Production by Reduction: Rubin's Minimalism

There's no one like Rick Rubin. He's a legendary music producer known for his minimalist approach and relentless pursuit of greatness. This episode is what I learned from reading ⁠Rick Rubin: In The Studio⁠ by Jake Brown.

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Some of my favorite quotes from the episode:

• Less is more but you have to do more to get less.

• Designing a product is keeping 5,000 things in your brain and fitting them all together in new and different ways. (Steve Jobs)

• Rubin's most valuable quality is his own confidence.

• If we're going to do this, let's aim for greatness. You have to believe what you're doing is the most important thing in the world.

• Everybody engaged in complicated work needs colleagues. Just the discipline of having to put your thoughts in order with somebody else is a very useful thing. (Charlie Munger)

• The key to it is doing what you believe in, as opposed to what you think is going to work. There were never any plans to make anything happen. I just did what I liked and believed in it, and luckily it all worked out.

• These things that we don't understand and cannot explain happen regularly.

• The amateur mind possesses a valuable lack of knowledge about rules when matched with passion and gumption gravity ceases to exist and new things take flight. 

• To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. (Cicero)

• I believe in you so much, I'm going to make you believe in you.

• I try to make records that have a timeless quality.