#24 As soon as a convention is established, the most interesting work would likely be the one that doesn’t follow it (Rick Rubin)

Rick Rubin's key lesson emphasizes that once a convention is established, the most intriguing work is often the one that defies it. Drawing from his book "The Creative Act: A Way of Being," Rubin advocates for valuing and developing one's unique voice rather than conforming to existing norms. This principle is illustrated through historical examples like Picasso's cubism and Ford's assembly line, which broke away from established practices to create groundbreaking innovations. The episode also discusses the human tendency to seek patterns and certainty, which often leads to stagnation and optimization rather than true innovation. For those seeking to create exceptional work, Rubin advises breaking rules, following curiosity, and thinking from first principles.

• Rick Rubin's Core Lesson: The most interesting work deviates from established conventions. This applies across various fields such as art, business, and technology.
• Innovate and Self-Express: The goal of creating art or any form of work should be to innovate and express one's unique perspective.
• Value of Individuality: Cherish and develop your unique voice rather than conforming to established norms.

"As soon as a convention is established, the most interesting walk would likely be the one that doesn't follow it."

• Explanation: This emphasizes the importance of breaking away from norms to create something truly unique and innovative.

"The reason to make art is to innovate and self express. Show something new, share what's inside, and communicate your singular perspective."

• Explanation: The purpose of creation is to offer new insights and perspectives, not to conform to existing standards.

• Audience Comes Last: Rubin advocates creating for the sake of creation, not for audience consumption.
• Observational Role: Rubin's strength lies in his ability to observe, listen, and suggest, giving him a unique perspective that drives innovation.
• Humility in Creation: Despite his success, Rubin claims to have no technical abilities, emphasizing the importance of humility in the creative process.

"Creating something, anything, is not for the sake of consumption, but for the sake of creation. And so you need to put the audience last when you do something."

• Explanation: This challenges the conventional wisdom that prioritizes audience preferences, advocating instead for pure creative expression.

"His job, as he puts it, is to listen, to feel, and to suggest nothing more."

• Explanation: Rubin's role as an observer allows him to provide insightful suggestions, making him a powerful influence in the creative process.

• Definition of Convention: Conventions are the established norms, standards, or practices within a particular field.
• Impact of Conventions: These norms can limit creative possibilities by narrowing the scope of what's considered acceptable or possible.
• Examples of Conventions: In art, conventions include the use of rectangular canvases and linear perspectives. In business, conventions might involve traditional manufacturing processes.

"Conventions are ubiquitous, making it nearly impossible to think outside the standard paradigm."

• Explanation: Conventions are so ingrained in our practices that they often go unquestioned, limiting innovation.

"Painting using this framework is a convention in and of itself."

• Explanation: Even the materials and methods chosen for painting are influenced by established norms, which can restrict creative freedom.

• Cubism in Art: Picasso and Braque broke the convention of realism by introducing cubism, representing objects from multiple angles simultaneously.
• Ford's Assembly Line: Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing by introducing the assembly line, breaking the convention of hand-made, labor-intensive production.

"Picasso started representing objects from multiple angles simultaneously, suggesting that the reality could be fragmented and abstracted."

• Explanation: This example illustrates how breaking away from realism led to the creation of a new, influential art style.

"Henry Ford introduced the assembly line, which broke the convention of labor-intensive, hand-made production."

• Explanation: Ford's innovation in manufacturing processes exemplifies how breaking conventions can lead to significant advancements and efficiency.

• Spotting Opportunities for Disruption: Recognizing established conventions can help identify areas ripe for innovation and disruption.
• Avoiding Stagnation: Being aware of conventions within your field can help you avoid becoming complacent and encourage continuous innovation.

"When a convention is established, things are becoming less and less interesting. We start to feel a sort of stagnation."

• Explanation: This highlights the risk of stagnation when adhering too closely to established norms, emphasizing the need for continuous innovation.

"There is an opportunity for disruption when we realize there is a convention around us."

• Explanation: Identifying conventions provides a strategic advantage by revealing opportunities for innovative breakthroughs.

• Timelessness of Key Lessons: The lessons discussed are timeless and universally applicable across various fields.
• Importance of Innovation: Continuous innovation and breaking away from conventions are crucial for creating interesting and impactful work.
• Role of Observation: The ability to observe and analyze is a powerful tool for identifying opportunities for innovation and avoiding stagnation.

"No matter what, we are choosing key lessons that are timeless and will stay relevant forever."

• Explanation: The discussion aims to provide enduring insights that remain applicable regardless of changing circumstances.

"Innovative ideas always find themselves to happen as far as possible from where the convention is established."

• Explanation: True innovation often occurs outside the bounds of established norms, highlighting the importance of thinking differently.

• The initial focus on racing diverted attention from creating high-quality cars.
• The car industry was primarily a speculative business aimed at making fast cars for a niche market of racing enthusiasts.

"The industry was held back by this initial racing slant, for the attention of the makers was diverted to making fast rather than good cars. It was a business for speculators."

• The convention was to produce expensive sports cars, which were costly to repair, limiting the market size.

"The car industry had this convention of a small market made of sports cars for racing enthusiasts, where each car costs a lot of money and repairing it will cost even more."

• Henry Ford focused on productivity and cost reduction, similar to Sam Walton and Jeff Bezos.
• By reducing production costs, Ford aimed to make cars affordable to a broader audience, increasing overall revenue.

"Henry Ford knew that reducing the cost of production, allowing for your product to be sold for less, would eventually mean more customers buying a product and an increase of revenue for himself."

• Ford's manufacturing methods were initially conventional, with each car assembled by hand, making them expensive.

"In our first assembling process, we simply started to put a car together at a spot on the floor, and workmen brought to it the parts as they needed them, in exactly the same way you build a house."

• The inefficiency of traditional manufacturing was highlighted by the time workers spent walking to gather materials and tools.

"The undirected worker spends more of his time walking about for materials and tools than he does in working. He gets small pay because pedestrianism is not a highly paid line."

• Ford's innovation was to bring the work to the workers, minimizing their movement and increasing efficiency.

"The first step forward in assembly came when we began taking the work to the men instead of the men to the work."

• Establishing principles like minimizing steps and avoiding stooping revolutionized production.

"First, that a man shall never have to take more than one step. This is crazy. And also, if possible, this should be avoided. And the second rule is that no man need ever stoop over one another."

• The assembly line made cars affordable and transformed manufacturing.

"With Henry Ford's work, cars were all of a sudden cheap enough to become a utility, and manufacturing as a whole would never be the same again."

• Rick Rubin's lesson: The most interesting work often defies established conventions.

"As soon as a convention is established, the most interesting work would likely be the one that doesn't follow it."

• Humans are expert pattern matchers, which creates a tendency to follow established conventions.

"Humans are expert pattern matchers. Each day greets us with rituals and routines in how we wake up, ready the kids for school, or wind down after a day's work."

• Neuroscience explains this tendency as a way to find order and predictability.

"Neuroscience suggests the reason why our brains are designed for it, for patterns, that is, to help us find order, predictability, and safety in an otherwise chaotic world."

• The need for certainty drives people to follow patterns and conventions.

"The need for certainty is the greatest disease the mind faces."

• Uncertainty creates fear, making people cling to established patterns for a false sense of control.

"Uncertainty makes us weak because we have nothing to hold on to. The need for certainty, however, makes us weaker still, because it will ensure that we are not exposing ourselves, not moving forward, not allowing ourselves to fail."

• Conventions lead to an era of optimization, where companies and artists try to perfect existing patterns rather than innovate.

"The era of optimizers is the most boring of them all. You listen to the radio and everything sounds the same. You open Netflix or Disney and everything is the same."

• Optimization often means stagnation, as it focuses on extracting more value from existing products rather than creating new ones.

"When convention is established, optimization actually means stagnation."

• Jeff Bezos emphasizes the importance of maintaining a "Day One" mentality to avoid stagnation and decline.

"Day two is stasis, followed by irrelevance, followed by excruciating painful decline, followed by death. And that is why it is always day one."

• Breakthroughs are followed by the establishment of new conventions, leading to periods of optimization and eventual stagnation.

"When a convention is established, when the breakthrough period is over and everyone is kind of settled in the way of doing things, what begins is the era of optimization."

• Recognizing and breaking free from these conventions is crucial for continued innovation and progress.

"Once enough people follow something, once there is this certainty that this will work time and again, people flock to it, copy it, use it, and keep it the way it is."

These notes provide a comprehensive overview of the key ideas and themes discussed in the transcript, organized in a detailed and exhaustive manner suitable for exam preparation.

• Jeff Bezos defined "Day One" as both a culture and an operating model, emphasizing a startup mentality.
• It involves relentless pursuit of innovation, fighting convention, and maintaining the energy and focus of starting something new.
• Contrasts with "Day Two" mentality, which is characterized by slower decision-making, reduced agility, and a shift away from customer-centric innovation.

"Day one is both a culture and an operating model. And I myself would call it a startup mentality. Right? The underdog mentality. The relentless pursuit of innovation and fighting the convention."

• Emphasizes the need to maintain a startup mentality to continuously innovate and challenge the status quo.

"As a company grows over time, it needs to adjust its approach to effectively manage the organization as it scales. The danger is that as this happens, decision makings can slow down and the company can become less agile, moving farther and farther away from the customer."

• Highlights the risks of transitioning from a "Day One" to a "Day Two" mentality, leading to reduced agility and customer focus.

• As companies grow, they may become less innovative and more focused on internal challenges.
• This shift can lead to slower decision-making, reduced agility, and a move away from customer-centric innovation.
• Jeff Bezos warned that "Day Two" is followed by irrelevance, decline, and eventually death.

"Day two is status, followed by irrelevance, followed by excruciating painful decline, followed by death."

• Describes the inevitable decline that follows if a company adopts a "Day Two" mentality.

• Well-established companies or industries often resist innovation and push back against outlier ideas.
• This resistance is driven by a fear of change and a desire to maintain the status quo.
• The most interesting work often comes from challenging these conventions.

"The last thing I would add for us to be able to identify a well established convention is when we notice any kind of aggressive pushback by the existing well trenched entities."

• Identifies resistance from established entities as a sign of well-established conventions and a potential area for interesting work.

• In 1994, Apple launched the QuickTake 100 digital camera, which was initially dismissed by Kodak.
• Kodak, with a $28 billion market valuation and 140,000 employees, underestimated the potential of digital photography.
• Despite inventing digital photography, Kodak failed to innovate and ultimately declared bankruptcy in 2012.

"Kodak is definitely now the incumbent. And what do you think Kodak thought about Apple's innovation during that time? They thought the photo industry is so well established with Kodak leaving it and no way anyone would ever change that."

• Illustrates Kodak's dismissal of digital photography as a threat and their failure to innovate.

"In 2012, the iPhone five shipped with eight megapixel. Okay. That same year, Facebook bought Instagram, which had fewer than 20 employees for a billion dollars, and Kodak at the same time declared bankruptcy."

• Highlights the rapid advancement of digital photography and Kodak's eventual bankruptcy due to their inability to adapt.

• Conventions are established practices, rules, or standards that were once outlier ideas.
• They are created due to human nature's need for predictable patterns and certainty.
• Conventions can be detected through transitions to optimization, "Day Two" mentality, and pushback from incumbents.

"The original novel rituals and routines, the outlier ideas that come to control the center. This once outlier ideas become the established practices, rules, or standards that are widely accepted and followed by many."

• Defines conventions and their origins from outlier ideas.

"When innovation recedes, optimization begins. Second was the day two mentality, type of behavior, and operation."

• Describes the transition from innovation to optimization as a sign of established conventions.

• For those interested in doing innovative work, it's crucial to leave established conventions and avoid stagnation.
• Long-term exposure to well-established industries can lead to a decline in creativity.
• Rick Rubin emphasizes the importance of challenging accepted rules and developing a unique voice.

"If you are interested in producing something innovative, interesting, pattern breaking, leave the established convention as fast as you can."

• Advises innovators to distance themselves from established conventions to foster creativity.

"Rules direct us to average behaviors. If we're aiming to create works that are exceptional, most rules don't apply."

• Encourages breaking away from conventional rules to create exceptional work.

• Rubin emphasizes the importance of transcending societal norms and conventions in art.
• Artists who define generations often live outside societal boundaries.
• Innovation should be a continuous process, avoiding the solidification of formulas.

"The artists who defined each generation are generally the ones who live outside of these boundaries. Not the artists who embody the beliefs and conventions of their time, but the ones who transcend them."

• Highlights the role of boundary-breaking artists in defining their generations.

"Every innovation, he says, risk becoming a rule. And innovation? This is beautiful. And innovation risks becoming an end in itself."

• Warns that innovations can become rigid rules if not continually challenged.

"The world isn't waiting for more of the same. And if you are doing more of the same, the world doesn't need you."

• Stresses the need for continuous innovation and the rejection of repetitive work.

• Holding every rule as breakable promotes creativity and avoids predictable sameness.
• Consistency in work can become monotonous; introducing change can be both thrilling and scary.
• Skills and abilities transcend rules and can be applied in new frameworks.
• Recognizing and challenging hidden rules can lead to better methods or valuable learning experiences.

"Holding every rule as breakable is a healthy way to live as an artist. It loosens constraints that promote a predictable sameness in our walking methods."

• Emphasizes the importance of flexibility in creative processes to avoid predictability.

"As you move away from familiar rules, you may bump up against more hidden rules that have been guiding you all along without your knowledge."

• Highlights the existence of unconscious rules and the need to identify and challenge them.

• Ignoring existing rules can lead to exceptional work; average is not the goal.
• Amplify differences and value your unique voice rather than fitting in.
• Being either a master or a complete novice can be beneficial in breaking rules.

"Instead of sounding like others, value your own voice."

• Encourages artists to prioritize their unique perspectives over conformity.

"If you are interested, you are not astray."

• Suggests that personal interest and curiosity are key to finding one's unique path and taste.

• First principles thinking involves breaking down problems to their most fundamental truths.
• It helps in identifying root causes and finding effective solutions beyond conventional methods.
• This approach is often used by rebels and disruptors who challenge the status quo.

"Thinking in terms of first principles allows us to identify the root causes and strip away the layers of complexity and focus on the most effective solutions."

• Describes the essence of first principles thinking and its benefits in problem-solving.

"First principles thinking offers a competitive advantage because almost no one does it."

• Points out the rarity and value of first principles thinking in achieving innovation.

• Every innovation risks becoming a new rule or convention.
• Innovations can become formulas that define one's work and eventually turn into the next standard.
• Even successful innovators can become the new incumbents, defending the conventions they once challenged.

"Every innovation risks becoming a rule."

• Warns that innovations can solidify into new conventions, potentially stifling future creativity.

"Make sure you are not the one defending the convention you built yourself."

• Advises innovators to remain flexible and not become rigid defenders of their own past innovations.

• Founders and innovators often face resistance because most people prefer the familiar.
• Successful new ideas are often polarizing and not immediately accepted by the majority.
• True innovation requires moving people towards a new future, despite their attachment to the present.

"Most people aren't ready yet, because most people like the present. Most people are creatures of habit, and they like what's familiar to them, even if it has flaws."

• Highlights the challenge of introducing new ideas to a population that prefers familiarity.

"Startups win when the future can't be reconciled with the past."

• Emphasizes that groundbreaking innovations often disrupt and cannot coexist with established norms.

1. Ignore and Break Rules: Aim for exceptional work by not adhering to existing rules.
2. Develop Personal Taste: Follow your curiosity and unique interests.
3. Mute the World: Ignore societal norms and authority, and use first principles thinking.
4. Avoid Concretizing Innovations: Be wary of turning innovations into rigid formulas.

"The first thing is ignoring the rules, breaking them even if we have to, if we're aiming to create works that are exceptional."

• Reiterates the importance of breaking rules for exceptional creativity.

"First principle thinking is the art of breaking down complex problems into the most fundamental truth."

• Restates the significance of first principles thinking in achieving innovative solutions.

"Every innovation risks becoming a rule. It was IBM before it is Apple now."

• Illustrates the cyclical nature of innovation becoming the new standard.