InterscopeとBeatsを作った——ジミー・アイオヴィーン

But this is before it was invented. There wasn't a there wasn't you were talking about the ideal situation before it was actually

And you looked at it even back then as like an act of service to the artist that you're working with.

Yeah. And today by the way a lot of artists are producers like Dr. Dre Timberland and some of the younger guys which I'm just not that familiar with. I've been out of the music business a while. They write the songs, they make the record, but in in my day, 80% of it was the artist, you know, Bruce Springsteen wrote the songs, had the idea, had the vision, you [laughter] know, and you helped, you know, so that's what I was coming from.

Well, Bruce was torturing me. He was he says that um he he said it himself in in an interview I think maybe in that documentary he said an artist needs to be indulged right or something like that when you're striving for something. Um well the truth was is that we would try to do something and I couldn't get it right and it took three weeks to get like a drum sound like a simple thing you know but it was really hard and I got I let my pride they brought somebody in to help and I let my pride get in the way. So I went to John Landau and uh and he said I'm going to tell you something you didn't learn in that neighborhood of yours. your mother and father didn't because he knew my family. Your mother and father didn't tell you this. This is not about you. This is about Bruce Springsteen and about the record we're making. And I'll tell you for the rest of my life that just stopped me in my tracks. And uh because the rest of my life, if you apply this is not about me, you really you could really get somewhere even if you're not that good. Just being humble enough to say that and not thinking that because you had one success that you're, you know, the Beatles or Elon Musk or Steve Jobs or whatever, you know, is that it's not about you. And if you could follow that, it's really good. One of my favorite lines from the history of entrepreneurship actually comes from Henry Ford and he said that he's like, "Money comes naturally as a result of service." And some of my favorite entrepreneurs, what I'm trying to do in my life too is it's like I'm just going to focus on making something valuable that makes somebody else's life better. And so create like an act of service. And then once you do that, just try to serve more people, right? Spread the the product, the service, in this case the podcast to as many people. And then like the squirrel will take care of itself. I won't worry about, you know, the the value coming back to me.

I think I have a humble side.

I do. Well, you know, I come from a family. My father was was a humble guy. He was a long a dock worker, a long showman, manual labor. Not, you know, I don't know a lot of people whose fathers really worked manual labor. You know, where if it's 90° down the pier, it's 120 in the hole of the ship. You know when you're carrying coffee bags, they were 100 pound a piece, right? All day. So, but he had pride, but he was humble. And if you're willing to give yourself up for a greater cause, and in my case, when I was younger, it was an album, right? If you're willing to do that and set your … aside to get someone else's vision, it takes humility to do that. And if you're truly doing that, yeah, I have some humility that I'm proud of. You know,

I'll give you the setting. He was doing the album for about two years. It was the river and uh they worked really really hard on that and he was doing it. But because I engineered his album, I knew he had a he had a tendency to bury the vocal, right? And I knew those guys really well. I knew Landown and Bruce pretty well by then. Actually, part of the story he didn't tell, which was funny, is Tom Petty was sitting next to me.

because I was producing Tom Petty at the time. We went over and visited, right? So, he plays us a double album and the and the vocal was buried. So, I just said to myself, I got one line to penetrate because I saw Bruce's face and he was serious of a … heart attack. You know what I mean? At the end of an album, he's exhausted. So I just said, "When are you going to sing it?" Right? And you know, it was very funny, but it was very clear. And they did. They went back in and they remixed the whole album, which was the right thing to do.

20.

It's one of the funniest things I I played this clip for you

No, go for it.

One of the reasons is I really don't think I walk in trying to get you to like me because I believe you do.

what I mean. I mean just that that shouldn't be sound egotistical cuz let me tell you the people that walk in a room when you meet a lot of angry people they think people aren't going to like them and it's not true. So I'm not saying that I'm arrogant. What I'm saying is that I really deal with a lot of people that are very defensive and are aggressive because they think people don't like them. And you know that we know a lot of people that are very visible right now that I can smell they think everybody hates them

I'm sure. I'm sure. But you can smell it.

And that's not ego thinking that people are going to like you. It's because I came from a home

but you're you're leaving one word out.

Brutal honesty, but an enormous amount of respect.

No, you can't do it in a disrespectful way.

What happens is you think you build these walls and you get over these fences, right? And you go, "Okay, I'm on the other side. I'm insulated. I'm this. I'm that." And then you have kids. Mhm.

What was the right attitude about their work or their product?

Yes. Yes. Absolutely. but the only one. He had soul and feel. And we bonded on John Lennin and Bob Dylan, you know, we would talk about that all the time, you know, and uh he had the same attitude that they had. Now, he was a businessman. He was a lot of things that they're not, and there are a lot of things that he isn't. But how I it translated to me was you can be in this world and have soul and um you don't find that a lot.

I helped him get the licenses for iTunes.

I helped him.

I really not that they're bad people or anything. They just they don't have that. By the way, you can like music. Like all these guys always say, "I love music. I love chocolate, but I don't understand Hershey's." Do you know what I mean? I really don't understand it. Who makes chocolate and how they make it? So, you know, you could like music all day and completely. One engineer told me once, um, we were working on something. There was going to be video involved. He said to me, I know how that should end. I love television. [laughter]

that's not the same thing, man.

You know that answer better than me.

I mean it's treated like you know ones and zeros or whatever you know because that's how it comes across. Yeah. You know and uh whatever that is you know

Let's talk about the schools.

how did you know there's a need for a new school though?

That long ago. Wow.

And you, it was you and Dr. Dre. You endowed it with $70 million to get started. Okay.

We [laughter] had no idea. We're not afraid to do things we have no idea we're doing. And we put our own money up, right? So that's, you know, I don't care who you are. That's a lot of money, right? But I knew there was a problem and we wanted to fix it and siloed learning and you're hearing a lot of people doing it now trying to bring all the disciplines but what they do is they bring it in through the side door. You could take a course at any other school. Our school is a school of collaboration which you saw. So if you lean towards tech or if you lean toward the arts or if you lean toward entrepreneurship or if you lean toward design, you get to work in concert. You innovate collaboratively, which is what these big companies don't have. They don't really sing in concert in harmony. And that's what I observed, right? I observed that. I don't know that I observed that. It's the problems that I had communicating and the problems they had communicating with me. And

Beats.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He just said, "I don't want to do headphones. You do them." So, we went out to a restaurant once. I'll never forget it. We went to this Greek restaurant and this was uh it was it was after he was sick and um but we went out to a restaurant and and it was one of those restaurants where they put the paper thing with they give you the crayons for the kids, you know, and they could draw. And so, we're in the middle of lunch. I said, "You know, I want to build this headphone company." He goes, "You can do it. You build a headphone company." I said, "Why don't we just do it together? I don't want to do a headphone company. You build a headphone company, right?" So, I said, "Okay." He goes, "Let me show you how." And he called a guy, took all the food. Good thing I don't care about eating one way or the other. I mean, I like food, but it's not the most important thing in my life. So, and he said, "Give me a marker." And the guy gave him a marker and he drew distribution inventory. It'll kill you. Uh, China. You can make things that are made in China, but they can't look like they were made in China. I said, "Holy shit." [laughter] I was like, "Holy shit." You know, so, and then he would guide me along the way. And he was fantastic. Right. But I thought when I started Beats that I I could I'm naive a lot. out there. I could find people like that. But I found people that are design, I found people that are engineers, I found people in popular culture. I wanted them all to understand how to collaborate. And uh I just said siloed learning is … and now we have five, six high schools and uh it's a great place. It's it's it's considered one of the best interdisciplinary schools in the country and I'm really proud of that. describe again what do I know about education and not not a lot I learned a lot in the last 15 years but really not a lot

I know how to get something done

I just know how to get something done how to get I found a I met this great dean Erica Mo I met her I said oh she could do this she was from the Rosski But I just felt instinctively that she could do it's an art school at USC.

And then there was the president Max Nas. He he was an engineer but I knew he got it you know and we built it and now it's a fabulous school you know it's a really fab a lot of people want to go there. It's fantastic. Look I work on a lot of things I don't know how to do but I can get it done. You know I don't claim to be some great technologist but I made a great headphone. I think I've studied you a lot. I've talked to you now for hours and hours and hours. I still am trying to figure out like you have this collection of I'm trying to think of like what is your your highest talent? I just ran into Steve Stout at a friend's birthday party which was really funny cuz he worked for you for a long time. I was like, "Dude, I'm seeing Jimmy soon. Can you like give me some stories?" And I I I think you're obviously a phenomenal marketer. Let me ask you like what do you actually think your talent is? And I want to tell the story that Steve told me. my talent, whatever it is, I'm learning more about now because I'm not running the companies. So, when I used to run the companies, like when I ran Innercope, when I ran Beats, and when I ran what became Apple Music, I just woke up in the day and did everything by my instinct, whatever that was in the morning. you know, it's a little more difficult to do it out at Apple than it was when there are my own companies cuz they have a giant infrastructure and um and they have, you know, I always felt like I was a bit on the tail that's wagging the dog, you know, I used to live on the dog and I the the the whole thing about

purely or listen to people, you know, and grab a piece from here and a piece from there, you know, just and synthesize. Did you go after difficult things on purpose?

the Chronic finished

and he's like I did. And he's like well who produced it? And he's like I did. And then you're like oh within a few minutes of meeting him he said something like he's going to define inner scope. But then he had a

Okay. So, what was going on?

Were there lawsuits? Were they signed? Like, what what did you There were three lawsuits. There was a RICO lawsuit, right? Uh Rico that came with Sony. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was uh

that? Gangster is

That was from the easy e thing.

Right. This in all the movies. I'm not talking out of school. So, there was a RICO lawsuit. There was a guy in prison who put supposedly put up the money for one of the album, the first album. Uh, so he was suing them from prison. Um, they were Sony and there was a company that's distributed at um Eas label that was suing as well or challenging as well. So, I had to settle all those things out, which it's kind of like if you see something great, but there's T-Rex sitting on it. [laughter] And most people would avoid say, "Look, there must be something else to eat."

If I see something new and great and unusual, I can't stop. That's why Beats attracted me so much. I looked at it and said, "Oh … people are wearing these things on their head and they look like medical equipment. There's nothing attractive about a headphone."

Well, their marketing thing is we you can go to sleep with us. I'm like, "That's ridiculous. What a marketing thing, right? Keep you know." So I said, "No, no, no. We want to wake you up." Okay, hold on. I want to pause here. Cuz I text Daniel Ek, right? Founder of Spotify. And I was like, "Tell me like, give me some ideas." Cuz he's known you forever. He told me the first time we ever had dinner. He's like, "I only lost two deals in my life." And both of them were to Jimmy, which is hilarious.

Oo, that's good.

Yes.

It was all about moving incope laterally. I think companies should move laterally and they don't. Most companies don't move laterally out of fear. That's why what I'm doing with Complex right now, which we'll talk about in a minute, I got the opportunity. I came out of retirement a bit because I got another bite at the apple because I couldn't finish my thought on streaming.

Like for example, Innercope was a music company, right? I wanted to make the hardware to listen to it. I wanted to have a streaming service. I wanted to distribute my own music. So, I wanted to have the complete thought. But I wanted to make the music, have the artists that make the music, distribute the music, and then have the instrument you listen to it on. So that's moving laterally. I I would also wanted, which I'm doing now with Complex, to have e-commerce so artists can communicate in different ways with their audience. So these businesses that other artists, let's just use musicians for example, are starting now. You were the only one that did it inside of a record label.

Well, I I just considered it reflex. You know what we did was I said, "Okay, you got to understand whenever there's gatekeepers on anything, your job is to figure out a way around the gatekeeper with something you really believe in. Whether the gatekeepers are people at your own company or people in, you know, at radio stations or at wherever the gatekeepers are, your job is to skate around them. Right? So I said, "Okay, let's do this. Let's make a minute commercial of Gang," which was Dre's first single with Snoop, right? I said, "Let's make a 60-second spot." Now, I don't want anything said before it or after it. I just want it to play.

Yes. And we did on the 50 top market. Spent a fortune doing it.

I said this is the same thing as Guns and Roses. Period.

It means that it's counterculture that people are going to relate to it. People that feel marginalized and feel isolated and feel angry. And it represents an entire culture that people are going to relate to. And that's what Guns and Roses did. That's what the Rolling Stones did. That's what Nirvana did. That's what James Brown did. It's that thing, you know, that moves people. So, yeah, I instinctively felt that.

I I said, "Play this." He goes, "I can't play this." And he had the remote in his hand. His TV was on behind him. I said, "I can't because we play this." And it was three women singing and then the next video was a guy and, you know, and all this, but it was pure pop music, right? And uh I said he said I don't know how to program. I said put it next to Guns and Roses and if it doesn't work please never play an Innercope record again.

So he put it on.

You don't have to be talented to know that. I mean it's just … obvious. You know what I mean? You know ask Ruben. He knew it before me. Right.

So, but what it caused was all these kids, sons of senators, daughters of senators, congress people, business people, they they came home and wanted those records. And when that happened, that's what led to the whole falling out with Time Warner that we had when we when Aircope got thrown out of Time Warner over the lyrics because Bob Dole, uh, Dolores Tucker, Bill Bennett, right, who was the education star or whatever he was at the time, you know, all those guys. Bill Clinton went on the floor of the Senate and you know Bob Dole said we were I don't know some somebody said we were a Mustang Gas Factory or something like

But I've been involved with I was involved with John Lennon. They tried to throw him out. I was when I was doing his album Nixon was lit. He had to go to court every day during Wols and Bridges cuz Nixon was trying to throw him out of the country. That was real.

That was real.

So, you got him on MTV, you got him on the radio. Once you play the ads on the radio, then people start calling.

they start calling the radio station, like play that song that is an ad.

Well, he founded Mottown.

During Jim Crow, you know what I mean? So, his artists weren't even allowed off the bus. They was they were considered race records. He had to get those records played. He had to get that into the white market. What he did, talk about wrestling the earth from fools. Barry Gordy, miracle what he did. And he made the greatest music in the world. So when he got when he pushed it stuck. See if you know what you have is going to stick. And if you're passionate about it, then just break through that wall cuz there going to be a lot of resistance. But if it sticks, you win.

It has to stick though.

right?

Well, if you if you're an entrepreneur and you see something work, you can extrapolate what else will work, right? And that's what he did. But I mean the these guys have built businesses that dwarf anything I've ever even dreamed of, you know, but they're they can extrapolate, you know, like for example beats, right? We have this I was always frustrated that the music industry didn't have customers. It drove me crazy.

They don't have a customer. They still don't have a customer.

right? Instagram does. Tik Tok does. MTV did constantly the music the streaming services do. For some reason, the music industry is allergic to a customer. Okay. And I don't know why, but they don't have a end user.

always?

radio and TV

Yeah. But I want to vertically integrate if you call it that to fashion. I I I mean

We're causing it. causing it.

You were insistent and relentless with this.

but I put a lot more money in the videos. Everybody benefited. You know what I mean? And it was a time that the industry was desperate. So yeah, man. You know, we did that and it worked. worked is an understatement.

Marketing is empathy.

It's empathy. Marketing is understanding who you're trying to communicate with and understand them and understand from where they click and come. That's all marketing is. You can call it marketing what I do. I don't think it's marketing. I just I have a I guess I have a feel for the market of who I want to sell things or communicate with, right? I'm not Bob Dylan by any stretch of the imagination, but Bob Dylan to take it to an extreme had a feel for an entire generation and he made his product. He made it because he he was a purist. He wanted to do something great. But it turns out that was marketing. The product is marketing. If you make the product great, Steve Jobs is a great marketer. So yeah, if you know your product and you know your audience, I guess that's a great marketer. But all it is is empathy. Understanding what somebody else is feeling on a massive scale. All of the founders and extreme winners that I have studied have this one trait in common. They have excessively high energy levels. If you're going to be the best at what you do, you need to maximize your energy and output. And that's why I've partnered with Function. I signed up for function long before they were a sponsor of this podcast. And when you sign up, they ask you what your health goals are. And my response in all capital letters was maximum energy. Function provides access to comprehensive blood tests and other lab testing to help you improve your health so you can perform at your highest level. Function has made it easy for me to monitor and improve my internal health markers so that I feel at my absolute strongest. As a member of Function, you get access to test over 100 plus biomarkers from hormones to toxins to markers for heart health, inflammation, and stress. Function gives you a straightforward analysis of all your results along with advice from expert doctors on how to improve things like your testosterone, your stress hormones, how to reduce toxins in your body, and much more. The platform is absolutely beautiful and provides an easy to understand picture of your overall health. Once you try Function, you'll immediately understand why it's the fastest growing health platform in the country. You can now join Function for just 30 65 a year. That's a dollar a day. Learn more and join by visiting functionhealth.com/enra. And use code senra25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. That is functionhealth.com/ senra.

Yeah, it was about I bought it in probably um 2011.

Three years into it. So, three years into it and it's called what was the I forgot the

Okay.

And you rename it Beats.

So, you try to run it and then you realized you had

Can't scale on your own.

They didn't see it at the time that they were in a dying or a dwindling business

So you saw it early.

Once you see, you can't put the genie back in that bottle. There's just no way.

What were they saying that made you say, "Holy shit."

The music almost goes like something you sell to something that markets another product is how you

You told me yesterday you're like, "I'm just a a hustler." [laughter]

I do work. I know. I love it. By the way, I feel the exact same way. The greatest baseball players in the world were hustlers. That's what I call a hustler.

Well, people think it is.

It's not. What I'm saying is I know how to hustle. Meaning, I'm willing to work harder than the next guy. What you did for Dre when you first met him, Dre and Suge, you're like, well, this guy's great. There's an asset in front of me, and the asset is is a big hairy problem that no one else wants to solve. And if I solve, if I can kill the T-Rex that is sitting on top of this genius, then I get to work with the genius. That is hustling. That is being resourceful. That's the same thing

Yeah.

and what what is street knowledge? It's an understanding of people as they actually are.

yeah. You lived in a neighborhood with actual gangsters.

Yeah. No, but you were in the neighborhood that, you know, the mafia was everywhere.

I know you were saying it's instinct. Maybe you weren't like there weren't words around this idea. You just understood it. But you saw it's like if I'm a college kid and I was at this time and I was using Napster and Kazah and all the other Lime Wire and all the other ones like I don't have to go to the store. I'm definitely downloading this. And now we have MP3 players. So like the record store is gone. The one of the hardest things that I had to do when I look back on my career, life, whatever it is, I've had a lot we all we all have a lot of hard things. One of the hardest things was getting Universal Reandate to give me permission to build Beats to build no to build products with my artist. Beats came three years later. This is this is when you your response to them was I don't want to be the guy that sells the last CD.

Invaded.

kept innovating and moving it. And I felt that the record business needed to stop doing, not just do what they were doing. And that was really hard because they were paying me a lot of money. They just bought my company for, I don't know, hundreds of millions of dollars, right? But I wasn't going to do it. I knew it was not what I wanted to do. And the problem is people say, "Well, the record business turned out okay." Well, it did and it didn't because Spotify is worth 150 billion and the entire record industry is worth half that together. It gets really smart. It's like for the longest time we sold it. Now you can't sell it anymore. I'm talking about music. So it, and you're not going to agree with this, it becomes advertising or marketing. These songs become advertising or marketing for another product you can sell. Whether it's, you know, concerts, they were selling concerts back in the day, products, all this other stuff that they're doing. Like you had that insight before in the music industry, before

You're right. Because they were doing the shoes, the sneakers, the alcohol,

Did they influence your thinking on this?

Because they're practical and they see the truth and they saw what it was.

AI created music.

which is their normal route of doing things.

But you know, everybody in the music industry, when you tell them this, what's their response? The people in power right now. Well, all I can tell you is I can't tell you everything that I'm doing because I think the labels are now realizing and again really what all I can tell you is Universal Music has invested in a project that we're doing called Complex that has the ability to go on and do a lot of these things that I'm talking about. It's media, it's live prey complex con, and it's e-commerce, right? I want to help the labels if I can, you know, um build enterprise around AI and not just be licensed artists. I just it I didn't I felt that way about streaming and I feel even stronger about that. They shouldn't be afraid of the tech. They shouldn't be. You don't have to understand something fully to do it. I'm proof of that. [laughter] I don't understand … anything. You know what I mean? But I know how to get it done, you know. I knew how to build a I didn't know how to build a headphone. People say to me, "Well, you're in you're a recording engineer." I said, "Bruce Briestain and Keith Richard are the greatest guitar players in, you know, my favorite. You know, Keith Richard's incredible. If you gave him two pieces of wood, he's not going to come out with a guitar, you know. So, [laughter] you know what? Building a headphone was as far from me and Dre as you could possibly imagine. But we figured out how to do it. So that's how I think is a possibility now to rewrite the book. But if you start seeing licenses pop up to all these other companies, they're going to feed a dragon that is absolutely going to eat them. Absolutely.

I don't know. Let me tell you, I don't … know. If I could predict the future, ma'am, you know what I mean? I I wouldn't have health insurance. You know, it's like, you know, I have fire insurance in my house. I can't predict the future. I have no I I I overpaid for everything. I'm a retail guy.

like autotune and stuff like that

Well, he's one of the first people to um to use the LIN drum machine. You see the lint drum machine. I was I was producing an album in the 70s and I brought this guitar player in who I think it may be the first computer I ever saw. But it had a computer on the session. It was 1977, right? And he had a computer on the session. And in between takes rather than listen with the rest of us, he'd go put a pair of headphones on and go on the computer and do all that. and he looked at I said finally I said to him I said hey man what what are you doing I mean you know this is a session we're paying attention to the music he says well I'm creating a drummer I'm creating machine that's going to play the drums I said well thank god because I I I always had very I always had difficulty with drummers you know I always felt where you sit on the beat is impossible you know what I mean because everybody hits where the one hit what hits it on or before or after that. It just drove me crazy working with drummers my whole life, you know. And he said, "I'm I'm making a play drum." The guy's name was Roger Lynn. Roger Lynn's a guitar player.

The Lin machine. The Lin drum machine. Wow. Yes. I've seen technology. I grew up with this. So, everybody's afraid of AI. AI is going to make music better. AI is not going to thwart great people. There will always be the next Billy Isish. There will always be the next Kendrick Lamar. There will always be the next great talent, but there's also going to be a lot of …

Right. So, I think the … will get better. I really do. I think AI is going to help those people that work like that. And by the way, a lot of people that we know right now, great talent are using an AI. They're just not telling anybody.

a record producer is an entrepreneur.

but I was a record producer.

I think what's happening is the music industry is finally moving into things they're afraid of. They just need some light. What you don't want to do is license the next AI Spotify and say, "Give me 3% of your company." That is the greatest deal anyone's ever made. Who gives a … who owns 3% of my company if your company is Spotify, right? I It's absurd. So, they have to grab the enterprise value of the new technology. But don't you think it's going to come outside? Like, one of my heroes is James Dyson. I told you about who? James Dyson, the vacuum cleaner guy. Oh, yeah. And one of his who [laughter] I love and one of his heroes was Buckminister Fuller. And Buck Mr. Fuller uh has this quote where it's like you don't fight the like if you want to change things. You don't fight the existing system. You build your own. Like you build a new version of that. I almost feel like what you're talking about has to be done outside. Anywhere there's not a founder, usually it has to be done outside. You don't usually see big companies innovate.

I'll tell you what, I don't know this company. I don't know the guy. I don't know anything. But I try to I I I I tried a pair of those new Facebook Ray-B band glasses. They made a good product.

So that's but that's a founder. Big companies always have the advantage. They just don't they have bureaucracies and they don't have the entrepreneur as the leader anymore. So can they innovate? That's the Can they innovate? And uh look, I'm a terrible businessman. I had to learn business at Innercope. You are not a terrible businessman.

Oh, that's interesting.

Is this when David Geffin sold Geffin?

Can you tell that story?

live like I saw on TV, you know. [laughter] Well, you were like, hold on. I what I love and to define ones cuz everybody feels this way especially if you didn't grow up with money. I know exactly what you're talking about. And you were I think you might have been an engineer before you were a record producer. This story came from when you were an engineer, not a record producer. The producer comes in, he's got like a leather jacket, you're like what the hell is this? He's got a fancy bag and then he's got a beautiful girl and you're like

No. Uh, well, I Doug put up half the money. Geffin was going to put the money up, but he sold his company, so he was very generous with me and I No, Jedin was going to distribute the money and Ted Field was going to put the money up, but Doug volunteered to put up half the money. Doug Morris at Atlantic. So, I went to Dave and I said, "David, you only put up half the money." Goes, "Jimmy, I want what's good for you. Go do it over there." All good. Really helpful to me. But I knew nothing about running a business or you know I didn't know you buy vegetables for less money than you sell them. I had no idea of anything regarding business. I had an instinct of how to move and what was important. I want to pause the story because then when I went to your house the first time just a few months ago, you told me something I haven't stopped thinking about. You you said every great anybody that's great is bent. Yeah. What does that mean? Well, to be really brilliant, I call it there has to be a bend in the pipe, you know, whether it's through trauma or through your your interpretation of of yourself of how that it could happen. You can come from the greatest family in the world and have trauma, you know, just it's it's your sensitivity compared to the environment and put it all together. So the the ones that I know that are truly brilliant have a bend in the pipe. You know

It's usually trauma from when they were younger. Family stuff.

Yeah. It's all Yeah. But they had the gift to to write or produce or film or paint, right? I mean they were the one the chosen ones that that you put that trauma compared with an innate talent and it makes Picasso you know [laughter] so but your bend was it has to be which brings us to the founding of intercope because there's there was a ton of people after Geffen that had your same idea were like well I can do

and how many survived

inoscope.

Me, Ted, John, and Tom Wall-E.

When you grow up like I did and you did and other people that I know.

When you when you're walking forward, right, the sidewalk behind you is caving in. So, you have no choice but to walk forward, no matter how scary it is, how much it hurts. So what you have to learn at that moment is how do I take this fear and make it a tailwind instead of a headwind. A lot of my friends and people I know and I watch the fear stops them. And the ones that succeed is the one the fear that propels them forward. If you can harness it, learn how to harness it and take that because fear is energy. It's massive energy. controlled your entire system. And if you can learn to take that fuel and have it propel you forward, it's a powerful thing.

Whatever your fear is, you know what I mean? Yeah.

Well the look I was the kid in right field playing baseball right I come from a neighborhood where physicality sports and tough was the currency I didn't have any of those things so I had to go learn a whole new set of tools for my toolkit but when I got to the studio and I sat there with the guy Royce Sakala who was my boss who taught through me and they put me in with John Lennon and all of a sudden all that fear I I was able to I don't know why flip it into energy to learn. So you're like 20 at the time 20. You have a simple genius about you. I want to go back to it has to be in the bend. Um and this is why I think it's so important to make the documentaries that you made to do the podcast that you do because like then somebody that you've never met that is in a different industry that's lived at a different time reads that and like I'm like that too. and you said something about your early life where you just felt it was all … up, but all you knew was that if you just went to the studio, the more time you went to the studio, the better your life got. That is exactly how I feel. Like all

that's not genius. No, it's a simp it is a simple genius. It's very it's practical wisdom.

It's so to know which pole to start reeling in. You know, when I was when I got permission to at Innercope to make our our own businesses with the artist, I had a bunch of things going, but soon as Jay said to me, I want to sell sneakers and I said, "No, no, no, no, no speakers, right?" [laughter] And I saw him and I saw his credibility and sound and I said, "Oh, shit." It all came together, you know? I dropped all the other polls. I just said, "Okay, let's go." But there's also a simple genius of the way you move that I admire and I'm not like trying to just overly compliment you here. Like I really learned from it where that story Dre tells the story of that conversation. He said this conversation the entire time was like 10 minutes once you had that realization you dipped out. You just left and you call him like a week later to come to the office and you have like 30 prototypes already done.

What does that mean?

I think that's it right there. Let's go back to the Innercope. When you started Inner Scope, you're like, "My bend is it has to be like the way you describe it to me is just like this. There's no failure wasn't an option. There wasn't like a you said plan B didn't even enter your mind where it's like I'm doing this. It will work because if you think like that, it's an uncomfortable life, you know." So that's kind of why at 65, I'm 72 now. At 65, I was at Apple and I said, "I can't. This is not for me anymore." You know, first of all, Apple's a great company c company. They treated us great and we did some great stuff together, but I couldn't just wake up in the morning and do whatever I wanted to do cuz they're a giant company and they don't want the I'm in the music side of it. They don't want the tail wagon, the dog, you know, and I don't blame them, right? Because I come from a world of breaking things, you know. I would try anything, you know, and they have a very structured, fabulous business, right? And um so I said the combination of it having to be successful, how I see it, plus my team like Trent Resnner, etc., and Dre and and not being able to do anything to get it to work and that combination said, you know, you're 65, you know, I met Liberty and we were going to be together and I just said, you know,

uh

Yeah. I left I retired in 2018. I got I got married in 16.

You said you don't want the bit in your mouth anymore.

Do you feel you were cra the version of you that started incope was crazy? It was obsess. I had to be obsessed. And you know what? No, for sure. but how old were you when you started Intercope? 30. In your 30s? Yeah. scope. Yeah. No. No. Till I was 65. Yeah. Cuz I remember I remember waking up with Liberty one morning about months after I I left Apple and decided I wasn't going to run companies anymore or anything started whatever. I said to him, "Do people wake up not thinking of something cuz I was waking up and I had nothing on my mind." And I'm like, "What? Do people really do that?" You know, and and that's what I started feeling. That felt really good and I feel really see the whole the whole goal to me in life I think it's most people but some people don't admit it is a search for peace you know and a lot of people lie to themselves about what peace is I meet somebody they run companies and they don't want to quit and I love what I do you love you love that more than sitting on on a beach somewhere. I mean, yeah. Are you right now. You don't. I'm talking about people that are 75 that don't want to that can't give up the badge. You know, they have to have that badge to walk into a room. They're not that person. When I left Apple, I wasn't the head of Apple Music anymore or the head of Innercope anymore or blah blah blah head of Beats. whatever the … it is. I didn't care about any of that … I just wanted to stop feeling that feeling. You know what I mean? So, I didn't have that. That wasn't a currency for me. It's a blessing and a curse. But I just said, I don't give a … I don't want to I I I want this. I just don't want to I want to get rid of the obsession. I mean, if you work if you want to work past 70, 75, 80, if you're a founder of a company like Phil Knight, I understand that he's still involved with Nike. Do it. If you're feeling it, it's not what I wanted to do and it's what not what I I I had to do for my own sanity and and I No, not for one second. Felt great. But you have a billion dollars in your bank account. But money is a a piece of peace. That's not corny at all. You're not It's a big … company. You're an entrepreneur. I couldn't have that compulsion, obsessiveness, insanity, and not have the wheel completely, meaning to make any mistake I wanted to make, to experiment, to just go. I couldn't I couldn't do it. You wake up seeing it. Yeah. You wake up. I mean, you wake up seeing what's wrong. Every day you wake up seeing what's wrong. I I never I've never had a victory lap lap in my life. I didn't have a victory lap when we sold beats. I mean, it was very public. Dre felt great. I mean Dre felt great. I I felt great, but I didn't like I'm like, "Oh … these guys gave gave us all this money and now we got to make a streaming service work and Spotify's got the lead and I'm like, "Oh shit." So then the next minute I was thinking about that. How different are you and Jerry in the way you approach your work? Because when I watch the Defant Ones over and over again, there's a lot of things about him that I personally identify with and there's a lot of things I about you that I Okay. So he seems to need more solitude though. Is he more comfortable? Yeah. Yeah. Well, Dre's like that. But, you know, you got to have a ying and yang to be partners. You know, it works. You know, so we're we're very different. But we can't we we both we're both record producers. I can't explain it. There certain certain kind of person that's I always I get along with every record producer I ever met. Yeah. And you can't explain why. It's just the same kind of personality. What is it? Yeah, I feel the same way about founders. Um there's a there's a the founder of Nvidia, Jensen Wong. I read his biography. He said something was interesting where he uh I think reading between the lines, he tortured himself into greatness. I want to go back to the bend of it has to be. Were you like torturing yourself into success? I don't think it's torturing myself. I just felt tortured. I don't know who was torturing me, but all I knew is that every day I would see what's wrong. What's wrong with the product? What's wrong with the business? What's wrong with the record? What's wrong with, you know, how the headphones are being sold? What's wrong with the sound of them? What's wrong That's I wake up every morning with seeing what's wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's possible. I'm always in a good mood. I've never I don't think I've ever woken up in my life in a bad except except after my father died. I don't think I ever woke up in my life in a bad mood. I wake up in a great mood every day. I wake up happy. Yeah. But there's a whole other side of you that wants to accomplish something and and accomplishing something in the world is not easy. There's everything working usually against you. The world doesn't want to go the way you want to go most of the time, right? So, I'm really happy as a person. I got I got my kids and I'm really happy. And I mean, now I'm really happy. My liberty and we have six kids together and everything is fantastic. I'm really happy. I'm at peace for the first time. But when I was running the companies or producing the record, I I just see what's wrong and it would just drive me bananas. I think Steve Jobs was tortured. I thought it was going to be like he was born and he did this. He did that. No it's about the darkest time in his entire life. Why? He's not going to make the born in the USA movie. What I'm talking about is I've always been a positive person and I wake up in a good mood. So, you know, you ever met me in those days and I was running Innercope and stuff, you would say, "Oh, having a great time." You know what I mean? But there was always this thing, this compulsion and this insanity that was just driving me constantly. And eventually, I wanted to shake that. So I could say to you, "Yeah, I'm happy." In 1980, or something like that, but I wanted to be at peace and I didn't give a … about being the head of Innercope or being the head of beat and that nonsense. I just wanted at peace. I think Bruce has found a lot of peace. I I don't ask I don't speak for him, but I think he's incredible. I feel that's what he's searching for too in the book where he's like I got this thing I still Yeah. No you didn't invent it but I think you you you just said something I think is important. It's like most people lied to themselves and Bruce in that book was lying to himself for a while and he realized oh the actual sources on are you still lying to yourself today? Only the product. I felt like not having a lot of money and money being a concern and the family and all that kind of stuff. You know the my family was very generous but you know we had reality right that plays a big part in your brain you know what I mean because you don't think you think I'm I'm going to be broke that's what everybody that's what you think you know so that was a big driver of me I don't know but I just know that when I sold to Apple it didn't fix it. No, because I had to get something right. That over I knew I had a lot of money. I knew I didn't need money. I knew I was never going to be broke, but it was that overrode any of it was having to get the job right. That overrode everything. You were able to separate criticism that the work isn't good enough or isn't done to I am not good enough in your mind? So you were still beating yourself up even when you were in your 50s and do you do it today? No, I don't. Today I Right. Today [laughter] I I actually approach the job now. I get cranky and but when I get cranky [laughter] but when I crank when I put the phone down it doesn't travel with me. Like right now I do what I need to do with the CEOs that are running the companies and the people that work I do stuff that I need to do personalitywise to get the job done and it annoys me when people don't see things clearly or whatever. And um but when I put the phone down, I don't feel it. When I used to do that, I never stopped feeling it cuz I had to get it right. I felt like that for a while. This just changed like as a result of like the work that I've been doing. There's this guy name Brad Jacobs who started eight separate billion dollar companies. I did a bunch of episodes of Founders on them. He came to do this show. I've spent a bunch of time with him and he he's 68 years old. He's been an entrepreur for longer than I've been alive. Like the guy is just absolutely incredible. And his whole thing is he just used to beat the … out of himself mentally and he's like you know what for this is not helping my performance and talking to him and then using some of the the strategies in his book like now I used to have a very negative fuel source which is I didn't like the way I was born what the environment I was born into. I'm going to you know channel that just like Bruce Springsteen just like you was like I'm going to channel that into achievement. I thought for a long time that like constant self-criticism of the work that I'm doing will only make it better. So therefore that'll increase my likelihood of achievement. And now I'm like you know what I just obsessed with what I'm doing. Like before uh when I woke up this morning I was like giddy cuz like this is going to be one of the best days of my life. I get to freaking record a podcast with Jimmy. This is going to be insane. Like my now ne my selft talk is just like just love what you do and follow your curiosity and you're going to be obsessed anyway. You can't work any other way. Just know that you've handled to a certain extent a monster in your life. But the next monster is going to come in a disguise, a different look, a different way. It's going to come in through this door and you'll wake up one day and that monster will be go, "Oh, … I feel like I felt I thought I killed that monster, but there's a new monster only changes shit." It just happens to everybody in life, you know? Just some people like to admit it and some people don't. It could be anything. Yeah, man. It could be anything. It could be one of your kids. It could be anything, you know? And for the first time in my life, I feel balanced. I feel kind of like I feel okay, you know. I feel like I'm at peace, but I'm also not running a company. If I was running a company, I I know that I know that it's not for me. I know that I couldn't do it. I'm not that cured. But I take what I do serious. I don't take myself too serious because I I I love having a sense of humor. I think laughing extends your life. So my father was really funny guy, you know. And uh and we lived like that growing up. Every everything was like we saw a sense of humor and everything, you know. I remember when he was dying right before he died. He something happened and uh it was it was like a person came in and did something wrong and he he just looked at me and he he made a joke cuz he he knew it was funny and he grabbed the moment. He had 28% of his heart left where did he know he was dying? It was crazy time in my life. Uh I was 31 years old or 30 30 31 and uh I went to my grandfather's funeral his and the next morning my father had a heart attack and then he died probably seven weeks eight weeks later and then my grandmother his mother died the next week. So they all three of them died within eight weeks. So, it was a really pretty crazy time. And my father was I was so close with him. He just devastated me. But he always had a sense of humor. So, I take what I do really serious. But I don't take myself too serious. I really don't. Yeah. Yeah. My father was always a hard worker. Still is, you know. Still is. It's his voice that really um if I ever get on the right page, it's always his voice that makes me on the right page. Yeah. It still is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Worst day of my life by far. [laughter] By far. Yeah, man. I You know, when I when he died, I made a Christmas album about him. I uh it was called A Very Special Christmas. and uh we raised over $100 million for Special Olympics. Yeah. Well, you know, I again I don't look back, right? So, I can only go by how I feel now and right now it's more important than my work. So, and that's part of why I have peace because we we connect, we work on our marriage, we work on our friendship, we work on our bond, you know, and I'm not I'm not kumbaya about anything, you know. I realize anything can happen. you know. So, [laughter] so right now it's more important than my work. Yeah. It's the only place I find peace, you know, and I I'm I'm really in search of peace, man. I the rest of the … I But I do think we can crack the code at Complex. I really believe that. I re I believe that we can really do something in education. I really believe that. So, I'm very passionate about that. Yeah, I do too. I don't know any of it, Yeah, but I, you know, I wish I could have learned it at 52, but I think I got it at 72, you know. Why do you think it took you longer than you wanted it to take you? To unring the bells of your childhood takes a lot of work. That's a great line. And you think the only way to do that is through Okay. I didn't take the therapy really serious till my 50s and I wish I had done it earlier on. Mean twice a week, but take it in. Not Yeah. So, you'd go, you'd show up, you would talk, they you would talk, they would talk. you weren't ready to like to take in information. What do you think made you ready other than age? That's a great way to think about it. Why did you tell me yesterday that you think I need to talk to somebody Like why do you think it works with that with this particular person? I believe this person. Steve was the same way though. I still do. I try to have an infield. You know, Yeah. [laughter] And it just takes time to develop trust with these people. Yeah. That's incredible. Because again, my debt to black culture is enormous. I want to really help the inner city and give these kids an advantage of an education that no one else is thinking about. I think we're going to build some extraordinary people that companies are going to really want. I was terrible in school. When I had to learn something, I I just couldn't do I I just Because you try you tried to to create music first, right? and the candles and the pretty girl coming and meeting him. I said, I never saw anybody with a leather bag before, you know. No. Then I got I went to get a job. I was a cleaning up, you know, cleaning up the studio, setting up the studio, repetition, figuring putting this over there, you know, figuring out being around it, being a the ability to observe. part of which is producing. based on your own personal taste. Okay. And you you you were up close and you saw what true excellence looked like. Did you ever meet Akia Marita, the founder of Sony? It's almost like they had all the components, but it was siloed. Okay. But it goes back to your I see some kind of connection to the school you're doing. Yes. Cuz it's like you had it all. You just had to have one person like an AO who was if he was alive or Steve or Jimmy to put it all together. You know how to put … together? did Steve talk to you about the influence? What was he saying about Sony? his chain of thinking. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Were you able to learn? Those are people. Well, I guess Bruce was your age, right? You guys are He's a little older. Were you able to learn from younger people than you? Like when were you learning from your artists? They're introverted. Really? So, what what did you learn from Dre? Well, Dre brought back the Springsteen thing in me, which was the commitment to a vision and sticking by the culture that you came up in and servicing that culture and uh and it was something that I really didn't understand at the beginning. So, I was really hungry to learn about it, you know, about hiphop and the culture and what it was doing and how it applied and the true power of it. So learn I mean I learned everything about that I know about hip-hop from Dr. Dre period. and made the because he's the greatest hip-hop producer of all time. How so? They are completely Okay, completely uncompromising. They will not compromise. You have to convince them to move to the left or right. They are they know completely what they do and they don't compromise. It's just that simple. Bruce was the le when I met Dre and Bruce was very similar. They were both broke and Dre was in trouble and broke and they would what that vision Not even close. You couldn't rent Bruce Springst. You couldn't buy Br nothing. You could rent me in those days. You know what I mean? Absolutely. [laughter] You know, but you couldn't anything with that guy. He just he didn't he didn't think about, well, where am I going to sleep tonight? It was like this. I learned that from him. It was like really really powerful thing. There was nothing that anyone had that he wanted. Nothing. That's powerful. That's powerful when you're broke, right? It's like, well, [laughter] you know, like I I saw I admired that. You were an extrovert. Mean he'll go out. He'll talk to people and he's passionate. And by the way, he he in his book and in his play, A One Man Show, he talks about the issues he had at home with his dad and all that stuff, but he is the most positive person I met in music. But somehow didn't fix it along the way. I never been on a vacation really until the year 2000 because I was doing Rattle and Hum with him in 1988 and I went to the south of France. I remember I was like, "Whoa, what the fuck?" Yes. right? I don't think you'd ever been on a plane. You You're 20. How old are you? Never been on a plane. Never been in a Lennon put me in um in um the Beverly Hills Hotel. John took me to a guy named Richard Perry's house. A very famous record producer. And uh John took me to his house with Harry Nielsen. They were going out. They said he just was like really nice to me. He said, "You want to come?" I sure. I had nothing to do. I was in the hotel. I takes me there and this guy's got a house in the hills in Laurel Canyon overlooking or Dhini or something overlooking the city was at night. He had tennis court that was lit up. I was like, it's like seeing the guy with the bag. I was like, "Holy shit." You know, like, "Wow." Yeah. Just opens up the the scope of possibilities. Did you know this is where you were going to spend your life? Like when did you First hotel you ever stay in? Is that That's wild. and the pools on the highway, right? [laughter] So, other than that, this was the first time. And um so I go to my room and I come back and I talked to the door man. I said, "Can I ask you something? Do regular people live here?" And he said, "Yeah, I'm a regular person. I'm a doormat. [laughter] I said, I live here. I said, my father's a long shoreman. Are there docks here? Why don't we live in California? So, yeah, I knew I wanted to live in California from that day. 79. Tom Petty, Dan to My Life was controlled by was was documented by albums. I was Damn the Torpedoes when I moved. Uh, six. Yeah. And you were kind of freaked out. You're like, I'm in the Yeah, Yeah. What'd you learn from him? But that's another thing. His motivating factor was creating the best possible song art. Yeah. Well, because I, you know, sometimes I sound crass or whatever. Just that I have a sense of humor. I I I know how funny that would sound. You know what I mean? Like Bono one day, um, I didn't work on on Joshua Treat. I wanted to do it, but they chose uh Brian Enino and Danny Lois, which was a better choice because they wanted to change their sound, but that was the right choice. But they would always bring me in to listen to the songs like Bruce did that day on uh the river. So I go in and he plays me this song and he says, this was the beginning of it. He says, "Jimmy, this is house music." I said, "Really?" I said, "I don't I don't know if I like house music that much, So he plays me with or without you. I said, "Bonto, that's house music." Said, "No, it's not. You don't know what you're talking about." I said, "But that other song, that's apartment music. You put this song out, you're getting a house." [laughter] Okay. So, you know, that's just the way I express myself. It's just kind of, you know, I try to, you know, I can't help it. If the line is good, I say it even though even if it makes you look, you know, like, wow, you're going to buy a house with the song Tom Petty. I knew when I was saying it that it sounded like that, but my father was like that. He couldn't resist a good line. Goes back to one of the first things we talked about is like the fact that they want you in the room cuz you tell them the truth. And what I love about you is like exactly before I met you, exactly how I thought you would be, you are in person. And this started with uh when I sent this clip when you're on Ari Emanuel's podcast and at the end I sent the clip to Daniel Ek and me and him were just laughing about it cuz you're like the production. He goes this is Ari's podcast is a production value. Uh No, but you're like production value sucks. It's hot. I don't got any tea. The water's warm. You got this goddamn light in my face. Like I'm like what the … I thought it was good when you when you finally get going. I mean the wood paneling is just not really for me, you know? I'm not like [laughter] tried cuz I had wood paneling growing up. You know what I mean? Everything was not real. Well, we got you the tea. I sent that clip to the team. I was like, Jimmy's coming. We're not going to disappoint him. We have the air going. I absolutely love you. I tell you this all the time. Uh, you're one of the people I most admire. I want to most be like, "Thank you so much for taking the time." So, hey, look, you know. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see that. I was looking for my microphone.