Creative Selection

I haven’t reread my summary of Creative Selection in years, but I actually highly recommend pairing it with Creativity Inc and Becoming Steve Jobs, and in that order (but the ordering actually doesn’t matter as much, all three books lean on each other).

The basic idea is this:

  • Creative Selection is Pixar founder Ed Catmull on how they built Pixar, and how they came up with the Brain Trust format — which is where Jobs got this review idea from. It also, IIRC, contains reminisces from Catmull on them setting up a similar structure in Disney Animation Studios, post acquisition.
  • Becoming Steve Jobs advances the theory that Jobs became the CEO that he is, post return-to-Apple, after learning how to lead from Pixar. This book is, incidentally, the biography that is approved by both Tim Cook and Laurene Powell Jobs.

You may have read either book, but to answer your question: Pixar is the other company that does this. The problem, of course, is similar to Apple’s challenge: if you don’t replenish the people in the reviews, the output of the company eventually deteriorates.

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