January 16, 2026

The Singular Life of Rick Rubin

1 hour 20 minutes

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.

...more

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By David Senra

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