Iovine: Steve Jobs declined to co-found Beats, urging Iovine to build alone
Jimmy Iovine · Jimmy Iovine: Building Interscope Records & Beats by Dre · Feb 1, 2026 · at 29:12
Jimmy Iovine recounts taking Steve Jobs to lunch to pitch a headphone partnership before launching Beats by Dre.
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“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 they put the paper thing with the, it could be the crayons for the kids, you know, and they could draw it. 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.”
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