1. Inspiration trumps execution.

Write a great song, it’s more important than knowing how to play it.

2. Audience is everything.

If you don’t want to reach as many people as possible, stop now. You’re too afraid to make it, you’re not a real artist. Artists believe in themselves and want to share their work, they believe it will change the world. You can only do this by having an audience, hopefully a large one.

3. Artists never stop learning.

Once you stop testing limits, once you revert to formula, your death warrant is signed.

4. Real artists ship.

If you’re trying to get it perfect, you’re on the wrong path. Life is imperfect, your goal is to reflect it. People relate to that which has rough edges, just like them.

5. Artists are insecure.

If you think you know everything and have all the answers you’re not an artist. An artist lives for feedback, and decodes and deciphers it to see if he’s on the right track. You don’t have to abide by criticism, but to avoid it is a mistake.

6. Artists want to get paid but are willing to leave money on the table.

Your goal is to get it right, your vision down. Sometimes this means you get paid less, or not at all. But if you don’t know your worth, no one else will.

7. True artists are humble.

They realize they’re part of a great continuum, inspired by the past and grease for the future. No one is forever, never forget that.

8. Artists are jealous, but the best channel that jealousy into their work.

It’s tough to see someone get more acclaim and make more money. But rather than be sour grapes, be inspired. No one likes someone who bitches, someone who complains someone stole their opportunity.

9. Risk.

You know when you do your best work. But take chances, you never know what will resonate with listeners. You’ve been doing it so long that you’re never going to do something bad, let the audience decide what is good.

10. Don’t try to be something you’re not.

Just because country is hot, that does not mean you should cut a record with a banjo. Just because TV delivers eyeballs, that does not mean you should be a judge. Do what you do, it’s your only chance of lasting success.

It’s all about the pivot.

Once upon a time Facebook was a place to connect with your friends.

Now it’s where you go for information…news, video, even music video.

How did this happen?

MARK ZUCKERBERG!

Forget that he’s younger than so many of his established competitors. What’s amazing about Zuckerberg is he’s willing to admit he’s wrong and change course and constantly improve his product.

Google is still relying on desktop search. The company has not figured out how to transition to mobile.

Facebook owns mobile. That’s its secret sauce, mobile advertising.

Today it’s all about staying two steps ahead and changing when something doesn’t work.

Facebook’s initial mobile play didn’t work, Zuckerberg threw out the HTML5 code and started all over. You never double-down on a loser. That’s what the techies have over the musicians. When musicians do something with little traction they keep imploring us to pay attention. If no one pays attention to the work of the techie, he changes it. Because no amount of marketing can sell that which the public does not want. You start with the marketing, and then word of mouth sustains you. If you’ve got no word of mouth, change.

We live in an era of chaos.

Zuckerberg is trying to deliver comprehension.

That’s what Facebook’s news play is all about. Turns out people don’t want to go to individual news sites for information, they want it all in one place. So, the “New York Times” is hurting, even with its soft paywall. Its goal is to get those already paying to pay more, which is positively fatuous, it’s like an indie bookstore trying to get fat cats to donate to ensure their survival. You don’t bleed those already invested, you find new customers, or you pivot. Facebook has cornered the users, that’s what it’s delivering to news outlets. It’s the old portal paradigm, but with a lot less investment.

Same deal with video. Video is sweeping up the internet, with the prevalence and cheapness of bandwidth. That’s what people want, so that’s where Zuckerberg is going. And the most watched videos on YouTube are music, which is why Zuckerberg is interested in featuring those.

And then there are the investments.

Better to buy your competitor than imitate them. If only Apple had learned this.

That’s right, Apple should have just bought Pandora, iTunes Radio was a failure, at least in America. Furthermore, Apple should have just bought Spotify. Not only would it have killed a competitor, it would have added functionality. Would Apple Music work so poorly if Daniel Ek were involved? No way. Ek knows you don’t bake everything in.

But analysts believe those who’ve won in the past will win in the future. That’s contrary to the history of computing. Where are Borland, Osborne and Palm today? You either sell your standalone product to be integrated into a larger one as a feature, or you pivot into something else. That’s right, if you made spellcheckers in the 80s, you could see the handwriting on the wall, eventually Microsoft would make spelling a feature in Word, you had to sell out or diversify.

And the purchase of WhatsApp…

America is so myopic. The Street has finally realized China buys iPhones, but the truth is the world is vast, and outside America WhatsApp triumphs, it’s a phenomenon. Will Facebook ever get a return commensurate with its outlay? That’s unclear, but the truth is it annexed something that was threatening its underpinnings. People want to communicate, they don’t have to do it on Facebook.

So, Zuckerberg keeps investing and expanding, when the music business famously contracted. When times are challenging, that’s when you invest.

Furthermore, the music industry has yet to pivot.

Who cares if people pay for music? That’s no longer the dominant revenue stream. No one’s gonna pay a hundred bucks a month to streaming tunes, but they will pay that for a concert ticket. The goal is to gain critical mass and then monetize, the whole charging for streaming is a sideshow. It’s about building acts and then profiting from them on the road and with sponsorships and endorsements.

But the musicians are too stupid to know this.

And the executives can’t see far enough into the future.

Sure, more people will pay for music when it becomes easier to use and cheaper, price and convenience are everything, but we haven’t hit the tipping point yet. Spotify eradicated piracy. That’s a monumental step. Getting people to pay is coming.

But not everyone will.

So what is your goal?

Zuckerberg realizes it’s about lassoing the largest audience and keeping it in his ecosystem. It’s fine if you can milk your small fanbase to stay alive, but the profit, the money you want, is in mass. Which is why everybody in music is going for mass.

Which will leave a lot of acts out, sorry.

But I’m willing to see the future as different from today.

Are you?

What about the people who are not trying to get rich?

I spent the weekend in Carpinteria, California. Less than ninety minutes from L.A., it puts you in a completely different headspace. With tall mountains on one side and the ocean on the other, this middle class place reminds you of nothing so much as the sixties, when we were all equal, when we were all in it together.

Assuming you don’t try to buy real estate.

But there’s a camping park. Carpinteria is egalitarian, it’s where the California dream still thrives. Where you’re three hours behind New York and couldn’t care less.

California summer is different from the east coast. There’s no humidity. You don’t sweat. It’s warm enough to not wear a jacket, although a sweatshirt might be necessary at night, still, it’s your best dream of summer come alive.

Driving up the 101 puts you in the mood.

After passing through Ventura the freeway hugs the ocean. Which seems like a desecration of the landscape, but allows you a view of the water, and the Channel Islands, and the drilling rigs. There’s nothing like it anywhere else, at least not in America. Mountains as tall as the Appalachians, but the snow never falls. You’re cruising along at 70 and you’ve got that bliss meditation promises, but your eyes are wide open.

Last night we went to Zookers, a local haunt with food so good I’d tell you to go, but my point here is as you get older these are the experiences you treasure. When you let go of trying to make your mark, when you realize you’re only here temporarily and you might as well let go, relax and float downstream, albeit with your mind still turned on. Good friends, good food, good stories, good laughs, that’s about as much as you can ask for in this life. You eventually find that out. When you can’t remember whether you’ve seen that band or not and you don’t want to see them now anyway, you just want to listen to the records, from when the members were still alive and they weren’t going through the motions, looking for cash, but burnishing their music in a quest to conquer minds and bodies, never forget, rock and roll runs on sex.

And we woke up early this morning to go to La Super-Rica, a Santa Barbara legend. Down the street from the County Bowl, the only other time I’d been there it had been closed.

Stephen insisted we get there before it opened. Just like he offered more than the asking price for his abode, he refused to endure the lines that snake after the 11:00 AM opening.

And despite finding a handful of people in front of us, despite there being a plethora of people behind us, the restaurant did not open at the appointed hour. It seemed to run on its own time. As if being a business was secondary.

The media is clogged with people getting rich.

Whereas real people know life is about living. That money is just grease, a conduit to experiences. And if you think you need a Ferrari, you’re not prepared for the carless society in the offing. Yes, not only will automobiles drive themselves, you’ll rent them when needed.

And I’d like to tell you a level playing field is in the offing, that income inequality will cease to exist, that no one will go to bed hungry and everyone will be able to pay their bills but the truth is nobody in America cares about anyone else, you’re on your own, struggle to establish a beachhead, but you don’t need an entire island, Larry Ellison doesn’t get to cut the line at La Super-Rica.

That’s right, before I left town I had dinner at Nobu. We were lucky to get a reservation, albeit inside, which is Siberia in Malibu. Everybody was dressed to the nines, at La Super-Rica, they were barely dressed at all.

No, that’s not true. But there was a plethora of flip-flops, and a  bunch of imperfect bodies, but everybody was smiling and no one was going anywhere. That’s right, at Nobu it’s about ascension, how can I climb to the top.

La Super-Rica is already there.

A legend, most of the food is under five bucks. I had the most expensive thing on the menu, and it was $6.80.

And everything is handmade, everything is unique. And unlike Chipotle, the food is not only fresh, but enticing. The dishes don’t look the same. The servers are not teens in the penalty box, but workers who love their gig, serving delicacies to the proletariat.

That’s what we are, the rest of us, who are not setting the world on fire. We are the workers keeping this country alive, we are the ones who make it work. Facebook would not exist without its users, Google either. We spend, we make the rich so. How come we have so little self-respect?

But when you can detach, go on a little vacation up the California coast, you gain some perspective.

You realize that we’re all looking for something unique, that we can tell each other about.

That our friends are our bank account.

And that if you find yourself a hundred miles up the California coast from L.A. you must stop at La Super-Rica, for the watermelon water if nothing else, you’ve never had anything like it.

There is no social media campaign.

Only word of mouth.

That’s all you need.

That’s all that counts.

I’m telling you now.

I’m worried. I wanna be happy.

And at 11:30 AM today, eating Chile Pasilla in the California sunshine, divining the tastes in the dish…

I was.

Individuals matter.

Jimmy Iovine willed Interscope to success.

And Steve Jobs did the same with Apple. But now he’s gone and Apple is hurting.

APPLE WATCH

Tech is about a level playing ground, albeit an oftentimes expensive one. Everybody gets to eat at the buffet, as long as they can afford the entry ticket. But please explain to me the three different Apple watches that work exactly the same, that are evanescent products with a useful life of two years at best. Sure, iMacs came in different colors, but they were all the same price. Fashion is subsidiary in tech, it’s the cherry on top, never the whole enchilada. Functionality comes first, and a $10,000 Apple Watch works no better than one for $349. Which is why Apple has only sold 2,000 copies of the 10k Edition in the U.S. Proving that the bad press the company got is not worth the extra revenue.

How did they get it so wrong?

By not having a visionary who could say no.

Unless you’re making clothing, fashion is a feature, not the essence.

APPLE WATCH 2

Yes, Steve Jobs never employed research, but he also developed products he thought the public would want to buy. Only early adopters want the Apple Watch, and there’s no word of mouth. Publicity will get you started, word of mouth will make you triumph.

The Watch was dead from the get-go.

Maybe it should have been introduced as a hobby, like Apple TV. So people would have low expectations and know they were along for the journey.

The Watch tells time poorly and has a steep learning curve for uses you’re not sure you need. Sound like a winning product to you?

Of course not.

Steve Jobs didn’t play in all arenas, only ones in which he could win.

The Apple Watch proves there’s no vision in Cupertino, not that we can see.

And no one who can say no.

APPLE MUSIC

Me-too is usually death. Its success is predicated on market share in a world where there’s little penetration. Which is how Windows 95 almost put Apple out of business. And the truth is streaming music adoption is still low, so Apple has a chance. But it’s a little more complicated than that.

You see streaming has already won, on YouTube, it’s just that that’s free to the customer. So if you’re not free, you’ve got to be a whole lot better, and Apple Music is not.

So…

Once again, Steve Jobs only introduced a product when he knew he could win. Design did not sell the original iPod, however appealing it might have been, but functionality/usability. The iPod was the first MP3 player that transferred tracks at high speed, FireWire instead of USB. Furthermore, the software eliminated stupidity. That’s right, you just plugged your iPod into your computer and the software, i.e. iTunes, took care of the rest.

There is no great advance in Apple Music. Even Songza had hand-curated playlists. So the company’s only hope is it’s so early in the game that they can end up winning.

One can argue that Apple should have truly differentiated its product. Maybe by giving less. No playlists, but easier functionality.

FUNCTIONALITY/USABILITY

This was Steve Jobs’s credo, make it easy to use, with no flaws. Apple Music is MobileMe on steroids. And there are so many options included that functionality is crippled, users are overwhelmed.

MobileMe sucked and heads rolled.

Whose head is rolling for the bugs in Apple Music? Someone needs to be fired, someone needs to take responsibility. People are afraid to download the software for fear of it screwing up their library. I’m still waiting for a fix to library corruption, but Apple is mum.

Not only is there no admission of fault, there’s no manual. Steve Jobs may have put up a press blockade, but he was unafraid of explaining his product, which Jimmy Iovine and his cohorts did so poorly during the WWDC presentation.

Jimmy Iovine. He succeeded by being a friend to the artist, by working relationships. At first the money was Ted Field’s, but it turned out Jimmy just needed that to get him started. Jimmy’s biggest triumph was the 9/11 TV broadcast. Give the man credit.

But Jimmy’s no visionary. He had one success, with Beats headphones. You’ve got to have two to prove it’s not luck. Jimmy failed with Beats Music. Disastrously. Unless you say selling to Apple was a victory.

Steve Jobs had multiple victories, the original iMac, the iPod, iPhone and iPad, never mind the Apple II and original Macintosh.

But now the company is running on fumes.

Because it needs a Steve Jobs and all it’s got is Tim Cook, a supply chain expert.

Let’s investigate what has been achieved since Steve’s death.

A smaller iPad, whose sales have now been cannibalized by a larger iPhone.

A larger iPhone, after Samsung cleaned Apple’s clock with bigger handsets for years.

Software releases are hitting deadlines, but there are so many bugs loyalists are frustrated. And I used to be a loyalist.

There’s a fiction that corporations rule in America.

The truth is it’s all about individuals. Sure, a group can effectuate the vision, but it always comes from one person, maybe a team of two, certainly not a committee.

Jeff Bezos is Amazon.

Mark Zuckerberg is Facebook.

Larry and Sergey are Google.

Daniel Ek is Spotify

Evan Spiegel is Snapchat.

Who is Apple?