Opinion
Iovine: Music streaming services risk obsolescence by restricting artist communication
“So the streaming services, to me, are minutes away from being obsolete because of that. You can't rub against the artist like that. You just can't. You gotta give them what they want. They're driving this ship.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Iovine: AI will never write a song like Dylan's 'Blowin' in the Wind'
“AI will never be able to write Blown in the Wind by Bob Dylan. Not in anyone who's listening to this, or in my lifetime, for sure.”
Insight
Iovine: Brilliant creators combine innate talent with early childhood trauma
“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 interpretation of yourself, of how that could happen... It's usually trauma from when they were younger... You put that trauma, c…”
Insight
Iovine: Culture has shifted from artistic greatness to fame to attention
“So it became more important at one point to be famous than to be great, because as a currency, you had to be great at one time to get a record deal, to do all that stuff. And then that sort of dwindled as time went on, which is just fine. But It is absolutely …”
Assertion Supported
Iovine: Music streaming economics broke by copying Apple's 70/30 download split
“If you look at those deals are reflective of the iTunes download market, 70, 30. That was the same business as the download market. So they just copied that, which is not a great bit model for that. Why? Because you have Not enough money in the streaming servi…”
Opinion
Iovine: Steve Jobs was the only tech executive with an artistic soul
“He gets it, you know, and most of the people I meet in that world know how to do what they're doing, but as far as the particular thing that Steve had, I haven't met another one that has that.
I really, not that they're bad people or anything, they just, they…”
Insight
Iovine: The recorded music industry is allergic to owning end-user relationships
“Instagram does. TikTok 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.”
Assertion Partly supported
Iovine: Spotify is worth $150B, double the entire record industry combined
“Of course, Spotify is worth a hundred and fifty billion, and the entire record industry is worth half that together.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Iovine: AI will improve music without thwarting top creative talents
“AI is gonna make music better. AI is not gonna thwart great people. There will always be the next Billie Eilish. There will always be the next Kendrick Lamar. There will always be the next great talent.”
Opinion
Iovine: Streaming revenue is only meaningful for top-tier streamed artists
“What you're hearing about is that the artists are like, they used to be able to earn a living like that. But now, unless you're in that top chunk Of heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy streaming, the money's not really meaningful.”
Insight
Jimmy Iovine: Practicing feigned humility eventually makes someone genuinely humble
“Look, there's a certain amount of feigned humility that's good, and it works. If you practice it long enough, you actually become somewhat humble.”
Opinion
Iovine: Tech engineers fundamentally misunderstand why artists create
“Most engineers that I've met,
In my now, 25 years of playing in that world, is they don't understand the why of the people that do what I used to do.”
Insight
Iovine: Software companies avoid hardware because they do not understand design
“What I realized when I met a lot of other people in the tech business, all, all the companies and everything, they're engineering societies fundamentally. And I find, you can't generalize it, but there are people that aren't like that, but for the most part, w…”
Opinion
Iovine: Dr. Dre was first producer to truly harness the 808 bass
“Producers couldn't harness it. All the records, you know, whether it was Public Enemy or any of those records made in New York, they couldn't harness that. And to where I understood it, Dre was the first person to really harness it and give it the power that i…”
Assertion Partly supported
Iovine: Interscope was the sole survivor of 14 labels funded in 1989
“14, 14 labels started with fifty million dollars in funding in 1989, 90.
David Senra: And how many survived?
Jimmy Iovine: None.
David Senra: You?
Jimmy Iovine: Interscope.”
Disclosure
Iovine: Apple's rigid structure prevented him from experimenting freely in music
“I couldn't just wake up in the morning and do whatever I wanted to do, because they're a giant company, and they don't want the, I'm in the music side of it, but they don't want the tail wagging the dog, you know, and I don't blame them, right, because I come …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Iovine: Akio Morita's vertical integration at Sony inspired Steve Jobs's Apple strategy
“Marita bought Sony, bought Columbia Records, bought Columbia Pictures. He saw the distribution, the hardware, the software, he saw it all. But Steve took it, not literally, but it was part of the inspiration behind his chain of thinking, right?”
Insight
Iovine: Defensive and aggressive behavior stems from assuming people dislike you
“What I'm saying is that I really deal with a lot of people that are very defensive and aggressive. Because they think people don't like them, and you know that.”
Disclosure
Iovine: Helped Steve Jobs secure music licenses for Apple's iTunes
“I helped him get the licenses for iTunes.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Iovine: Steve Jobs declined to co-found Beats, urging Iovine to build alone
“He 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 it was after he was sick and but we went out to a restaurant and it was one of those restaurants where…”
Assertion Supported
Iovine: Interscope settled three lawsuits, including a RICO case, to sign Dre
“There were three lawsuits. There was a RICO lawsuit, right? That came with Sony, yeah,
yeah,
yeah.
There was .
Wait, is RICO money laundering?
What is? Gangsterism.
Gangster.
Okay, okay, that's right.
That was from the Eazy-E thing.
Oh, okay.
Right?
This isn't…”
Opinion
Iovine: Pre-Beats headphones looked like unattractive medical equipment
“People are wearing these things on their head, and they look like medical equipment. There's nothing attractive about a headphone.”
Opinion
Jimmy Iovine: Motown founder Berry Gordy is the greatest record executive ever
“The greatest record executive of all time, is a guy named Barry Gordy.”
Assertion Contradicted
Iovine: Beats was number one in 50 countries when sold to Apple
“When we sold to Apple, we were number one in 50 countries, man. We were number one In Germany, in Sennheiser was number two. We were number one in, in Japan, and Sony was number two.”
Jimmy Iovine