TBPN Live - Jimmy Iovine on AI: “The Great Artists Will Show the World How to Use It”

Episode Date: September 2, 2026

This is our full interview with Jimmy Iovine.We discuss why he and Dr. Dre started a school at USC, how they built Beats into the world's biggest headphone company, what he learned from Steve Jobs, why software companies struggle to build great hardware, how AI will transform music, what's broken about Spotify and streaming, and more.TBPN is made possible by:Ramp - https://ramp.comPublic - https://public.comCisco - https://www.cisco.comConsole - https://www.console.comCrowdStrike - https://www.crowdstrike.comFigma - https://www.figma.comMongoDB - https://www.mongodb.comNYSE - https://www.nyse.comRailway - https://railway.comShopify - https://www.shopify.com/Codex - http://openAI.com/codexSign up for TBPN’s daily newsletter at TBPN.comFollow TBPN:https://TBPN.comhttps://x.com/tbpnhttps://open.spotify.com/show/2L6WMqY3GUPCGBD0dX6p00?si=674252d53acf4231https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/technology-brothers/id1772360235https://www.youtube.com/@TBPNLive

Up next, we have Jimmy Iveen in person. Nice to see you. He is the co-founder of the Interscope Records. How are you doing, man? We're doing fantasticly. How are you? Good, good. Yeah.

Thank you so much for coming on down. Hey, it wasn't easy. You far from my house, but it's cool. Coming in from Malibu. There we go. Oh, I do that drive every day too. Are you a Malibu? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we got a little podcast dynasty out there. Oh, great. great, I'll give me my number. We're out there. Me and my family, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Ben, too, Ben Taft. Really? Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. That's great. We're all out there. That's great. How are things going at USC?

Well, you know, we started this, we started the school. You know, it's called IYA. And it's really a school of innovation. What happened was in 2014, we sold beats headphones to, and beats music to Apple. Yeah. And at Beats, we had a similar experience where we couldn't find people that could collaborate the way Drey and I wanted them to collaborate. Mm-hmm. And to collaborate the way Drey and I wanted them to collaborate, you know.

So we kind of got into that. It was very, very difficult. Either an engineer, design, business, it just, they couldn't speak the same language. Didn't understand the why of the other person. So when we went to Apple, it was that on steroids for us. You know, they're great company, the best company, you know. But we found that at every company we went to, that everything was very siloed. And communication, understanding was siloed.

Not just people, but understanding. And so one day I woke up and I just called Dre. I said, Dre, you know, the problems that we're having. Drey and I really didn't go to school much, you know. And I said, but I got a feeling that this is a problem in education. People are learning in a siloed way. You see, 19 to 25 and 26, I don't know about you guys, but that's a big imprint on your life. Yeah.

You know, it's like you learn a lot in the formative years. Those are really important. They were very important for me. And I guess that's kind of why the age of college. And getting like varied experiences, I feel is so important. When I think about my era from 19 to 26, I studied economics. I learned a program. I started a business.

I filmed videos, did marketing. It helps to blend all these things together. How old are you? I'm 37? Yeah. So you are, you're young enough to grow up in a really multidisciplinary environment. But importantly, like a lot of that was on my own. I just had to go learn.

That's my point. Yeah, I had to do it myself. That's my point. So now when you come out of high school, they silo you. Yeah, totally. Okay, you're going to go work with 60 engineers every day. You're going to go to Wharton, but you're going to be with 45 accountants every day. Yeah.

And there's something wrong with that. Yeah. So, you know, we stepped in, went to USC and... How do you map that to or match that with this idea of putting on the blinders? Why does a race horse wear blinders, right? Well, because every, we live in a world now, it's worse than ever with social media. Everyone cares so much about somebody else thinks. Oh, that's interesting.

I mean, you guys, we have people just all day. What do they think of my post? What do they think of my orange juice? Who cares? You know what I mean? Would you go to a grocery store and ask everybody what they think, you know? So anyway, I'm an older guy, so it doesn't make any sense to me. But, you know, but that's the blinders.

The blinders are very simple. Run your own race. But into that race with the understanding and the empathy of other disciplines. Yes. We all have that problem. Any company you have, the extreme tech side and the extreme design side have trouble communicating. Yeah. Maybe not everyone at every company, but most people.

at most companies. And then when you, you know, remember, we brought 300 people from the creative business into Apple, basically, you know, and Apple's an incredible company, but it's, and it's the best of them, by the way, by the way. But it's all somewhat silo of all these companies. Do you think entrepreneurial people know that they're entrepreneurial for the most part? And I ask that because do you find with the school there's people that maybe that aren't applying to be a part of the program, but you actually want to go and find those people? Or generally are these people like self-selecting and they just know they want to be a part of it? They know that there aren't many schools that fit who they are, right?

And we get a lot of applicants, and that's because we fit, we're speaking their language, you know, And think about this. We started this in 2012. Now a lot of schools are saying, okay, we offer multidisciplinary. They say, okay, you're in an engineering school, but you're going to go take one course across the hall and say, you know, that's not the joke.

What it is is what companies want. Actually, we did research at USC to find what type of students they want. Number one came back collaborative innovation. And that's the foundation. Our school is really Ivan Young Academy for Innovation. We put, in the beginning, tech, design, and archer... Because we wanted to explain it. We wanted to make it literal, like, you know, rock to the forehead kind of, you know, messaging.

But now it's fundamentally the Ivan Young Academy of Innovation. and because people can't, you need to collaborate, to innovate. And, you know, look, I'll give you an example. People say, how do you know there are problems at these companies like this? I've been to a lot of them, but I have proof. Here's my proof. Why is it that so few, I ought to be generous, so few software companies have built successful commercial hardware, consumer electronics.

Why is that? No founders in the seats? They run by committee? Because, no, they can't collaborate. They can't collaborate. They can't collaborate. Yeah. You know, now, you know, I mean, MET has gotten this piece of hardware out there right now,

but they went to, I mean, it looks like they went to Rayban, you know, I mean, and it's cool. It'll do okay, you know, do fine, whatever. They're a great company. But none of these companies can make hardware, and they all have hardware envy. Yeah. All of them. Yeah. You know, and so there's a reason for that.

And my thesis, and mine and Dre's thesis is that this is why. Yeah. Because what was so great about, what is so great about Apple? Because they're still in their DNA is they had Steve Jobs. He was the ultimate cross-disciplinary human being. That was in his DNA where tech meets liberal arts. And when I went, the first time I went up there in 2003, I got it in 30 seconds,

because I had gone to five other companies before that. I talked to him about piracy and all that stuff. I was on a kick about that, you know. And I was, the minute at hello, I met him in ADEQ, I said, okay, this is where the party is. You know, and I just, went back i told the people at you dug maris a universal who was in charge of the place i said license this guy because they they know a lot more about this than anybody in our business and they have feel

okay so this this school is truly designed behind that meeting i know it sounds simple but look we had an idea i woke up one day and i called dray said what about what about starting a school like this. Hell yeah. You know, by the way, he really talks like that. So we wrote a check for $70 million in a month. We're just on one line knowing nothing about education. And we built what I consider a fabulous school. Yeah. Do you think that there is a, there's a trap to be avoided with the school around students becoming tracked? Like they've done the interdisciplinary work and they see this as the best way to get a job at Apple or the best way to get a job at a startup. And in fact, they should be sort of laying back and watching opportunity to come to them during this period.

Well, first of all, they're 22 years old. They can go get a job at Apple and still go change the world. That's true. You know, Steve Jobs had a job. Yeah. Or Apple, right? Yeah. So, you know, nothing wrong with getting experience.

I think it's actually good. Yeah. But it's more important, I mean, look, Even the engineering degree you could see is trying to expand. They get it. You know what I mean? You can't just, it's really not a good environment to work where people just don't understand each other fundamentally. It's empathy.

Do you think that as technology grows and technology progresses, that is creating a natural widening force because it used to be the instrument was technology, but it was understanding. understandable by an artist and now the technology might be seven layers deep in some AI thing that's so abstract and so obscure that that creates. Look, in 2012, I couldn't spell AI, you know. So I had no idea, but we built a school that's perfect for it. Sure. And because it's what, it makes so much common sense inside these companies, if you understand the why,

of the other discipline. Otherwise, you're walking, it's a crash, you know, and that's why Apple can still make great software and great hardware. That DNA is in those people. It's in Tim Cook. It's in Eddie Q. And now I don't know this fellow, John,

but I'm sure he was brought up in the same school. Yeah, no, he's been there a long time. But that's a question that should be asked and will probably never be answered, But why do software companies fail when they go to make hardware? Yeah, it's tricky. A lot of them have tried. A lot of them are trying.

Are you kidding? Yeah, basically all of them. But there has to be a reason, right? So my reason is better than anybody else, or they, maybe somebody else come over with a better idea. But my reason is very convenient for my school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So... That's good.

Do you think more entrepreneurs should go back to the university that they graduated from and teach a course? like something that's uh there's so many lessons that I didn't learn in school and I won't claim to be an expert on on many things but if I even had to put together like 90 minutes I feel like I could uh save my younger self a lot of time and it's maybe it's maybe it's maybe should everyone should give back I mean I think a lot of people do I see it at UC all the time I mean they have um they have alumni giving hundreds of millions of dollars to these schools you know and I'm sure they go back and talk at them and everything. I spend a lot of time at the school.

I try to be very involved, you know. I do. Do you think you would have dropped out of your own school? Like the younger version of yourself? You know, there's the thing. If they was, I have to go for a lot of therapy on dealing with dyslexia first. Sure.

You know, I had a lot of trouble reading and paying attention. So I don't know what they call that. There's names for them. you know but I don't know maybe if there was a lot of Prozac back then maybe I could have focused but no I got into I I just what I got into is I got into I love music right so I got into music and engineering which is sort of technology side right so I started as a recording engineer so you have to understand the basic principles of technology in order to run a console and you know fix

microphones and do whatever you have to do you You know, so I got lucky. I didn't know what I didn't know I was doing that then, but, you know, I don't know that. Not everybody can do that. So school is a great thing. But only if you're in an environment that's going to enhance your creativity and who you are, not take one part of it and put it in a box. Yeah, the funny thing for me is I took me until I was an adult to realize that I was creative

because I remember my pretty formative experience was in early, early school when I'd be in an art class and I'd be told, draw this or do that or whatever. I just was not good at drawing. I never was good at drawing. And in my head, like creativity and art was all about drawing. Sure. Because that was my first time doing anything creative in a school setting.

So then I went like almost probably 15 years thinking I'm not creative, right? And so it took me to being an adult to realize that creativity, can have all these other forms, right? It's not just like, can you draw a pretty picture, right? Well, you could also, you could learn. You could learn creativity. You could learn taste. You can learn all those things.

It's somewhere in you. Well, you could learn it. Absolutely. I had no taste when I walked into the record plant in John Landon Studio in 1973. I had zero taste. I went from three albums with him, two albums with Springsteen, and one album with Patty Smith, and I left.

with taste. But I often find that a lot of people have great taste, but they don't have the ability to create things that meet their taste level. Like taste can, taste can be inherent in some people. You know, what you do then is you have an eye for people that do have the gift and you surround yourself with them. You know, I learned that at 19 years old. I came, I was living in my mother's house in Brooklyn and Red Hood Brooklyn. My father was a longshoreman. And I met John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen. I did those records and I got an apartment. I said, okay, I meet people like this. My life is going to be okay. I just got to make sure that I don't get thrown out of the room. Yeah. So when you're running a company, leave your ego out of it and realize somebody does

something better than you. And don't defend anything. Don't defend your ignorance. You know, just go for it and just say, okay, this person is great. I'm going to be of service to this person, even if they work for you. Yeah. To get them loyal to your company and loyal to you. And, you know, that's what I always do. I got a pretty good eye for seeing who's gifted, and I try to make their life as great as possible. Yeah, that resonates on a smaller scale where I knew I would care.

not great at I'm not great at drawing out a logo for example but I can find people that can make great logos and I realize I could at least work with headphones. Yeah. Yeah, we come out of music, me and Dre, so people's to go, well, of course you guys are in the recording studio, of course you knew how to make headphones. I mean? Where would you put out? If you gave Bruce Springsteen two pieces of wood, he's not coming out with a guitar.

No way. Okay. Or Keith Richard. we had to go and learn. What we did was we found people that really were good at this and bring them in. And we just added the idea of what was wrong. What was wrong is that everyone was listening to music, an entire generation, including yours and yours, on those little free earbuds that Apple would give out. So Dre said to me, man, I spend all day in the studio and my kids are listening on these ridiculous things. So we said, okay. So then we decide we're going to make a headphone.

Then everyone tells us you can't, to get a great headphone, they'd be like $300 at retail. They said, well, that's not going to work because Apple gives them away for free and so does Samsung. We said, okay, our job is to get them on people's head. Once they hear it, they're not going back. And that's what we did. So we brought culture and we got them on people's head to try them. And then once young people started trying them, they wanted it for Christmas. Was that expensive?

I remember the story of you paying to advertise G-thing, right? That was a song. That was a song. That was a song. But it was a contrarian move because I feel like pulling the trigger on a big ad spend before an artist has really broken through is risky. but how did that change your I don't I don't know spell risk either okay what I mean I just I just I do I wake up in the morning and I do what I feel yeah and I do what makes

sense I talk to the people that are around me and I don't care about the risk I really don't I never did I just do what's right for the project and sometimes you know you cut a lot of flack because you know when you're at a big company or something the budgets and things like that but I I just get myself with situations where I leave them if I can't just do what I want to do. Sure. You know? I try to make a life of just doing what I want to do.

Yeah. Over the years, how did you think about bringing in new business partners? You have some early success working with some set of people. You start meeting other great people. In your mind, how are you deciding whether to spend time and partner with new people versus sticking with the band? I'm very, I'm very positive person. So I always get people to benefit of the doubt and try it, you know. And you could tell pretty quick if something's going to work or it's not.

If it's not, say sorry. And if it does, go in further. I try a lot of things. You know, I'm not, it's, I'm not precious about anything. Once I figure what I'm doing, I'm precious about that. Yeah. But as far as the education and learning how to get, look, we would have never done this school. I mean, you know, if we were nervous about things, I mean, we knew nothing about what we were doing.

And I think we have one of the best, if not the best school in this area in the country. Yeah. You know? So that's a good thing. There's obviously a big technological transition in music with AI. Going back maybe before streaming, what was the first technological shift you were? remember in the music industry. I mean, Napster, I mean.

Yeah, before Napster even. Is that synthesizers? I mean, I go back a long time, you know, stereo. Okay. You know, multi-track recording, you know, where do you want to start? Yeah, but what was that like? Was there a discussion about it or was it something that just, you know, was adopted behind the scenes and the consumer of music didn't even know?

It's always the, because of stuff like that, it was expensive. always the professionals you know like you could hear the first time a phaser one of the first times a phaser was used on a record and Jimmy Hendricks you know you could hear when the Beatles got stereo they walked in the studio one day because I knew those guys and there was two speakers instead of one yeah you know Paul will tell you he has told people they say okay they thought at the beginning oh twice as loud yeah but there's more to it there's more to it so you know it's gone all the way there's drum machines the drum machine was big. Yeah. You know, I was fortunate because Roger Lynn used to be a guitar

player and he was playing on one of my sessions when he was creating this thing. He had the computer in there with him and was creating a drum machine. So I got to see that really early on, but then Prince exploded it. Yeah. You know, so AI is, you know, it's a little different. Do you think people thought it was a risk? I mean, I know risk is not in your vocabulary, but four prints to adopt the drum machine. It was bold. Bold. It was very bold because, remember, this guy is a great, great musician.

That had the greatest musicians playing around him. So he said, I'm going to simplify it. I'm going to go to a drum machine here. That's bold and brilliant. He was one of the guys that exploded it, you know, that really took it, went all the way. Yeah. The boldness, that feels like that's, like, when you're thinking about, stereo or the drum machine or synthesizers there's the an opportunity for boldness

on the side of the musician did that same opportunity for boldness exist in the streaming transition in the social media era in the AI era okay let's go to streaming you have to go to iTunes first yeah that was very bold because the record industry didn't want to license it you know musicians didn't want to sell their songs at a dollar a time But on the other, but out the back door, they were being given away on MP3, you know, all day, right? So what Steve and Eddie had was a really good idea, an elegant way to match their iPod. You know, they had a piece of software that was really elegant.

And it worked. And these guys understood the culture. Steve, my first five conversations with Steve job was about John Lennon and Bob Dylan. He really cared and understood, hey, he went out with Joan Baez, right? So he understood the culture. And he understood. He had a feel for it, you know. So that was a big step.

And then streaming was another big step. Daniel Eck was a brilliant guy, you know. We came to the market. We had beats music and at Interscope, and we sold to Apple. And then we worked with the guys up there and made Apple Music. How do you think streaming changed music production or the decisions that musicians make? I mean, I've heard at least anecdotal evidence that albums got longer or there's more songs because that gives you more shots to go viral in the algorithm. I think it's all that with social media.

Okay. It's in a lot of ways, it's great because it gave artists power and a platform to market themselves, which is what artists want and need and should have. But it also made a lot of artists and record company people chase that. Sure. Whatever the latest TikTok thing is, and that can be pretty ridiculous at times, right? So I think that affected music more sonically and creatively. than streaming did personally maybe more songs or whatever yeah great but even that more songs thing came out of sound cloud yeah and uh tick talk and and instagram just putting stuff out

yeah i was uh i was talking to a buddy uh in in malibu and he's produced 20 30 billboard number one's like really, really impressive career. And he's for decades now received. People will send him demos and he always says he likes to listen because he wants to be working with, you know, up and coming talent. And he said over the last year, it's become harder to judge who's, who's got potential and who doesn't because of AI, because anybody can make a song that sounds at least decent and maybe there's a threat of a good idea in there. And so he said it's just become impossible to understand. And to me, that signals that it's going to become even harder to break into the music

business because, and suddenly anyone can make a song, right? Like, Suno, shockingly quickly in about, it takes, in my experience, about 10 seconds to make something. And there's patterns. You can, if you... Well, we don't want to start with this. Yeah, yeah. Just cover a lot of ground, okay?

Yeah, yeah. But I guess my main question is, like, does it become the... These previous technology trends in music, the professionals, the existing professionals got access to them first. They were expensive to adopt, things like that. Now with AI, anybody in the entire world can get access to it. And I'm wondering, is that mean you're going to have a lot more people breaking into the music industry or less just because competition is like-

Well, do you want to talk about the licensing of AI, the actual use of AI or the production of it? want to where do you want to start right you know where where well well specifically what is it what do you think it means for emerging uh talent well let's use the word talent if you really have talent it'll help you it'll help you create as a tool you know what i mean it's like you has the right question stereo yeah it made sergeant pepper better yeah okay uh the drum machine made prince's first album fantastic you know or second on, whatever that was.

You know, so I think as a tool, it's going to be fabulous. You know, a lot of these companies that are creating AI music right now are doing so on unlicensed music in mass, like 60 million tracks or something like that. Well, those, in my opinion, those are going to be like the Khazar of this moment. It's got to get under control to a certain extent that there should be, I mean, in this particular, particular case, there's going to be some kind of government regulations or there should be something, right? For proper licensing. If you use these three influences in the creation of this AI song, those three artists get compensated. That's right. The prompts should get paid. Yes. Right. Yeah. So, but there's a lot of

cowboys and they're going to run around doing this stuff, you know, but that's not, I don't think that's where it's going to shine, you know, like can people make songs, you know, easier, lower, Can somebody who was Instagram influencer go out and make a song because they know how to dance and jump around and get people's attention? Possibly. But there's crap now. There'll be crap then. They'll be crap now. Maybe the crap will get more interesting.

Who knows? But as far as the great artists, you know, Kendrick Lamar, Alicia Olivia Dean, you know, some great people that are C-Math, some of these young artists that are just fantastic. You know, St. Harrison. Some of these great, great, that kid's saying Harrison, there ain't no AI that can sing like that kid. You know, so something like that, you know, is, you know, not going to be there. Because what AI can't do is grow up in a terrible home. AI can't have a broken heart, you know, so, you know, AI is not going to be Dolly Part. Art has always been about stories.

you look at a modern art museum and there's the constant refrain. My kid could have drawn that, but you didn't, and there's not provenance, and there's not a journey, and a story behind it. I'm not afraid of AI, and I met a lot of people that are working on, and none of them truly scare me, you know, or she's scare anyone for that matter. And, you know, so I think it's a tool. I think Dre said last week on some interview that it's a tool, and that's what it is.

But the licensing, the artist that it's learning off of the way this product is, look, when the Beatles came out, they were influenced by little Richard and Buddy Holly, right? Yeah. They didn't get paid. But now if you're influenced by the Beatles and Dr. Dre, they will get paid. And I got to tell you, everyone's always tough on the labels. But I think I'm watching the labels closely and I talk to the guys that are running it. right a bit because I know them all for years. Yeah.

I think they're handling this problem right in the beginning because they have to, the things that are out there just randomly licensing, not licensing, ignoring it. And thinking that they're going to, I think that's, I don't think that works. It most certainly doesn't, I grew up, I grew up for the first 18 years of my life, relying on musical artists. They changed my life and a lot of people's around me's life. So that music deserves to be paid. You don't just come in and think, I don't believe, I don't believe that.

So I'm an older guy. I, you know, I've been around a long time, so something's a good about that. Some things get a little stale. Yeah. But I believe that how the labels are handling those particular cases is the right way. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the technology should be able to help here. Of course, there needs to be legal precedent, but, I mean, if you look at the way YouTube's handled it,

if I upload a video with the Dr. Drey song on it that's that any money that I earn from that's going to route it automatically yes yes it wasn't but pretty pretty quickly and why they sold the Google was they had to pay out a bunch of money well because that's going to happen here too exactly you know but but the money will flow though but what but the chain reaction that this causes unfortunately is the life the people that are giving out licenses shrink Meaning they shrink what they're going to, they lessen what they're going to do. And it's going to cause a lot of this product everybody's excited about to really be dumbed down.

Oh, yeah. All right? So, you know, a couple of companies have gotten licensed. I guarantee you, I don't know, but I guarantee you, in my opinion, that those, that product would be dumbed down. Yeah. You know, so where the thing will shine is when you get producers that learn how to do this. Yeah. You know, when stereo first came out in an extreme, there were records a Beatle record, where

the drums were on the right and the vocal was on the left. All right, but then people learn how to blend things to get. So a lot of producers are using AI right now, and it's really helping them. Sure. I mean, what they do is they even copy the AI, you know, the idea. What's going to break, it'll break a log jam in your head. Is that the best way that you see artists using AI as essentially pre-visualization, like what would happen? That's what I see.

The guys that I know, you know, the producers that I know, I talk to them, you know. And I keep in touch with a lot of producers because I was a producer. And I relate in the record business, I really relate to record businesses that had journey and stuff, you know. So when I was at Inoscope, it was driven by record producers. You know, Swiss beats, Farrell, Dre, Timberlin, you know. Will I Am, Polona, Don, all these guys who were at Interscope at one time or another. I hope I didn't leave anybody out. I'm sure I didn't.

I'm sorry. But, you know, they are learning how to use this. It will come from them. And, yeah, they'll be, look, they're artists out now that can barely sing happy birthday. Okay. Okay. Okay, so, so what's simply if you can barely sing happy birthday if you can't say happy birthday at all, right? So that, they will always be boring, silly, you know, records like that, right?

But the great artists and the great producers will maybe create real masterpieces, you know, because of this, it'll spark something. So I'm very pro-AI. I just think that in the beginning, there's always the wild way. in anything like this. You've seen it enough. You just go, okay, it'll. But the guys that are running the labels are really trying to do the right thing here.

And I think in this particular case, the artist and the labels are aligned. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, what do you think? So knowing some of these entrepreneurs that are building in the space, they would push back and say, within streaming,

if somebody was illegally streaming or pirating a song, They are taking a product that an artist and a label produced, and they're just consuming that product without paying. That is objectively wrong. In this situation, they are training on a bunch of music to create something entirely new off of that, and they would argue that... That's fair use? They would argue that that's fair use in the way that, like you said, the Beatles had their own inspiration.

I know, but that's the argument, right? fair use or isn't a fair use? The artist and the labels think it's not fair use and somebody's making a lot of money on a new company thinks it is fair use. But but here's but here's convenient arguments. Yeah yeah and you know these companies are making money providing a tool and I'm not I'm actually not taking aside one way or another but they're making an art they make money from selling a tool that lets you create music and but the the what's also happening is people are creating that music and then they're going back to the labels and they're going back to artists and they're making new music that then gets listened to and

monetize the normal way. So I would argue in some ways that the music industry and artists are, yes, their music is being used to train models that then create other music, but they are also beneficiaries of that. Yeah, but there are some people that are dead. Sure. Yeah. So, you know, Wilson Pickett is not going to grow up and make a new record. So if you're learning on Wilson Pickett, I believe that his estate should make money. I believe that if you're learning on, you know, somebody who's around today, George, not George Harrison, you know, like any of the artists that are around today where you're learning from their music, they should get, the prompts should get paid.

It's going to be hard to monitor, hot to police and all that stuff. But they'll figure that out, you know. I just don't think that it's fair use. I don't think it's free. Yeah. You know, I just don't. That's what I'm coming from.

I just saw this at the social media addiction trials. Like big settlements can come decades down the road and be basically benchmarked to revenue and the money can flow, but it takes a long time to go through the court system. That's just the way I think of America. So what? So what? But it has to be done right.

and it's a wonderful technology for music. It's fantastic. But, you know, this has to be deals made. Yeah, of course, of course. Always. What do you think about the future of live performances in the age of AI? It feels like it could be a really important proof of humanity,

proof of talent. I went to the show. Sure, maybe there was some auto tune in the loop, but I watched them perform. And if they can perform to a sort of a sort of, certain level, that gives me more confidence in the rest of their library. I happen to be fortunate. I have a really good friend in that business named Michael Rapino. He's the CEO of Live Nation. I learn a lot about the live business from

him. Plus I grew up. My friends playing live all the time, you know. So I think live is live. Do you want to see somebody performing live, spilling their guts on the stage, or do you want to see a hologram or something? You know, I don't know. I'd rather see the person live group is just more exciting. So I don't know. I don't think there's any problem with that. I don't think there's, I don't think it crosses. I just don't see it, you know, I don't see it. I don't know the future. I have no idea. I'm not going to be here anyway. So, but, but it's, you know, I don't know. I have no idea. I would just expect it to to grow. I don't know. It feels like the, the Eros tour was such a moment and there's these certain moments

that happen in American culture where shelling points, everyone comes together around a certain thing and you know it's simple you got a new technology yeah it's going to be great it is great and it's going to be even better people are going to use it but there's going to be licenses and there's going to be people get paid for and then the great talent and the great artists are going to show the world how to use it yeah it's that simple to me it happens every time yeah you know so i'm not i i it all comes down to what we talked about first, which is, what's great about this is it's teaching young people.

That's where multidisciplinary behavior comes in. This is technology and you're creative, right? So when you really understand technology and you really understand the creative, you're going to really do well. So you shouldn't be siloed in school. You shouldn't go to a school where all you do is play the guitar all day. You know what I mean? It's just, to me, that doesn't work.

I mean, Julia's a nice place, and I'm glad it exists, but, or Berkeley, whatever, you know, but it's not where I see the world going. Not if anybody cares, but me personally, I'm on this show, as you two guys care. Do you think AI can help bridge that original gap that we were talking about when I think about what it takes for a creative person to build a hardware product, for example? There's a lot of technical hurdles that can now be broken down. Before there were things to break it down. Let's put it this way.

Dre and I had a record company. Okay. We're creative people. We built record producers. We built the biggest headphone company in the world. That's hardware, okay? And the reason why it's hard because it's goddamn hard. Okay?

It's why not everybody doesn't. So we did it. Right? We're creative guys that built a piece of hardware. That's why we started the school. It's all needs to be. be working together. Yeah.

You know, and we built the number one. Beets was the number one headphone in 50 countries when we sold to Apple. Yeah. So we did it. And because we live in a multidisciplinary world. We were both recording engineers, me and Dre. Yeah. And so we come from the non-wall background, you know, and, um,

So that's why we built a school. Yeah. It's that's it. And you know, it's, when you go look at these, most companies right now, technology, design, engineering, design. Yeah. Don't talk, Richard. There's a lack of communication and a lack of understanding.

Again, I asked the question again in case somebody just tuned in. Why can software companies not build really successful consumer? products. There has to be an, I don't have the answer, but you guys are really smart. He talked to everybody in the world. I don't know why. But there has to be something at the core of what's going on that challenges that. No one could say, no, he's wrong. No, I'm right. No, you're right. Yeah, well, you know, one of the things, you brought up, you brought up meta. You brought up one of the, I think one of the reasons that's been successful is they didn't

try to reinvent too many things. They just made a good, looking pair of glasses that also had a camera in it and that was enough that's been a little they sold two million they didn't sell 20 million we sold two million headphones in Brooklyn you know it's not a really say it's not a massively success yeah hired oculus to get the to get you know and by the way in fairness I would argue that different I have a pair and I enjoy using it it's fun but that does not a story make yet yeah they make it now I know who they hired that a head of the hardware division and he's

really good. So, but are there people at that company that can really communicate and empower him and that type of stuff? I don't know, right? I don't know. Metta's a great company. Mark Zuckerberg is brilliant. But do I know about that? I don't know. They've done a good job at getting that product out. Yeah. Is, I feel like one of the big lessons that people in the school should, should hopefully, should hopefully be imprinted on their minds, is that you can be wildly successful in business without creating anything that's exactly new, right? Like, you, you guys didn't create, you created desire and you created an amazing product, but you didn't create the headphone.

And I think that when a lot of people think about entrepreneurship and creativity and business, they think I need to come up with some totally novel idea, right? Well, it starts out by I don't think I'm Steve Jobs. Okay? But even Steve didn't, he didn't create the, he didn't create the phone. No, but he had a much bolder attitude towards life than I did. He's much smarter than I am, right? Somebody asked me, what's the difference between you and Steve Jobs?

It's very simply smarter than me when we were hanging out together. But, no, you don't have to invent something new. I mean, headphones weren't new, but the attitude of headphones was new. Boz was out there saying, buy my headphone for $300 and we're going to help you sleep. We were like, this is taking candy from a baby. Right? We are not going to help you sleep. You know, we are going to rock your head.

The ads were silence, not music. You know, it's the opposite of music. Exactly. So we had a real edge there. And they all look like medical equipment. Yeah. So your job as an entrepreneur is to find that hole in the market, right? Yeah.

Where's there a hole? We knew there was a hole there because Dre, first of all, most computers had their speakers facing the table. So that was like, okay, great, let's face them up. We're geniuses. Let's get a picture. Right? No, there's so many times when you're looking at different categories, specifically with, I find it with consumer products where you're like, is there like a law that says that it has to be done this way?

And oftentimes you do a little bit of research. we're going back to understanding each other, right? Computers, like I went through a couple of computer companies, not Apple, right? And I witnessed this firsthand to where engineering, the audio budget in a computer at the time was 50 cents. Okay? Wow. It's nothing. Right.

So you want to know why, and music was being played through it. Yeah. Guess what? That's not enough. Yeah. You know? So, but that's where the breakdown is. Yeah.

Because design and engineering clash. Yeah. And that's where I keep saying it over and over again, but it's true. That's where our school comes in to help training people that are going to become the new engineers and the new designers and the new entrepreneurs to understand the why of each other's discipline. You know, it sounds like kumbaya, but it's not. You know, it's real. Yeah. Was there anything else you looked at in terms of product ideas, business ideas before settling on headphones?

Yeah, well, it came out of a real frustration of the record business because the record business, again, the record business at a time was really cool. And, you know, music was the right thing to do and all that. But when when I met Steve and those guys, cool had moved the technology, and I felt it. You know, I felt the shift. And I said, okay, the first guy that was really cool with technology was Marita from Sony. The original founder of Sony. He had the Walkman, you know, he really got it. Oga, who replaced him, really got it.

He bought Columbia Pictures and Columbia Records. That's right. Right? And then they kind of screwed it up because it got said, and that gave Apple the opening to go take that idea. which Steve has said many times publicly. And so when I saw that, I said we have to learn a new trick. We have to move.

I believe companies need to move laterally. I do. I felt the in, I felt record companies especially needed to move laterally. That's why we created beats and beats music inside of Interscope. We did it at the company. So we built a company in beats. that was bigger than Interscope in six years, right?

So obviously, tech and design and creativity all belongs in the same box. It's all just moving your company, like we have a company called Complex right now. And what we're trying to do there, we brought back Mark Echko, we have Aaron Levant, my son Jamie's there, and we're trying, we have a lot of really good people

and we're trying to mix disciplines in it. And we are creating an AI, product alongside of it that will blend all these things together and not all of them, but the things that we have together because we're firm believers in that. You know, the record industry needs to move laterally. They need to own the enterprise of AI, not just license to everyone. That's, you know. Oh, yeah.

Interesting. They should own the enterprise. Why not? You know, there is no reason why not instead of licensing to everyone. only enterprise yourself. Yeah. Right? We own beats. Yeah. Why is there so much historical sort of disaggregation in the music industry?

Like the actual relationship between the artists and the end consumer, it's always been intermediated and it feels like that's been a problem. It's insane and it's ridiculous. Okay? All artists want is be able to communicate with their audience. And ask me why Spotify and Apple Music don't have social. Yeah. I know why Apple Music doesn't, and I don't know why Spotify doesn't, but that's why I said on an interview once recently that streaming is minutes away from being obsolete.

What I meant by that is unless they adapt to what artists really want, the artists are very resourceful. Right now they got to go to Instagram, TikTok, you know, it's like a silly game. And that has to be fixed. That has to be fixed quickly because, and the labels who have all this historic music need to be in the loop. Whether they like it or not, they are a tech company. And they have to adjust to that. And if they don't, I believe it's not going to be great for them.

Yeah, yeah, the Spotify story is interesting. I mean, Sean Parker obviously involved in both Facebook and Spotify, and so I think they had this, like, delicate truce, because if you remember in the early days of Spotify, everything you'd listen to would be shared on Facebook, and that was a huge growth driver. But that's not why Spotify's not social. I don't believe that.

Apple's not social because Apple Music was, they don't, look, when we were there, we wanted to buy musically. Oh, yeah. Whoa. That's crazy. We brought those guys up there twice, but Apple doesn't do social and they shouldn't do social. I get why they shouldn't. I was on the tail.

I was on the tail wagging the dog, you know what I mean? I was on the tail. So, you know, I understood why they didn't do it. Yeah. But we, Trent Reznor and I instinctively knew, especially Trent, that we needed social. Yeah. And it's going to be limited without that. So, you know, look, Apple, so far out of all the companies I found that, they're still

the most interesting, you know, because they still have that DNA in them. They just said, we're not going to, we don't do social. Fine. They don't. So that was not a good fit, you know, so. But that's cool. But it doesn't mean that music doesn't need it. Right now, you know.

you're not giving the artists what they want. And the pay structure in streaming is all screwed up. So if you're married, I see you're married, you got a ring on your fingers. Maybe you have kids. If you have two or three kids, you have the family plan. Oh, yeah. If you listen to, what's your favorite music? My favorite artist is Yeat.

Yeats. Yeah. Oh, great. Okay. So you listen to that and your kids listen to. Elmo. Or their babies. Okay, well, let's say they listen to Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar and you listen to Fleetwood Mac and yeah, yeah. And Madonna, right? I'm paying, but the kids are listening disproportionately.

Yes, they mean on the button all day. Yeah. So guess who gets paid all you pay the bill, but it's paid. Crazy. But Fleetwood Mac doesn't get anything. Almost breaking it in. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But that's that, so the structure. So, yeah. Streaming is flawed and not complete, but Daniel's brilliant, Alex is really talented, those guys at Spotify, so they're going to figure a lot out. They may be thinking a whole other paradigm that I don't even understand, right? So, but someone who helped bring streaming service to light, I can tell you that they're all missing social. Yeah. Period. And that's why I have a crew of guys and girls that I work with. We're looking at something right now that's really interesting. We're doing it with one of the main companies. And we have an idea that we believe is unique and good and great for the artist and great for the labels. And that's what we're going to do.

Yeah, we've had some guys from Spotify on, and I think that one of the interactions I was most excited about that they've been working on and working towards is making sure that the people that are listening to artists the most get access to the concert tickets, right? Because an artist doesn't necessarily benefit if they're self-serving. You know, I mean, I get it, but the artists should be doing that. Sure. Yeah. Again, you don't need third parties to do a lot of this stuff. you know why why do the labels need third parties to deliver their music i'll tell you why they don't right but they do right so that all should evolve with the artists in the front of the paradigm

you know making the money and doing great and communicating so um you're not very differently in in Hollywood with Disney Plus and Hulu? Well, hang on. Yes and no, and I'll tell you why. Because when Netflix came to town, they came to town with a big checkbook. And unfortunately, all these companies are public. Now, I'm going to make this official. This is my opinion, okay?

But they all licensed them their music. At least most of them did. Why? Because they got big checks and helped make their numbers. Well, guess what? they created a monster right and now they're trying to catch up right so music is the same thing they license their music to spotify apple music and amazon well Spotify is worth more than all the labels together yeah guess what guess how much IP they own zero somebody's podcast maybe or something

you know maybe they're going i don't know but that's but that's the point so the movie business didn't get it. They got it late, at least they got it. And I think that's going to happen to music. I think the music companies are going to be more involved, and AI is the opening to do it. AI is the road to, that doesn't mean Spotify is not, but Spotify is going to half the morph as well. Okay, and just no ride goes forever. When I was a kid, not a kid, I'm sorry, I wasn't a kid. I was 2002. I was nowhere near a kid.

Just a spring chicken. I was nowhere near a kid, it doesn't too. But when I saw Piracy, I went and met with three tech companies. And one of the tech companies, very high up guy at Intel, said to me, Jimmy, this is a great. I started talking about the recording studio and the people that are suffering. And, you know, it's not the big stars. It's the kids in the studios. And he said, what a fabulous story.

He said, Jimmy, but not every industry was made to lay. forever. That was powerful. Right? I said he's right. Sorry, this music thing had a good run. And the rest of my thing to say. But it's not music. It's the business of music and what that looks like, right? So I carried that with me. And then when I met Stephen Eddie after that, I said, holy shit, these guys, they're the next step. So there is a next step now. And Spotify may grab it. You know, they have all the tools available and the money, the capital, and everything. So they could recreate their business all the time. And you got a guy like Alex running it, who's really, really talented.

The people at Apple are really talented. You got Oliver and that team over there. They're all really good. So maybe they'll morph the company into something that it needs to be. Or maybe the labels will figure it out. And they'll do more of what this new model needs to be. But to have to be just a licensor of music to me, first of all, is boring. Second of all, has nothing to do with any other discipline in the world.

It doesn't. Yeah. And you need to have a proper company today. You have to have blend of disciplines inside your company. proven by two great, great people, Marita from Sony and Steve Jobs at Apple, period. They got it top to bottom, and they set the tone. Who out there doesn't want to be Steve Jobs, right?

They, you know, everybody, he's the new Steve Jobs, he's the old Steve Jobs, he's the old Steve Jobs, you know, he's not Steve Jobs, he is Steve Jobs. Yeah, and it's saying something I've never, everyone wants to be, and yet I've never seen someone in thought, damn, they're the new Steve Jobs. Of course, they're missing what Steve was. Steve was the ultimate.

He knew it. He knew the goal was where technology and the liberal arts meet. And there's nothing more evident than that than in AI. Yeah. You know, so. Do you think you would have liked AI? I don't know. I never tried.

I was a friend of mine. Yeah. He has an incredible wife, Lorraine Powell Jobs. He was an incredible human being. Yeah. incredible people. I can't speak for them. For Steve, he was his own guy, but you know. Yeah. Yeah. A friend of the show was trying to compare AI messaging to the launch of garage band and democratization of creative tools. And I thought there were some good points there.

Although he didn't like streaming. Yeah. He was very public about that. Yeah. But who knows what, maybe he was right. You mentioned the tail wagging the dog. at Apple, if you're a tail, should you try and wag the dog? Is that advice that you would give to someone who works in a large organization? If they're interdisciplinary, they're bold. What I was saying is that, look, there's no, there's no hiding at big companies, music, outside of music companies,

nobody wants to tail wagging the dog. But is it a fool's errand to try? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But I always use Apple an example because I think it's run really well. They blend it as well as you could blend it. You know, Steve was a big music guy and so is Eddie.

So they do it really well. But, you know, I think the record company should do it. I really do. I don't get it. I think that they should do it. They should take it on themselves. And Spotify is a music company. They can do it. Live Nation.

Isn't there some interesting positioning that the record companies, at least if they banded together, could work with the artist to say, hey, you have a not, if you work with, if you subscribe to Apple Music or Spotify, Spotify and Apple Music are taking a big cut? If you work with us, a lot more revenues actually going to the artists. Is that, is that like how you position it? I don't, I don't, I don't know. I don't know if that's right. I just, because it's, it's a hard bell to unring. Yeah. I'm going to look at it streaming. That happened already. I don't think the labels are going to start streaming services. You know, not in any time short in the next few years. Anyway, but I do think there could be a new AI business.

Yeah. And that's where the opportunity lies. And you have Spotify, you have the labels, you have the artists. So there's something in there that needs to evolve out of this that makes more sense. you know and I I see it all together I but I always have that's why we started the school we started yeah it's just all goes back to that it's just the way people think that's how we think yeah I mean obviously the answer is probably both but I would it be interested to see if you were more optimistic about the entrepreneurship that comes out of your school or the transformation within within industry

the school was built to transform inside the industry okay yeah it was it was built for jobs It turned into an entrepreneurial place. Of course. You know, I guess we caught that wave. Everybody wanting to be like one of these guys, or Zuckerberg or something. But it was made to help communication inside Apple, Google, all these giant companies that are taking over the entertainment business, literally. So it's not going to happen in my lifetime, but we wanted to build as many people as possible to infiltrate and help make that. that all one thing rather than have to be a tail wagging, a dog.

You know, I mean, look, Intel's buying Paramount and Warner, right? I mean, it's fundamentally. I mean, and David Ellson is terrific. You know, he's a really smart and understands where these two things cross. So hopefully there'll be some great stuff there. Yeah, it's going to be exciting. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. There you will.

Fantastic. It's an honor and pleasure. It was fun. Let's do it again as you're making some more of these plays. Oh, I don't know. But it was, you're very far from my house. Maybe you come to my house, we can do it over there. That's my way. Anyway, thanks. Oh, there's a big world behind me. I see that. Nice set. Yeah, thank you. Lighting. It's all. We reinvented television.

Well, we will see you tomorrow at 11 a.m. Sharp.