Podbit · The a16z Show
All art is remixing. The Beatles heard Roy Orbison and wrote 'Please Please Me' — that's sampling. AI doesn't change this dynamic; it just accelerates the iteration cycle that artists have always used.
Where this was said
At 4:28 · chapter starts 2:46
Anjney Midha opens by accidentally calling The Way of Code an album — a reveal that perfectly captures the book's multimedia strangeness. Rubin explains that it began as a straightforward book, but after a conversation with Jack Clark on his Tetragrammaton podcast, Anthropic got involved and the project became an interactive website where users can vibe-code AI-generated art using the book's own text as prompts. [1] — Rick Rubin "The Way of Code started as a joke — then the Tao Te Ching became its backbone, and everything changed. A 3,000-year-old wisdom text turned …" 01:46 The visitor can ask the art to look like Cézanne, melt, go Nordic, or spin fast — an embodiment of the book's own argument. Rubin traces the unlikely origin story: he first encountered the phrase 'vibe coding' ten weeks before publishing, saw a photo of himself that looked AI-generated (but was real), found his image appearing alongside Cursor's '15 rules of vibe coding,' and eventually decided to write a joke book about something he knew nothing about. When the Tao Te Ching became the backbone, the joke turned profound.
Rick Rubin embraced the concept of vibe coding just 10 weeks after first encountering the phrase, turning it into a full book.
The AI doesn't have a point of view — its point of view is whatever you tell it to be. Give the same script to 5 great directors and you get 5 different movies. AI just lets you get to those iterations faster.
Robby Hoffman isn't fearless — she's terrified all the time. The difference is she does it anyway, because not doing it feels worse than the fear itself.
John Mulaney texted Robby Hoffman out of nowhere saying he'd been a fan for a while and wanted to make a Netflix special with her. Robby called it 'shocking, horrifying, anxiety-inducing, surreal and thrilling' — and said yes.
Mulaney is buttoned-up, suit-wearing, classy. Robby is gritty, raw, and undefined. Together they made the collab nobody expected. Batman and Robin. Eminem and Dido.
Music had Pope Gregory forcing notation. Comedy has had 'magical thinking' — he's just got funny bones. But jokes work through discoverable, teachable mechanics. Writing down the rules doesn't kill the magic; it gives more people access to it.
Howard Ashman had one insight nobody else had: animated Disney films should be Broadway musicals. The third song of every great musical is the character sitting alone explaining what they want. That's 'Part of Your World.' That structure — combined with Alan Menken's compositions — generated Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King, and turned Disney Animation into the most profitable creative engine in entertainment history.
The Lion King musical has been running for 30 years across Broadway, London's West End, and global touring companies. It has grossed over $11 billion in total revenue — more than Avatar, more than Avengers: Endgame, more than any album, more than any video game. It generates an average of $350 million in revenue every single year. Disney owns it outright.
The anonymous French artist Invader has hidden 1,500 pixelated mosaic artworks across Paris alone, with thousands more scattered across 80+ cities — affixed to the Eiffel Tower, the Hollywood sign, and even sent to the International Space Station. He might be even busier than Banksy.
The Flash Invaders app turns city streets into a treasure hunt, letting players scan Invader's hidden mosaics for points. Players have collectively logged over 47 million flashes. Unlike most mobile games that glue you to a screen, this one forces you to look up and engage with your surroundings.
New York draws thousands of young, talented performers every year chasing Broadway stardom — but the hard truth is that most of them never make it. Zelig Williams was one of the rare exceptions.
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