Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin

Dr. Jack Kruse is a retired neurosurgeon, author, and founder of the Kruse Longevity Center, a wellness practice focused on the relationship between environmental factors and human health. His work explores his theories about light, water, magnetism, and mitochondrial function. Dr. Kruse is the author of Epi-Paleo Rx: The Prescription for Disease Reversal and Optimal Health, and he currently writes and speaks about his approach to wellness and longevity.

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Dr. Paul Conti is a psychiatrist, author, and founder of Pacific Premier Group, a medical practice providing mental health care, consulting, and coaching. A graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine, he completed his psychiatry training at Stanford and Harvard, where he served as chief resident before joining the medical faculty. He is the author of Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic, which examines trauma’s effects and paths to healing. His latest book, What’s Going Right: A Powerful New Method for Optimizing Your Mental Health, was released in May 2026 and offers a framework for understanding ourselves and improving mental heal...

Mark Booth is an author, editor, and publisher who also writes under the pen name Jonathan Black. He studied philosophy and theology at Oxford and built a publishing career working with authors including Rupert Sheldrake, Graham Hancock, and Lorna Byrne. His bestselling The Secret History of the World explores history through esoteric and mystical traditions. His latest book, The Secret History of the Universe, examines the relationship between spiritual belief and modern science through the lives and ideas of pioneering scientists.

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Greg Laurie is an evangelist, author, and senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Southern California. He founded the church in Riverside in 1973 after becoming a Christian during the Jesus Movement in 1970. Through his Harvest Crusades and broadcast ministry, he shares the Christian gospel with audiences worldwide. His conversion and early relationship with his wife, Cathe, are depicted in the 2023 film Jesus Revolution, based on his 2018 book co-written with Ellen Vaughn.

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Frank Miller is a comic book writer, artist, and filmmaker. He rose to prominence drawing Marvel’s Daredevil in 1979 and became its writer in 1981, introducing Elektra and turning the series into a major success. He went on to create Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, write Batman: Year One, and create Sin City and 300, both of which were adapted into films. His latest book, Push the Wall, recounts his life and career in comics and filmmaking.

Works mentioned:

Sin City

Superman: Year One

Daredevil

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

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Neil Young is a legendary singer-songwriter whose career has spanned more than six decades. From Buffalo Springfield and Crazy Horse to a celebrated catalog that includes albums such as Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and After the Gold Rush, his work has left an enduring mark on generations of musicians and listeners.

A two-time Grammy winner, Neil has also been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice, both as a solo artist and as a member of Buffalo Springfield.

His new album, Second Song, recorded with the...

In this special episode taken from a live event in London, Rick Rubin and Daniel Kaluuya join Ayishat Akanbi for a conversation about the making of JAŸ-Z in 8, a new eight-part documentary series exploring JAY-Z’s life, music, and creative process.

JAŸ-Z in 8 premieres September 18 on HBO in North America, and on MUBI everywhere else.

Works mentioned:

4:44

Smile

Regrets

Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)

Vol. 3… Life and Times of S. Carter

The Ghost of Soulja Slim — Jay Electronica featurin...

Max Richter is a composer, pianist, and producer. His albums include Memoryhouse, The Blue Notebooks, and Sleep. His instrumental composition “On the Nature of Daylight” has been featured in films including Shutter Island and Arrival, which he also scored. By combining orchestral writing with electronic and ambient music, his work spans ballet, television, and film, including Mary, Queen of Scots and Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet.

Max's upcoming album ’While The Flood Rages' is out on October 16th

Pre-save: https://maxrichter.lnk.to/WTFR

Pre-order: https://maxrichter.lnk.to/ShopWTFR ‘

Tom Freston is a media executive, investor, and the cofounder of MTV Networks. His route to television began after an early entrepreneurial venture sourcing and exporting apparel in South Asia, before he joined the team that made MTV a defining global youth brand and grew the company’s roster to include Nickelodeon, VH1, Comedy Central, and CMT. He later served as CEO of Viacom, overseeing major entertainment businesses including Paramount Pictures and Simon & Schuster.

His new memoir, Unplugged: Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu, chronicles his unconventional journey through business, media, music, and global travel. Freston is now a...

Roger Avary is an Academy Award-winning screenwriter, director, and producer. Best known for co-writing Pulp Fiction with Quentin Tarantino, he shared the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Avary made his feature-directing debut with the 1994 crime thriller Killing Zoe. He later directed Mr. Stitch, adapted Bret Easton Ellis’s The Rules of Attraction, and returned to the crime genre with Lucky Day. His screenwriting credits also include the horror hit Silent Hill and Robert Zemeckis’s animated epic Beowulf. Additionally, he is the founder of Pulp Time, a social movie platform for always-on programming and interactive public and private watc...

To honor the 250th anniversary of America, Tyler Cowen plays Rick patriotic music from the United States and around the world in this special listening episode. In addition to his work as an economist, professor, and bestselling author, Tyler Cowen is a longtime music enthusiast with an expansive repertoire in classical and choral music, rock n’ roll, and world music. 

Moving from John Philip Sousa’s vision of classic patriotism and Country Joe and the Fish’s antiwar satire to the Andrews Sisters, Franz Liszt, Béla Bartók, Antonín Dvořák, and the Sex Pistols, Cowen explor...

Tyler Cowen is an economist, author, and professor who holds the Holbert L. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University and serves as chairman and faculty director of the Mercatus Center. He co-authors the long-running economics blog Marginal Revolution with Alex Tabarrok, co-founded Marginal Revolution University, and hosts the interview podcast Conversations with Tyler. Cowen’s books include The Great Stagnation, Average Is Over, and Talent; his newest project, The Marginal Revolution: Rise and Decline, and the Pending AI Revolution, is a free interactive book on the history of marginalist economics and the implications of AI for the fi...

Steven Pressfield is a bestselling novelist, nonfiction author, and screenwriter. He published his first novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance, in his early fifties, launching him onto the literary map and leading to a 2000 film directed by Robert Redford. Pressfield’s 1998 Spartan epic Gates of Fire became a modern classic of military historical fiction and is widely read in military circles around the world, selling over one million copies worldwide. He is also the author of the 2002 bestseller The War of Art and subsequent titles like Turning Pro and Do the Work, which have made him a key voice on...

Jeff Bridges is an Academy Award-winning actor, musician, and photographer. Born into a family of performers, he began acting as a child and has built one of the most enduring careers in American film. His work includes acclaimed performances in The Last Picture Show, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, The Big Lebowski, and Crazy Heart, earning him the Academy Award for Best Actor. Beyond filmmaking, Bridges is a lifelong musician, photographer, and songwriter who continues to perform with his band, The Abiders. Most recently, he co-founded the WideluxX project, an effort to revive the legendary Widelux panoramic film camera for contemporary...

Albert Hammond Jr. is a songwriter, solo artist, and guitarist for The Strokes. Since 1999, he helped define the band's signature rock sound across landmark albums including Is This It, Room on Fire, and First Impressions of Earth. Alongside his work with the band, Hammond has built a solo career with albums such as Yours to Keep and Francis Trouble. On July 24, 2026, The Strokes released their seventh studio album, Reality Awaits, marking the band's first new record since the Grammy-winning The New Abnormal.

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'Gurudev' Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is a spiritual leader, humanitarian, and peace ambassador. In 1981, he founded the Art of Living Foundation, introducing meditation, yoga, and the Sudarshan Kriya breathing technique through programs now offered in more than 180 countries. In 1997, he co-founded the International Association for Human Values to support humanitarian and peacebuilding initiatives. He has participated in conflict-resolution efforts in regions including Colombia, Iraq, Kashmir, and Côte d'Ivoire, while speaking at institutions such as the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, and the European Parliament. He is also the author of numerous books on meditation, spirituality, and personal w...

Anthony Metivier is an author, memory expert, and the founder of the Magnetic Memory Method, a training system focused on memorizing complex information through mnemonic techniques and memory palaces. He is the author of several books on learning and cognition, including The Victorious Mind, and is known for combining memory training with mindfulness, reflective thinking, mind mapping, and critical thought. Through his how-to books and courses, including Rules Reborn and the Magnetic Memory Method podcast, he has built a large following around practical methods for improving memory and lifelong learning.

⁠Anthony Metivier on YouTube

Angus Fletcher is an author and professor of story science at The Ohio State University’s Project Narrative. With a degree in neuroscience from the University of Michigan and a PhD in literature from Yale University, he developed narrative-based leadership and decision-making training for the U.S. Army Special Operations, work that earned him the U.S. Army's Public Service Commendation Medal in 2023. Beyond his work with the military, Fletcher has advised organizations including NASA, Disney, Sony, and the BBC on applying storytelling to innovation, creativity, and organizational performance. His latest book, Primal Intelligence, explores the uniquely human forms of...

Louis C.K. is a stand-up comedian, writer, director, and actor. A six-time Emmy and three-time Grammy winner, he is known for specials including Shameless, Chewed Up, Hilarious, and Sincerely, Louis C.K., as well as for creating and starring in the Peabody Award–winning series Louie and Horace and Pete. Over a career spanning more than four decades, he has also released specials including Sorry, Louis C.K. at the Dolby, and Back to the Garden. On Tuesday, June 30, his most recent stand-up special, Ridiculous, released on Netflix.

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Peter McGrath is a recording engineer, photographer, and longtime advocate for high-fidelity sound reproduction whose career has spanned more than five decades. He has worked extensively with organizations including Harmonia Mundi, the New World Symphony, and Friends of Chamber Music. In addition to capturing performances by leading orchestras, chamber ensembles, soloists, and vocalists, he has also served for many years as a Director of Sales at Wilson Audio, acting as a key voice for the company’s approach to music playback and loudspeaker demonstration.

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David Eggers is an author, publisher, and founder of nonprofit publishing company McSweeney’s. He first became widely known for A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and went on to write acclaimed books including What Is the What, A Hologram for the King, and The Circle. Beyond his writing, he co-founded 826 Valencia, a nonprofit organization that provides writing and tutoring programs for young people. Most recently, he released Contrapposto in June 2026, a novel about friendship, love, and the lifelong pursuit of art.

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Kenny Chesney is a country music singer and songwriter. His career has been defined by over 30 chart-topping country hits, including “She’s Got It All,” “When the Sun Goes Down,” “There Goes My Life,” “Don’t Blink,” and “The Boys of Fall.” Since his 1994 debut, he has released 20 studio albums, sold over 30 million records worldwide, and won multiple CMA and ACM awards, including Entertainer of the Year. As one of country music’s most successful artists, Chesney was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2025. 

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Bryce Crawford is a 22-year-old street preacher, an evangelist, and the founder of Jesus in the Street. Known for bringing his Christian faith directly into public spaces, he travels across the U.S. sharing the gospel in cities, on college campuses, and at large gatherings. After struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts as a teenager, Crawford experienced a life-changing encounter with God on Christmas Day in 2020, a turning point that led him into full-time ministry. Through Bryce Crawford Ministries and his podcast, he shares street conversations, testimony, and Christian teaching with a new generation of believers. He is also...

Returning to continue his conversation in Part Two, Vlad Tenev is the co-founder and CEO of Robinhood. He launched the trading platform alongside Baiju Bhatt in 2013 with the goal of making investing more accessible through commission-free stock trading for everyday investors. Under his leadership, Robinhood expanded beyond equities into options, ETFs, cryptocurrency, banking products, and private market investing, and the company went public in July 2021. In addition to Robinhood, Tenev is the co-founder and executive chairman of Harmonic, an AI-driven platform focused on organizing and analyzing business and market data.

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Vlad Tenev is the co-founder and CEO of Robinhood. He launched the trading platform alongside Baiju Bhatt in 2013 with the goal of making investing more accessible through commission-free stock trading for everyday investors. Under his leadership, Robinhood expanded beyond equities into options, ETFs, cryptocurrency, banking products, and private market investing, and the company went public in July 2021. In addition to Robinhood, Tenev is the co-founder and executive chairman of Harmonic, an AI-driven platform focused on organizing and analyzing business and market data.

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Bob Roth is a teacher of Transcendental Meditation and the CEO of the David Lynch Foundation. He began practicing Transcendental Meditation in 1969 and went on to build a career centered on teaching it to executives, students, veterans, and others dealing with stress. As CEO of the David Lynch Foundation, he has expanded meditation programs for underserved communities and people affected by trauma, with 1.5 million adults and children worldwide learning to meditate. Roth is also the author of Strength in Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation, a practical guide that explains how the practice can reduce stress and build resilience.<...

Garry Tan is the president and CEO of Y Combinator, the startup accelerator behind companies like Airbnb, Reddit, Coinbase, and DoorDash. He previously co-founded the financial technology company Posterous, which was acquired by Twitter in 2012, and later founded the venture capital firm Initialized Capital alongside Alexis Ohanian. Before entering venture capital, Tan worked as an engineer at Palantir Technologies, where he helped develop early infrastructure and design systems. Now, he continues to make investment and product decisions as a General Partner, having read more than 6,000 YC applications, while overseeing programs for sourcing, advising, and scaling early-stage startups.

<...

Michael Shawn Crahan, better known as Clown, is the co-founder and percussionist of Slipknot. Formed in 1995, the metal band rose to popularity with albums like Slipknot and Iowa. As one of the most recognizable names in modern metal, Slipknot has earned 11 Grammy nominations and one win for “Before I Forget” in 2006. Beyond music, Crahan has directed films, created visual art, and overseen many of Slipknot’s creative concepts, including stage design and imagery.

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Chris Best is a technology entrepreneur and CEO of Substack. In 2017, he co-founded Substack, the publishing platform that helped popularize paid newsletters and direct-to-audience media businesses for writers, journalists, and creators. Previously, he worked as a vice president of engineering at Kickstarter and earlier co-founded the social messenger app Kik. Under his leadership, Substack has grown into a major player in independent media, attracting prominent authors, commentators, and podcasters seeking ownership of their audiences and subscription revenue.

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Brian Hoyer is an environmental health consultant and founder of Shielded Healing, specializing in electromagnetic field (EMF) testing, shielding, and mitigation. As a certified geobiologist with a background in functional nutritional therapy, he focuses on identifying electrical, wireless, and magnetic field exposures and their potential effects on sleep, stress response, and overall physiology. His work includes grounding strategies and shielding techniques to reduce environmental electromagnetic interference in both existing homes and new construction.

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GT Dave is the founder of GT’s Living Foods and a key figure in the commercialization of kombucha in the United States. He began producing and selling kombucha in the mid-1990s, starting with small batches distributed to local Los Angeles health food stores. Under GT’s leadership, the company expanded through natural food retailers, including Whole Foods, and grew into a leading kombucha brand while maintaining a focus on raw, fermented products including Synergy kombucha, Alive mushroom beverage, and coconut yogurt Cocoyo.

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Jeff Harmon is the Co-Founder and Chief Content Officer of Angel Studios, the media company behind Sound of Freedom, His Only Son, After Death, and Dry Bar Comedy. He has played a key role in shaping Angel’s audience-driven approach to entertainment, including the Pay It Forward ticketing model and the Angel Guild, a community comprising over 2 million members which helps decide the films and shows that the company will distribute. His career, spanning 17 years, has centered on connecting creators directly with audiences through innovative digital distribution.

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Jonah Hill is a film actor, writer, and filmmaker. He broke out in comedy with Superbad in 2007, before earning critical acclaim in dramatic roles in Moneyball and The Wolf of Wall Street. He transitioned into filmmaking with his directorial debut Mid90s, a raw and culturally resonant coming-of-age story that established his distinct, emotionally honest voice. Expanding across mediums, he has directed music videos, commercial campaigns, and television, while producing and developing projects through Strong Baby Productions, including the Netflix documentary Stutz. Now a multidisciplinary filmmaker, he continues to shape character-driven stories—most recently directing Outcome, scheduled for release on...

Anne Lamott is a bestselling novelist and nonfiction writer. She is best known for her books Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird, enduring touchstones for readers and writers seeking honest insight into life and creativity. Her husband, Neal Allen, is a former journalist and corporate executive turned spiritual coach and author who writes and teaches on inner life and self-inquiry.

Lamott and Allen frequently collaborate on workshops and public events that blend writing, spirituality, and practical wisdom. They are the coauthors of the 2026 craft book Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences, a concise, technique-driven guide that...

Adam Neumann is an entrepreneur, investor, and the co-founder of WeWork. Launching the shared office-space company in 2010, he grew WeWork into a global coworking brand that, at its peak, was valued at roughly $47 billion. Under his leadership, the company rapidly expanded its network of shared workspaces across major cities worldwide. In 2022, he founded Flow, a residential real estate company focused on branded, tech-enabled apartment communities that offer a service-oriented, community-driven approach to long-term housing.

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Kelly Wearstler is a designer, creative director, and founder of the Los Angeles-based design firm Kelly Wearstler. Her work includes projects such as the San Francisco Proper Hotel, the Avalon Hotel Beverly Hills, the Four Seasons Anguilla, and Beefbar Courchevel. She has led residential, hotel, retail, and commercial projects worldwide while working with artists and craftspeople to honor history, location, and architecture, approaching each project as a multidisciplinary collaboration that emphasizes materiality, place, and storytelling.

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Eric Roth is an Academy Award-winning screenwriter best known for adapting Forrest Gump, for which he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. He has received additional Academy Award nominations for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, A Star Is Born, and Dune: Part One, and is widely regarded as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after writers. Roth co-wrote Killers of the Flower Moon with Martin Scorsese. He continues to work in films as both writer and executive producer. His latest project, the 2025 film The President’s Cake, is now playing in theaters.

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Returning to continue his conversation in Part Two, Greg Brockman is a cofounder and president of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

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Greg Brockman is a cofounder and president of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

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Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team:

AG1

https://DrinkAG1.com/tetra

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Athletic Nicotine

https://www.AthleticNicotine.com/tetra

Use code 'TETRA'

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LMNT Electrolytes

https://DrinkLMNT.com/tetra

Use code 'TETRA'

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Chris Pavlovski is the founder and CEO of Rumble, an online video and cloud services platform launched in 2013 as an alternative to YouTube for independent creators. As CEO, he has positioned Rumble as a next generation infrastructure and video platform aimed at empowering creators and businesses that are wary of content moderation on larger tech platforms. Under his leadership, Rumble grew from roughly one million users before 2020 to tens of millions of monthly active users. He continues to scale Rumble globally, investing in cloud, payments, and AI capabilities to compete across both media and technology markets.

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