Ruthless Editing & What Never Changes

`2:04:11`

It makes me think of, again, I'm going to tie this back to Rick Rubin, — Yeah. —...since we've been talking about him a lot. He has this concept of a ruth... — Rick just has candles in his house, I'm guessing. He just doesn't... — I don't know. — I don't know. These guys are close with him. Ask him. — Okay. — But he has this idea of ruthless edit, and so he's like, "Okay, you made 30 songs for your album?" — Yeah, yeah. — He's like, "Pick the five that you absolutely can't live without." Okay, so now we have a five-song album. It's a perfect album. — Yeah. Maybe he needs some more. So he's like, "But then we decide, out of the 25 left, before we add number six and seven, did it make it better?" — Yes. — Going back to, "You're adding to it, but you're not making it better." — Yeah. — I think the throughline here is, you see this timeless design of the 1963 Daytona. — Yeah. — Yeah. — And you're like, "There's nothing to add to it." — There's nothing else that's going to make it better, so just leave it.

`2:04:58`

— Yeah. — It is perfect. I know you're a big fan of Porsche. — Yeah. It seems like the silhouette, it's very similar. — Yeah. — In fact, here in Malibu, do you remember going up to PCH? There was that burnt-out... — I do, yes. Yes. — Yes. You could tell... — Towards the Palisades- — Yes. —...on the right-hand side. — Exactly. — Yes, yes. — You could just tell... — Why is it still here? But you knew it was a 911. — You knew it was a 911. — It's a 997, in fact. — It sat there for a year, by the way. — Yeah, yeah. But immediately, the- -Yeah. —...other cars next to it burned out. I have no idea what it is. — Yeah, which model is that? Exactly. But that was just like- — Yeah. —...I know exactly what that is. — I know. — And I think about that all the time. I think products, you should think about this. Jerry Seinfeld has this really interesting concept, where he says, "Dosage matters." — Mm. — And he's like, "You could go see a stand-up comedian, and 45 minutes in,

`2:05:46`

— Yeah. you're like, 'This guy's great.' An hour and fifteen, you go, 'Eh.'" — It's like, he should have stopped at 45. — Yeah. — It's so hard. I guess the reason I'm bringing this up, it's so hard for us to stop. — It is hard. — To stop adding complexity. — Yeah. — To just sit there. When I asked you about timeless design, go back to Rick Rubin. What I love about him and that exchange between him and Jimmy Iovine, that happened probably 40 years ago, Rick would say, he's like, "Somebody playing the piano, just the piano, a piano and a beautiful vocal sounded great 50 years ago- — Right. —...sounds great today." — That's right. — "It'll sound great 50 years from now." — Personnel. — So, when he tried to revive Johnny Cash's career, there's this great song called- — Yeah, yeah.... "Hurt," which I listen to all the time. — Yeah, sure. — Yeah, "Nine Inch Nails." Exactly, that Trent Reznor- — Yeah, yep. —...of the "Nine Inch Nails," as a 21-year-old man wrote it, and he's talking about regret. And Rick's point was, like, a 21-year-old talking about regret is one thing. A 75-year-old man, when he can't go back and fix it-

`2:06:33`

— Right. —...it's a way deeper cut. — Yeah. — But his whole point is, like, "A great vocalist with a guitar sounded great 50 years ago." — Always. — It sounds great today. Let's just go back to the essence of what we're actually- — Yeah. —...building, and I think, not many people building products... You just gave the perfect example. — Yeah. — There's no essence there. They're not even using their own products. — No. No. This actually ties into some other advice that Jeff gave us way back, right when we first met him, which was that, he told us to focus on the things in our business that don't change. He goes, "There's going to be plenty of things that do change, but make sure you focus on the things that don't change." And the examples he gave us said something like, "10 years from now, people are not going to wake up and go, 'I wish Amazon's customer service was worse.' They're not going to wake up 10 years from now and go, 'I wish it took longer to get a product from Amazon.'

`2:07:19`

They're not going to say 10 years from now, 'I wish Amazon's prices were higher.'" So, these are the core essence elements that he clearly invested in. Things are coming faster than ever. Another one is, like, "People aren't going to wake up 10 years from now and go, 'I wish I couldn't get this on Amazon.'" Like, more selection, faster delivery, great customer service, fair prices, even competing against other people and offering a lower price, even if Amazon doesn't sell it; these are the things in his business that he knew would never change, and he can still explore a whole bunch of other things, because they do a lot of other things. But don't lose sight of those basics, is something that he really instilled in us, and something we've tried to focus on. So, this is the essence, like, what is the essence or the purity or the core fundamental basics that really matter, and don't lose sight of those.

`2:08:06`

Because it's very easy to lose sight of those, because they can become boring. Like, "I've done that for a while. Let's do something else," and you can kind of lose sight of that. Yeah. — This is why I think people that have run companies for as long as you have are so rare, and it's why... If you look at the first few guests, I bet you, if you took off the average length of time, the person has been working in their business, it's probably, like, 30 years. It's just like... — Yeah. -You said you like old people. — Yeah. People always say I'm obsessed with old people- — Yeah. —...which is funny. But I'm just not obsessed with old people. I'm obsessed with people that do- — Longevity. —...things for a long period of time. This is where me and you will actually have a disagreement, where you're like, "I don't work hard." Yeah, yeah, I do. Hmm. Do you remember talking about this last night? Yeah. And I was like, "Jason... Jason," and I was like, "We add it up." So yeah, this is where I would argue that you work harder than most people that have ever lived. You just have spread it across 27 years. So, I literally pulled out my phone last night.