Episode 34: Jimmy Iovine, the legendary music executive and co-founder of both Interscope Records and Beats Electronics, on his compatibility with Dr Dre, the dinner with Steve Jobs he’ll never forget, and his advice to young entrepreneurs

Jimmy Iovine’s legendary story was well-chronicled in HBO's 2017 docu-series, The Defiant Ones, but his impact on modern music, the media business, and technology continues to amaze. From his modest origins in Brooklyn, he worked his way up to legendary status as a music producer, working with artists like Bruce Springsteen and John Lennon, then later co-founding Interscope Records where he nurtured artists like Tupac Shakur, Eminem, as well as a subsidiary label, Death Row Records. Iovine would go on to partner with Dr Dre on Beats by Dre, which evolved into Beats Electronics, which was famously sold to Apple for $3 billion in 2014. In this special episode, previously recorded for Boardroom University, Iovine talks about his first music job as a janitor in a recording studio, the time Steve Jobs diagrammed the hardware business for him on a dinner table, his admiration for former Disney exec, Bob Iger, and why the program he and Dr Dre are launching is poised to empower under-served high school students by emphasizing the importance of both technology and design. 

*The Boardroom University event was recorded on March 10, ’21, and co-sponsored by USC Annenberg, and USC Iovine and Young Academy.