Jimmy Iovine

Jimmy Iovine is an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and former record producer and engineer. He is best known as the co-founder of the USC Iovine and Young Academy, the Iovine and Young Center, Interscope Records, and Beats Electronics. He is also an investor in the ready-to-drink cocktail brand Gin & Juice By Dre and Snoop.

Iovine was the 2013 commencement speaker for the University of Southern California and received an honorary doctorate in music from the university that same year. In 2015, Iovine announced the launch of Apple Music at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. He has also appeared as a guest on several podcasts, including “Boardroom: Out of Office with Rich Kleiman” in 2021 and “Tetragrammaton With Rick Rubin” in 2023.

Iovine is the subject, along with Andre “Dr. Dre” Young, of the 2017 HBO documentary “The Defiant Ones.” The documentary won Best Music Film at the 2018 Grammy Awards.

Iovine was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022 with the Ahmet Ertegun Award. He was honored with the 2012 Recording Academy’s Producers & Engineers Wing Award and the Wall Street Journal Innovator Award in 2014.

Iovine’s career in music started in New York City at Record Plant, an acclaimed recording studio that captured the sounds of legendary artists such as John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen. At Record Plant, Iovine fostered his natural talent and developed an ear for production. Iovine engineered tracks for Lennon and Springsteen and produced albums for artists like Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, U2, Dire Straits, and The Pretenders.

In 1990, Iovine co-founded Interscope Records, with a mission of putting artists first. Interscope Records launched the careers of hitmakers like Dr. Dre, No Doubt, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Nine Inch Nails, and Mary J. Blige.

In 2006, Iovine and Dr. Dre founded Beats Electronics, encompassing Beats by Dre, which produces fashionable audio products that enhance the way global consumers listen to music. Next up for the duo was Beats Music, a digital streaming service with personalized playlists created by real music experts. Beats Electronics, Beats by Dre, and Beats Music were purchased by Apple Inc. in 2014.

During his tenure at Beats Electronics, Iovine discovered that most individuals understood either technology or the creative arts, not both. He once again teamed up with Dr. Dre to launch the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation — helping college students obtain the skills needed to thrive in careers in the 21st-century tech-driven global marketplace. The USC Iovine and Young Academy’s signature integrated learning framework empowers human-centered design, technology, entrepreneurship, and communication.

The Academy’s curriculum inspired the creation of a high school education structure to train young scholars in entrepreneurship, design, and technology. The first Iovine and Young Center (IYC) opened in 2022 in Los Angeles. The next IYC campus is scheduled to open in fall 2024 in Atlanta.