end hardware, right?”
Senra: Lucasfilm shopped Pixar to over 20 prospective buyers before Steve Jobs
“Nobody wants to buy Pixar. They were shopped over 20 prospective buyers, and none of them bit.”
Senra: Steve Jobs personally invested $60 million to keep Pixar alive
“Steve's enthusiasm kept him writing check after check to Pixar, ultimately investing some sixty million dollars of his own money.”
Jobs: Animation expenses require editing a film before making it
“Walt Disney realized many decades ago that animation was so expensive that you couldn't afford to animate 10 times more than what you need. Matter of fact, you don't want to animate even 10% more than what you need, and therefore the only conclusion you can co…”