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-