What Creatives Need to Stand Out: Taste
How to make money with no skill, become irreplaceable, Steve Jobs' Secret, Rick Rubin
Rick Rubin, one of the greatest music producers, has zero technical skills.
He can’t even play an instrument, he says!
Yet he’s worth 300 million dollars and has worked with Eminem, Kanye West, Adele, Jay-Z, and many of the industry’s biggest artists.
Then what in the world is he paid for???
Well, here’s his answer—
'“I know what I like and I don’t like, and I’m decisive about what I like and don’t like…The confidence that I have in my taste and my ability to express what I feel. [This] has proven helpful for artists”—Rick Rubin
In other words, what he’s talking about is taste.
And it matters more than you think.
Why Taste Matters More Than You Think
When Steve Jobs first saw a computer mouse at Xerox, he started jumping from excitement.
The mouse was much bulkier and uglier in comparison to the mice we have today, and Xerox couldn’t even sell it when they tried in 1981.
But Jobs knew its potential, and he was surprised Xerox didn’t.
A few years later, Jobs even said—
“If Xerox had known what it had and had taken advantage of its[the mouse’s] real opportunities, it could have been as big as I.B.M. plus Microsoft plus Xerox combined—and the largest high-technology company in the world.”
So, after seeing Xerox’s mouse, Jobs made sure Apple focused on making its own mouse.
He had a vision for the mouse- it had to fit in one’s hand, work on blue jeans and Formica, and had to have one button instead of three.
Jobs got engineers to work on it, and the mouse ended up being a huge success for Apple.
This wouldn’t have been possible without Jobs’ phenomenal taste. His intuitive knowledge of what would and wouldn’t work.
I had always wondered why Jobs was given all the attention for Apple and not Steve Wozniak (the other founder of Apple) who had the technical knowledge.
But now I see why. It was Jobs’ vision and taste that changed the world time and time again.
When making the iPod he wanted it to find a song in just 3 clicks, which resulted in the innovative scroll wheel.
He wanted the iPod to be smaller, and it drove the engineers crazy, but he knew how much these tiny touches mattered.
The iPod ended up being more than just a hit.
Well, I’d give a lot to have Steve’s taste… in terms of intuitive taste both for people and products… I’d see Steve make the decision based on a sense of people and product that, you know, is hard for me to explain. The way he does things is just different, and I think it’s magical. — Bill Gates
How taste makes you irreplaceable (especially in the world of AI)
Recently, I’ve been learning video editing and it’s made me realize the importance of taste.
The challenge is not adding the effects, transitions, and cuts. That part is just annoying and time-consuming, and if I ever need help I can always refer to a YouTube tutorial.
The challenging part is knowing what transition to use. It’s choosing the right song. It’s knowing what makes the video look good. These are things that make great videos.
All of this is nothing but taste. It’s something that can’t be taught. But it’s precisely what makes someone irreplaceable.
Soon I think editing will become so simple that you’ll just need to tell AI what to do and it’ll create the video the way you wish.
What will matter is what you tell it to do. Those who have the imagination, the vision, and the taste will be the ones who stand out in the world of AI.
It’s like building a temple. Workers are the ones who lay the bricks and make the temple. But it’s the architect who envisions the temple and tells the workers what to do, who is irreplaceable.
“How you see the world, and that’s different from the way everyone sees the world and that’s why you’re an artist”-Rick Rubin
Casey Neistat's videos are special because of his unique style and way of looking at the world. He can make something as mundane as moving a lawn interesting enough for millions to watch.
This kind of intuition or taste comes from following your interests, it’s what Naval Ravikant calls specific knowledge.
"Arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage. Specific knowledge is knowledge that you cannot be trained for. If society can train you, it can train someone else, and replace you."—Naval Ravikant
Developing Taste Is Not as Easy As it Sounds
Steve Jobs was in the hospital, on sedatives, when he ripped his mask out.
Despite being barely in his senses, he demanded five different masks be brought for him to choose from because he hated the current mask design.
He’s severely ill and he’s still bothered about the freaking mask design!
That’s how deep-rooted taste is in him.
It’s the same reason he took eight years to choose a couch for his house; he couldn’t find a design that satisfied him.
He would eat only fruit smoothies, and he would demand that seven or eight of them be lined up so he could find an option that might satisfy him. He would touch the spoon to his mouth for a tiny taste and pronounce, “That’s no good. That one’s no good either.” (From Walter Isaacson’s biogrpahy)
One time at a hotel, Steve Jobs ordered a squeezed fruit juice which he sent back 3 times claiming that it was actually bottled. He wouldn't even enjoy a drink because of his insane sensitivity to taste.
Steve Jobs loved the principle of simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
He [Steve jobs] wanted the exact right shade of beige for the Apple II. Apple's manufacturing partner had 2,000 shades of beige. None of them were good enough. So he came up with his own. (Source)
Mr. Beast, the king of YouTube, has developed his intuitive sense of what works and what doesn’t from obsessive analysis.
He can perfectly picture what everything he does will look like from a viewer’s point of view.
He has had days where he would just analyze thumbnails from the time he got up to the time he slept. He obsessively studies the analytics of videos and identifies every single thing which can make his view retention drop- from a sneeze to a joke
Taste might look simple, but it’s not so easy to develop.
It might not even be considered a skill, but it can change everything.
(Note: Rick Rubin’s claim of having no technical skill might actually be a lie. But he highlights the importance of taste nevertheless.)
That’s it for this article. Thanks for reading :)
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I like how a lot of art is just pure vibes. we don’t need rules