Steve Jobs Reign at Pixar: No Room for Yes Men
Credit: Apple
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Steve Jobs has often been described as an abrasive, strong-willed, pompous boss while at Apple. As you might imagine, not much was different during his time at Pixar, where a few board members found out he didn’t tolerate yes-men.
In an interview about Jobs for the Steve Jobs Archive released on Friday, Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, and filmmaker Jon M. Chu (Wicked, Crazy Rich Asians) discussed the Apple co-founder’s managerial style.
During a discussion about team values, Catmull commented that the “Braintrust” at Pixar was “very intense” during arguments about what path should be taken to solve problems with a movie in development. While the arguments may have been heated, they weren’t personal and were more about whether or not certain scenes in a film worked.
While Jobs was a majority stockholder, he still had to deal with a board of directors, which Catmull describes as a “really lively group with very powerful, opinionated people.” Jobs became frustrated with two board members who he eventually fired — but not because they disagreed with him. No, it was just the opposite; they NEVER disagreed with Jobs. Jobs felt if they didn’t disagree with him, they weren’t bringing anything to the company.
Catmull also discussed why Jobs didn’t immediately join the Pixar Braintrust, which would make decisions on films. The Braintrust was intended to provide feedback to new directors as they joined the company.
However, since the Braintrust was located in the same building, there was a loss of objectivity. It was decided that the best solution was to turn Steve Jobs into the feedback point person. However, Catmull asked Jobs never to attend a Braintrust meeting. This was due to a rule that the most powerful people in the room for a meeting must sit quietly for the first ten minutes to avoid having them say anything that might set a tone and drown out weaker voices. Steve was definitely one of those powerful people, so it would be almost impossible for him to say anything and not change the atmosphere in the room.
While Jobs saw Catmull’s point and stayed out of the meetings, he still saw the movies at the same time the board members were being shown them and later under the steering committee following Disney’s purchase of Pixar.
Jobs would then provide feedback, as he was “an external force who has a vested interest” in the film’s success.
Jobs would talk to the director and producer after screenings, telling them, “I’m not a film director. You can ignore everything I say,” before providing powerful feedback.
While Jobs’ feedback was rarely anything that hadn’t previously been said by the Braintrust, Steve’s comments often felt like a “gut punch.”
Last but not least, filmmaker John Chu told how, at a press event for the iMac, Jobs admitted Apple made a mistake in not including a CD-R drive in the computer. “We’re like eight months behind the ball, but we’re going to change that today,” Chu remembers Jobs saying.
Chu remembers thinking he had never seen Jobs admitting to a mistake like that in public. Catmull then explained that Jobs did not see an advantage in being wrong, so it was easy for him to admit.
Catmull remembers others criticizing Jobs over it, but he didn’t agree. “It’s acknowledging it and fixing it quickly; that was his power,” Catmull said. While some people thought they needed to be right all the time to be leaders, the real mark of a leader was the ability to change.
