Cool Beats

Jimmy Iovine, record producer turned label boss turned headphone magnate turned all-around music business oracle, and Dr. Dre- nee Andre Young-the legendary producer with six Grammys and hundreds of millions in sales to his name- who has helped guide protoges such as Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent and Eminem- launched their company Beats Electronics in 2008, building it from a start-up headphone manufacturer with cool celebrity endorsements into a technology brand so lucrative that Apple paid $3 billion for it. After the runaway success of Beats, the duo recently launched a new academy at the University of Southern California- they’re using $70 million to fund the school- with the goal of inspiring the next generation of entrepreneurs.

USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and Business of Innovation enrolled its first class of 25 students in the fall of 2014. Iovine and Young wanted to build a school they felt the entertainment industry needed, right now. The academy features a curriculum that weds its three disciplines- art, tech and commerce- in a way that benefits the current cultural landscape. They aim to create a dream factory that will inspire, challenge and satisfy the curiosity of the next wave of game-changers. The school is as much an investment in their own future as it is philanthropy, and they hope to create the kind of student who can design the next PlayStation, and sell it too. Iovine feels that USC is the right place for the academy as it’s located in Los Angeles- the entertainment and music capital of the world- yet it’s also within close proximity to Silicon Valley, That said, he thinks the problem with some of the tech companies up north are that they’re culturally inept, adding that the kid who’s going to have an advantage in the entertainment industry today is the kid who speaks both languages socially: technology and liberal arts. Fight On. www.iovine-young.usc.edu