Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

by Ed Catmull

With that vision came something else, however: an unusual style of interacting with people. Steve was often impatient and curt. When he attended meetings with potential customers, he wouldn’t hesitate to call them out if he sniffed mediocrity or lack of preparation—hardly a helpful tactic when trying to make a deal or develop a loyal client base. He was young and driven and not yet attuned to his impact on others. In our first years together, he didn’t “get” normal people—meaning people who did not run companies or who lacked personal confidence. His method for taking the measure of a room was saying something definitive and outrageous—“These charts are bullshit!” or “This deal is crap!”—and watching people react. If you were brave enough to come back at him, he often respected it—poking at you, then registering your response, was his way of deducing what you thought and whether you had the guts to champion it. Watching him reminded me of a principle of engineering: Sending out a sharp impulse—like a dolphin uses echolocation to determine the location of a school of fish—can teach you crucial things about your environment. Steve used aggressive interplay as a kind of biological sonar. It was how he sized up the world.