Ed Catmull and Larry Ellison on Steve Jobs at D10 (Full)

so as you just saw and and there are hours and hours of this we've been very lucky over the 10 years we've done the conference to have Steve Jobs as a frequent guest he did six sessions here and as far as I know he didn't do that at other conferences and so we're gonna do something that's our little thank you in in more iam to him which is we're putting the whole collection of Steve Jobs appearances at the D conferences on on iTunes free I guess right now there should be a URL there there they've been the first one I think isn't even anywhere on the web and the others who have been on the All Things D comm website but they've been you have to kind of poke around to find them and so there's a whole special section in the podcast area of iTunes where you can download these and and and view them and keep them the other thing we thought we would do is what we're about to do right now which is to bring out to people very close to Steve you've just seen them talking about their own businesses and interest but now we're just going to talk about sort of what were the lessons you know there since his death lots of people have have talked about what they think his career meant and how to replicate it or how to take lessons from it but these two people IDI Catmull and Larry Ellison were very close to him and of course worked very closely with him at Pixar Larry was perhaps his best friend and we thought that would be the kind of duo that should know something about the subject of the legacy so ed and Larry could you come on out [Music] [Applause] [Music] so Wall Street Journal ran a story about recently about how CEOs are trying to copy what they think represents how Steve Jobs was a success it even included if I remember correctly somebody in I can't remember what who he was or what his industry was who decided to start wearing mock black turtlenecks I guess on the theory that if they'd eat the CEO dressed that way everything would go right I don't know did it work well I guess we'll have to follow up I don't know but Edie what what when you think about Steve's career and and you work with him so closely at Pixar why was he so successful well I'd have to say it over the time that I knew Steve was just 26 years I would just as he was forced out of Apple that he went through it safes some very distinct phases and in the first phases where he had a sort of a reputation I think people misunderstood him and what he was doing but what I I found over the time was that he was learning from those mistakes that the way he negotiated the way he interacted with people initially didn't work very well but he was so incredibly smart that he changed his behavior and a lot of people didn't get this or didn't see this but the Steve for the last several years that I knew was very he was very kind he was very empathetic with people and when he negotiated is asan do with Disney there was a notion of fairness and partnership which is very strong and and those things weren't there earlier but he was so smart that he learned how to do it so part of the success was this adaptability and eventually the transition to being better able to partner yeah it was basically when you test the boundaries which some people do and he was a person that did test the boundaries when you do that what do you do with it or let's take something which you you hear a lot about it is people CEOs would say my employees are my most valuable asset and the culture is extremely important but with Steve he built a building and the building I think is one of the most extraordinary work environments I've ever seen yeah I'm at the Pixar Pixar building and this was Steve's design and it was very cultural and it was because he thought about what it meant to say that your people are the best and the culture was the best and it translated into an environment that was unlike what other CEOs who do who would use the same words so if you copy Steve you say oh like you know people are important blah but you know copy all this stuff but they didn't see what he was really doing which is deep understanding which it turns around and effected what he he made or what he already directed Larry why was he so successful well in addition to his obvious genius which helps he had a single mindedness and an attention to detail unlike anyone I've ever seen and if you look at his he insisted on and he was a bit of a control freak you know he was a little bit just looming and he wanted to engineer every aspect of the user experience let's say for the iPhone including what happened when you walked into the store how you paid for it you know or how you pay for an iPad with your I looked it saw it in the store you know obviously bought it from AT&T going how you paid for an Apple product with your credit card in the store if the iPhone was sent to you or the iPhone was delivered to your iPad delivered to you what it looked like in the box the detail of the box was like to open the box what you saw when you first opened the box how you bought an application how you how you connected to the network I mean every excruciating detail he was personally involved in I don't think people really understand Edison had this comment you know it's it's 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration Steve was a god of perspiration I mean Steve worked incredibly hard it wasn't just his intellectual gifts which were enormous but how he took that horsepower and applied it tirelessly until the entire problem was solved I've never seen anyone like time you run a big company you just were talking about it you have an R and have run a big company both of you I'm assuming you both work really hard I mean there's only so much too many hours in the day so much you can work so I appreciate that he worked very hard but was there something different about his ability to focus or was that this control freak thing or what well I'll tell you look let's talk a little bit about Pixar you know Steve's my best friend but you know 25 years ago him for about the same you know same like the time very interesting how we met we were neighbors in Woodside his peacock wandered onto my property and woke me up not the way to start a relationship Enterprise his girlfriend had given him a peacock and I came over to complain about the peacocks if you don't like that bird either [Laughter] I said I hate that bird I don't you know I don't get up at 6:00 in the morning let me explain it to you you know I'm a programmer you know I yeah like I need my rest so I can think he said I hate that bird to said I'm gonna tell her that you complain so much about the bird we got to get rid of it you got to back me up because it was my birthday present she got to me for his birthday worst birthday present that's all well I've got a lot of very very funny funny stories about Steve but Steve you know everything everything Steve did he'd he would just not let go of a problem if it was solved I guess that's the best way to describe it it's not that he just put in the era if he had to stay up all night if he's at night after night every night I would get he would call me up is it Larry let's get together we saw her there long I draw you come over to my house I do go over to his house I said I'm not coming over if you make me watch Toy Story again I've watched 73 different versions of Toy Story no I know the new version of render man is four percent better than the one I saw last week but I'm not watching this thing again so Larry you got to see you you won't believe this shout the different the shadows look I don't care you don't understand I'm not coming and let you promise me that I know you're not gonna make me watch it I promise but just a little of it this is before the movie came before the door then we came out and and that was that was Steve and I go over there and we go eat up the mock-up at this of the Apple stores and we go over to the warehouse and is it an Oracle did this offer for it by the way for the Apple pretty retails offer and he's just complaining about it to me Steve it's Sunday your your your your you know you're saying how terrible the Oracles software is the judge now I'm your stupid store in the warehouse any time any day me too many times I've come around Sunday and we were walking through the checkout of you know with you know but that was Steve until it was perfect and then once it was perfect and then he moved on to the next problem but working working obsessively until he had a solution that was insanely great is what Steve was all about and an idea I'll go back to the network computer you know we had this idea you know this idea to simple device attached to the Internet I'm now done you know that idea idea now fully formed you know well way that was a good idea what do you think Steve it's a good idea building that thing is really hard let me tell you what have to do babies you know and then Steve then proceeds you know to come in to build the iPad there's a big different there's a reason ideas good idea a lot of good ideas there are a lot of good ideas there are a lot of good ideas translating a good idea into a great product is unbelievably hard there are so many details people accuse Steve of stealing you know the Macintosh from Xerox you know with the alto computer I was at Xerox PARC so I used the alto a lot finishing the alto and turning that into the Macintosh was enormous ly complicated in you there are so many things that had to be done that Xerox had not done there were a few good ideas in in a Xerox machine but Steve would translate good ideas not always his good ideas but he would translate good ideas into finished product unlike anyone in our industry you'd have to admit Henry Ford didn't invent the car but he made it cheap and he made it popular and he made it accessible to the American people Steve would translate good ideas into finished brilliant products so ed with regard to Pixar was Steve as deeply involved in all these little details as Larry was describing him at Apple Steve never came to a story meeting he was not involved in any of the local things and it was actually pretty amazing and that was the agreement he trusted that other people knew things that he didn't know he did have a great camaraderie with the directors though it was really good and it's a thing I think that people don't understand about Steve is that Steve was a master storyteller now storytelling he was a storyteller and a good storyteller he's working on one who makes up stories he's working on the components of it and they'll try something new and they commit to it so Steve would come up with an idea and he would commit to it and he would roll it out to people and for some people that commitment would say whoa he's just the great steve has spoken but in fact when he wanted was the pushback so people argue back with him and if it didn't work he'd go back and redo it it's a story tellers do it's why he really got with him and when he thought about the presentations that he made he worked over and over again he tried these ideas and if they didn't work he'd go back and redo them and he understood that's what the directors did so he was supporting them he was not trying to do what they were doing he was never trying to say make your story this way he trusted them and to do that so that's a little I mean it's it's interesting because he was I mean I think he was involved in stuff like the color of the wood and the tables and the Apple stores and all that kind of stuff went in the Apple or how what kind of a angle a certain products edge would have absolutely but not with the Pixar films no it would it was it was interesting and I knew this that first I knew his heart intellectually was in Apple I was clear all along there was something about that or he self-identified with but he appreciated the passion there but he was he was so brilliant he knew the difference he knew when he needed to be in it because that was him and he knew when he needed to support us and because he knew the difference he could succeed in both fronts which were very different from each other so what one little example had to do early on we were making bug's life and the artists want to make it widescreen the marketing people don't want to student lot at that time want to sell widescreen movies because they didn't fit well because these black bands on the top so Steve agreed with him was a bad marketing decision but we were in a a meeting and there are a bunch of people there and they showed an image widescreen and Steve started to argue with the production designer and the production designer argued back with him so they had this sort of red-faced argument going back and forth about whether or not this was a good thing and it ended sort of just be fretted away and then Steve went out to the next thing the poor guy came up to me and was freaked out because he'd been arguing with Steve so I said you won the argument because all Steve wanted to know was did he have the passion behind it because passion counted it was part of the calculus of the value of something and because the passion was so strong he never brought it up again and it went out widescreen it it talked about him as a storyteller do you think that applied at Apple well I'd like to emphasize that you know one of the things that just said which was you know Steve did want to debate things I mean Steve didn't think it was important what there was his idea or someone else's idea as well as long was the best idea Steve was definitely one of those people were the best idea one now he had you know you had to he's very smart guy and you had to be able to persuade him but he would listen I mean whether you were yelling or speaking quietly it really kind of didn't matter he would listen because he wanted to build the best possible products to deliver there is this image that he was like a czar who just ruled by Fiat and an Apple well he would make the final decision so he'd be the final arbiter but his idea no I've had discussions with Steve and Steve Dean's even meetings where he didn't agree in the beginning and he was persuaded and he'd and when he changes he changes like that boom this is what Tim Cook was saying yes and he bang I mean he'll just move over to the best idea what he wants is the best idea the best product the best movie the best store the best the best everything and if he thinks someone's better than he is and is in a certain area he'll I mean he's very good at listening if he thinks you're full of it he'll tell you it's phenomenal to watch me because he really would flip and you just saw this and he would argue something and you had to have the force wheel but he wanted somebody to argue back yeah he didn't respect somebody if they didn't have a point of view and and and push it hard and if they were right he Swift had no I never said anybody so much we understood you there's no percentage in being wrong just right to his core he understood that you know some think people who are insecure and I don't think and this certainly Steve was not intellectually had security you know he knew is that he was a very smart guy and he and when he decided that someone else's idea was a better idea than the one he had he immediately adopted that as as his own and moved on instantly it wasn't this vanity he was afraid that he was embarrassed about being on the wrong side of an argument for a while he didn't care all he cared about was the outcome of building the best product who's ever ideas went into it he would just pick a menu of the bet about this best idea that best idea that best idea whether it's his or not it didn't really matter so Larry what about this storyteller thing that admissions could you think about the Apple marketing in that context or oh I think I think Steve was a remarkable leader I mean Steve I think inspired things people to do great things and and whether he was recruiting somebody whether you want to call it a marketing pitch or telling a telling a story what you you know uh when he was recruiting someone into Apple or motivating a team have been working you know working you know we work very very hard getting a product out the door by a certain date you're working six seven days a week 16 hours a day I'm and senior family in a long time I mean it's quite a commitment and Steve would come in and make very inspirational speeches that what you were doing was important and he made you feel you were important because you were important to success to this product they you know the importance of the product to the company the important of the company to its customers and he was a very inspirational charismatic leader that people believed in they wanted to be on his team because his team was doing very important things so why did Apple lose the PC war to Microsoft and why did he get forced out and why did next not work if he was so good at all these things well I mean I know he wasn't then I mean I mean seriously that the whole point is he learned from those things by the time he came back to Apple he had learned enough lessons about negotiation about clarity about about how to interact with people that were stronger than they were initially do you agree with him no the I think I think the Macintosh predated the learning what was to me fundamental and did he learn that he become less less brutal to people he worked with absolutely because I've seen Steve be brutal and Steve was brutal because he desperately wanted to be great he wanted Apple to be great he wanted product to be great and he wanted you to be great and if you weren't doing your best work he was upset he was angry he was you know because we had if we do this right we can build something that's so great we can't screw this up and you saw him take the Macintosh and finish the Macintosh removed before that the Apple too but then the actual delivery the Macintosh which was an enormous ly difficult project that he got through by a combination of his leadership which was very again he was a young man is a very young guy and he was tough on the on the people on the people around him he learned it he tempered that he understood that people did not enjoy being made to feel like they were they were they were failing you know that they weren't doing a good enough job people don't like that people don't come to work to understand I'm not doing job that they didn't find that in they didn't find that inspirational and he learned and he was more compassionate and he was a nicer person and as we all get older I think we all you know learn to be a little more empathetic but I think the essentials of his genius I think I think that was finishing school and it's very important as human beings because what you know you know that was a much nicer Steve to deal with on a daily basis but the essentials of his genius was was there from the very beginning well I would agree with that but I think the Macintosh which was so clearly far superior to what Windows was didn't win because those other elements weren't there and when I say Steve learned he had that genius I agree there but he learned those other skills so by the time he got back to Apple he was able to take the superior product and basically blow it forward because he was no longer weak in those other areas yeah no I think I think he lost his job probably because he didn't negotiate with the board well enough it means so so III agree that he made himself vulnerable because he relied so much on what he did and how brilliantly he did it that he expected the Apple board to recognize that that he was confident you know that Apple had more need of him than he had need of Apple kind of kind of thing quote Napoleon said about France the the but at the Apple board didn't like the way he behaved now look at the young geniuses in Silicon Valley right now if they don't like their boards they fire their boards Larry Page and show you Brent if they don't like the board get it get rid of them if Mark Zuckerberg doesn't like his board get rid of him you know to some degree I think that's a result of what Apple did to Steve as a young man the Apple board made a terrible mistake because of his if you will super some surface superficial personality characteristics he wasn't he wasn't as nice to the board members perhaps as they would've he wasn't as politic he didn't learn you know to just smooth out those rough edges and that cost him his job and almost cost to Apple its existence when they uh when they got rid of him so he yeah so he got he got he got better at that but but no I'm to me I mean from a bit from a very young man they said this is this was an extraordinary guy and you could see it from the very beginning so is the if you you're just talking about some of the younger major leaders but still young in the valley and they don't they don't trust their boards anymore they don't trust it's very interesting if the Board of Directors can fire a Steve Jobs it is it is interesting I mean I you know Larry Page and Sergey Brin have control of Google they can fire the board the board can't fire them Mark Zuckerberg has control of Facebook they can fire the board the board can't fire them I think this is know this is you know the Steve Jobs Apple dismissing Steve Jobs in favor of a guy whose only track record was flavored water was such an incredible mistake why should they trust these good these you know these guys well I should Zuckerberg and page the trustees guys so it's like almost a Bible story in the valley the firing of Steve Jobs is in it did yeah so there is this great effort to take lessons from his career and as I said it even got gets so silly a it affects how people dress or something but you both knew him and you're that talked about it what how would you advise someone who wanted to model the Steve Jobs career or the Steve Jobs method or the Steve Jobs success is basically what they want to model what would you tell them to do well I mean it could be people in this room it could be people who will watch this video yeah I mean to me trying to copy Steve means they're going to stop at the surface I think conceptually copying Steve really is the wrong thing to do partly because some people are so unique that to copy them it's only to Perry to them in some ways in a way that doesn't work and and he truly was unique and she try to be like him what does that mean I do think there are principles for how you think about things how you explore the boundaries how you keep yourself from getting caught up in in a conservative way of thinking and the way you you you keep yourself from being blind from things Steve had the facility to do that most people don't and that they can work on their their personal view of life and how they tackle problems and how they open themselves themselves up they'll have a greater result well I think yeah I think you can't cannot copy Steve I think you can ask yourself some basic questions of your like him I mean if there's an unsolved problem and you're at work can you think about anything else so if you want to know if you're like Steve Jobs so so if if you are unable to think about anything but this problem so if you want to go to the movies yeah and and there's nothing to do with being successfully not thinking about oh my God if I'm Steve Jobs I can go out with this pretty I can date this person and I get by this house and if you think about the benefits of being famous and rich then you're missing the whole point if you want to know you're like Steve Jobs is very simple you are unable to think about anything about these serious problems that work on you just that's all you can do and you obsess about it until you solve it and then you move on to the next thing and you obsess about that until you solve it and then you obsess about this until you solve it it is you know that obsessive compulsive personality combined with this incredible and obsessive-compulsive personalities are not all that rare among successful people the excessive compulsive personality combined with this peculiar genius of steve's which was both aesthetic you know we talked about the building him he loved architecture and design you know he loved I mean I mean he was an amateur architect he loved product design was an engineer though he wasn't a code he wasn't he wasn't a programmer you know and I you know I'm a programmer and and but he had enough knowledge of what went into you know you know what went into the into the product whether it was the microprocessor or the operating system he had a pretty deep knowledge about all of that technology very smart boy he learned very fast might have not might not have been a professional programmer but his understanding of the complete system the gestalt the whole thing the whole system and how to fit those pieces together I mean he would take this this puzzle and assemble these pieces into the iPad and there's a lot of complicated software pieces and he'd work with the engineers and he was a great editor he was a wonderful editor at least you know in terms of editing the software and user interface as it was developed now he was a great editor of process in the stores he would constantly review things and continuously make them better until he was marginally satisfied and then they can release the product if you have that kind of obsession combined combined with Picasso's aesthetic and Edison's inventiveness then you were the next Steve Jobs so that's the test easy easy yeah I mean this guy's not you know you know I when I you but there really are no lessons to take from it unless oh no take that little test in you and you match you know III know III think I think there are there are a lot of a lot of lessons but you know to say to try to model yourself after after after Steve Jobs I mean again it would be like well okay what do I'd like to paint like Picasso what should I do should I use more red great see here's the problem I have with modeling yourself after Steve because I remember John and I were up there and he was showing us the iPhone before it came out and he was it was a very emotional time because we talked to talked about his disease and what he wanted to do with for Apple and Pixar and for his family but as he held this phone he said the thing that makes this so hard to copy is the software made a big deal of that now he loves the design but the fact is on the outside most people talk about it they say what makes us so cool ease the design so they're coming and looking at it from the outside not realizing that the value is something really complex and I think the same is true for Steve they come out in this silly example of course is the clothes but if you look at the superficial things that he did or the peculiarities he had both positive and negative yeah the end on a stage and right it's the war on a thing way that if that's what you're copying you're copying the wrong thing and there are a lot of lessons but they're not about the design as important this design is so is one of them this ability to start something and finish it is that let me say the guy who's copying his clothes is about missing the point about it but much she can miss it Steve Ward the same thing every day because he didn't wanna think about what he was wearing I don't want any time I get take this put this on put that on I'm done you do the same thing every day Woody Allen has the same meal in the same restaurant the same table it's it's not because you know they just don't want to think about that they're thinking about other things so if this executives are gonna be just like Steve Jobs you know what it's really important that the way I dress Steve didn't care about the way he dressed that was that was not an important and important issue for him he didn't care Apple became the most valuable company on earth and it wasn't even one of Steve's goals he never you know it he wasn't trying to be rich he wasn't trying to be famous he wasn't trying to be powerful he was obsessed with the creative process and building something that was beautiful he managed that company in a way where he was conscious of or talked about the stock price or the making the quarter because they were in a lot of trouble at one point oh yeah I mean oh yeah well when it was survival you know when it was survival sure I mean it was it was very tough but it was all about so I was on the board it was all about survival but no steve is steve was always talking about products and creating the next product and the product and the product after that he really was a creative artist engineer entrepreneur unlike anyone I mean he I know he called me up when when Apple passed Oracle and market cap but around 150 billion dollars you know like you know Larry a lot of people measure their manhood here in the valley by market cap I said okay okay Steve all right okay nice job but then it just kept going up and up it's getting ridiculous stop it you making all of us look bad but no he noticed and he was proud of it but it was not not a motivator for him at all it was just kind of a measure that he was doing the right things that people loved the Apple products and they were buying a lot of them therefore what he was building was in fact beautiful did either of you think he was nuts to do the stores when it started no did you immediately say that's a great idea I mean I realized you were at Pixar and you had your about stores but and that's one of those area but you obviously oh yeah about it you knew about it have what was your reaction to that another reaction was is you know first of all Steve wouldn't pursue something like that unless he were fully committed to make something exceptional so for me frankly it was you know engaging because I love to hear him talk about what they were doing and how they're presenting but I'm yeah it was more successful than I would have thought it would be it at the time what was your sense of it he must have wants to draw a few were Oh bounce it off me he dragged me to the warehouse I went through those stores more times than I came that I could care to admit I mean eventually I would we'd be driving towards the warehouse and his Porsche and I said no no no no I think I'm throwing myself out the door you know but he drove so bloody festive warehouse where they had a mock-up the way they mocked up the stores yeah so no I commented you know it's really interesting that everyone Dell was very at the time you know Dell was kind of the hot company and everything was being sold across the internet and bricks and mortar was just you know yeah nonsense right it was a joke and everybody has actually just had to close their stores yeah and and it's just like oh but Steve must really be stupid Steve aren't you reading the newspapers everyone you know just gonna miss bricks and mortars dead and I said we're not using bricks and mortar reason glass and steel you know oh well that changes everything I met this really cool scare away and and it's I'm you have to love him the the brilliance of not being a follower the billion brilliance of being a contrarian the brilliance of understanding Apple is really a lifestyle brand and people want it and in these stores or if you're doing them right they're gonna be iconic and now I mean it's if that's your goal you know to be you know they you know to build it build a story that looks like it's built like that look that kind of reminds you of a there's the Apple Store and I am pays pyramid or an entrance to the Louvre there is an Apple store there is you know only Steve what would set that as a goal for these stores that it would help build the brand and also give them give him distribution and all the without giving up a lot of margin without giving a lot of Marcin he could do brand-building and you is completely contrarian at the time everyone said that he was nuts it's it's a lot of fun did you say did you say what I thought no I didn't say it was nuts III thought it was very risky but you know when I was cuz I saw the designs I mean I saw the designs is sort but utterly brilliant I never expected there would be as many stores as there are now I thought there would be a rata snow I'm so glad to hear you say that because the first one happened to open near Washington DC where I live and I get this call from Apple saying we're opening our first store here at a mall in the suburbs and there's gonna be a press preview and Steve's coming out and you know would you come and I said Jesus I hate going to these big group things and well I'm gonna walk through a store and you know exactly and then I'm and then I think he called me and said you know I'd really like it if you'd come so all right it's a half hour from my house so I drove over there and we're walking through and he's talking about the translucency of the glass and I said literally I said to him is this really the best use of the time of a CEO to worry about that because it's very important and then I said kind of what you just said I said you're you're only gonna open maybe a dozen these right these are like showcase things right you're not and he looked at me like I had just landed from Mars like I was the stupidest guy in the world and he said oh we're building a lot a lot a lot of these yeah and I said well what do you know about retail and he said well I hired this guy and I heard this guy and we had this warehouse and we had this you know thing and we're gonna make this work right yeah so that's why I'm not Steve Jobs but you know you know without that really that was remarkable but again you used to you just see this contrarian you know this contrarian nature that if everyone's doing this maybe what if they're wrong what if they are wrong and I mean oh they're there's a lot of lot of followers in the valley there's a new trend I mean I mean I remember I was moved Michael Dell and I said you know when when the PCs were first becoming popular right I said Michael there's got to be 50 PC companies in the United States salary there are five hundred five hundred guys making peace that can't be right you know again if five guys basically doing the same thing and eventually in eventually they all died you know almost all of them died there almost none none left there are a lot of copiers and Steve was not a copier he's an original a lot of people have copied Steve but the stores is just another extraordinary example of it him notice when everyone's talking about bricks and mortar being dead Steve saying maybe not well let's end it there thank you too and take some questions if anyone has any okay well we wanted to do a remembrance of Steve and what made him great and you two made that happen so thank you so much [Applause]

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Views: 78,764

Rating: 4.8935575 out of 5

Keywords: Ed, Catmull, and, Larry, Ellison, on, Steve, Jobs, at, D10, ipad, imac, mac, Macintosh, Apple, computers, Walt, Mossberg, memorial, AllThingsD, Pixar, Inc, Ipod, Iphone, Touch, Sergey, Brin, Page, Mark, Zuckerberg, Edwin, Animation, Oracle

Id: B7p2u_hMqK4

Length: 40min 7sec (2407 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 22 2012