To Infinity and Beyond!

I shook Ed Catmull's hand today. Sweet!

For those who are not yet as nerdy and off the deep end as I am, let me explain. Dr. Catmull is our very own U grad who founded Pixar and now drives both Pixar and Disney Animation. Talk about dream job. I was very impressed with his candidness. He readily admitted that even after making ten wildly successful films it's tough to find the common denominator that makes them all work. But what really stuck was his view on truisms. He stated that, while life is full of obvious statements--you have to trust those you work with, honesty is the best policy, the story is the most important thing--those things don't mean anything if you don't actually employ them. It was fun to hear such a down to earth view of what he does when the man easily has one of the most out of this world jobs on the planet. He talked about having a tolerance for silliness and recognizing the few things that we can always count on: things will change, ideas are never simple. He was really quite the business guru as well, having watched large amounts of tech companies fire up before melting down.

I really enjoyed his insights and how he values creatitivity. I hope someday I can work in an environment like the one he talked about tonight where craziness is encouraged and fun is the end product!