Jimmy Iovine, Interscope Records & Beats by Dre

27:41And 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, 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.

28:27They 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. When's the first time you had that problem? Was it when you were trying to build a product? Beats. Beats. Beats was a product, not by accident, like the iPod. I wanted culture, design, music, right? I wanted it all connected. So I met Steve Jobs. And he was like, oh, this guy gets it all. So I figured everybody did. Did you pitch him on doing the headphones together? Yeah.

29:10What did he say? 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 a, 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. I only 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.

29:45You build a headphone company, right? So I said, okay. He goes, let me show you how. And he called the 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. And he said, give me a marker And the guy gave him a marker And he drew, distribution, inventory, it'll kill you 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 I was like, holy shit And then he would guide me along the way And he was fantastic, right? But I thought, when I started Beats that I could, I'm not even allowed to, I could find people like that.

30:34But 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 I just said, siloed learning is bullshit. And now we have five, six high schools. And it's a great place. It's considered one of the best interdisciplinary schools in the country, and I'm really proud of that. But again, what do I know about education? Not a lot. I learned a lot in the last 15 years, but really not a lot. Yeah, it started with the instinct that you just didn't think it was being done correctly. I know how to get something done.

31:15Yeah, this goes back to you just being a natural-born entrepreneur. I just thought to get something done. I met this great dean, Erica Moe. I met her. I said, oh, she could do this. She was from the Roski School. But I just felt instinctively. What's that? It's an art school at USC. Okay. And then there was the president, Max Nacchias. 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 really fabulous. 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 technologies, but I made a great headphone.

31:58I 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 highest talent? I just ran into Steve Stout at a friend's birthday party, which was really funny because 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 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.

32:29So when I used to run the companies, like when I ran Interscope, 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 at Apple than it was when they were in my own companies because they have a giant infrastructure 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 the whole thing about... But when you were running the company, you wake up and just instinct. Purely. Or listen to people, you know, and grab a piece from here and a piece from there, you know, and just synthesize.

33:13Did you go after difficult things on purpose? I only went about what I felt. When Dre said to me... That was one example. because Dre comes to you. He plays, is it The Chronic? What is he playing for you the very first time? Or is it like some - The Chronic, finished. And I think you asked him like, who engineered this? Right. 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 says something like, he's going to define Interscope. Right. But he had a very hairy situation you had to get him out of, right?

33:43It was impossible. It was everything you, watching these shows and stuff, you think it is. Okay, so what was going on? Well, what happened was I connected dots, which I think I do really well. I saw him and Snoop. I heard, finally heard hip hop with the 808 bass, that big bass sound. 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 it deserved because he gave it the clarity that it deserved.

34:25It was very hard to do. So I understood that. And when I saw that combined with Snoop and Dre and the image that they were projecting and they were talking about, I said, this is the Rolling Stones. I said, this is Mick and Keith. It scares you, but the music brings you in. So I'm like, this has to work. I didn't have to understand the music, which I didn't at the beginning. Now I think I do, you know? I mean, not as much as some of the pioneers of hip hop, but I understand it. Were there lawsuits? Were there signed? Like, what did you have to untangle? There were three lawsuits. There was a Ricoh lawsuit, right?

35:10Ricoh? That came with Sony, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a... Wait, is Ricoh money laundering? What is...? The gangster is gangster. Okay. Okay. That's right. That was from the easy thing. Okay. Right. This isn't 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 So he was suing them from prison They were Sony and there was a company that's distributed and Easy Ease label that was suing as well or challenging as well. So I had to settle all those things out, which is kind of like if you see something great, but there's T-Rex sitting on it.

35:58And most people would avoid saying, look, there must be something else to eat. And you just know I'm only one who work with great? 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, shit. People are wearing these things on their head, and they look like medical equipment. There's nothing attractive about a headphone. The funny thing about that is there was opportunity hiding in plain sight, and you're like, what's our competition, guys? Bose, it's, they want to, there's no music. It's like silence. Well, their marketing thing was, you can go to sleep with us.

36:38I'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 Because I text Daniel Eck, right? Founder of Spotify And I was like, tell me, like give me some ideas Because 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 Iveene Which is hilarious Well, that just means my bullshit was better than his You know, it doesn't mean He's so, he's so So what he did in the music business, man, no one has any idea how hard it was.

37:14Patti Smith had an incredible line. His people have the power, the power to dream, to rule, and to wrestle the world from fools. Ooh, that's good. Okay? That's what Daniel Ack did, okay? So anytime you get a guy like that, I didn't beat him at anything. I just must have been slicker than him. To me, in my opinion, wildly underrated still to this day, one of the most fascinating people to me. But he's like, ask him about the origins of Beats. Did you do the headphones before you did the streaming service? Yes. So hardware first. That was the initial idea. It was all about moving in a scope laterally.

37:56I 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. Well, what do you mean by lateral, though? Like, for example, Interscope 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.

38:31I 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 want 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. That's right. So you have this idea for Beats. You see this opportunity. Obviously, Dre's known for the best Sonics ever. So it makes perfect alignment with him.

39:09This was Steve Stout's point to me, where he's like, Jimmy's just a phenomenal marketer. I'm going to come back to Beats real quick. I want to close that loop. Where he's like, ask him about the fact that he's bringing these super controversial artists at the time. They're not that well known. I think it was Dre and Snoop. And they wouldn't play him on the top 40. And he says, Jimmy did something genius to get Dre and Snoop played on the top 40. What did you do? Well, I just considered it a 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.

39:47Whether 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, OK, let's do this. Let's make a minute commercial of G-Thang, 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. The radio's not going to play my song. That's fine. I'm going to buy ad space on the radio and play the song. Yes. And we did it on the 50 top market. Spent a fortune doing it. And then we simultaneously, we got it on MTV because they didn't play rap music either.

40:36They played MC Hammer, but they didn't play, I guess you call it gangster rap or whatever music is today. They didn't play that then, right? How'd you get on MTV? I said, this is the same thing as Guns N' Roses. Period. You said that twice now. You said, Snoop Adre is Mick and Keith. You say, this is just like Guns N' Roses. What does that mean? 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 N' Roses did. That's what the Rolling Stones did.

41:12That'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. So who do you go to at MTV? You just go to the top guy? Like, how do you actually get it done? 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 I said, I don't know how to program. I said, put it next to Guns N' Roses. And if it doesn't work, please never play an Interscope record again.

41:53Wow. So he put it on. You had that much relief. You don't have to be talented to know that. I mean, it's just fucking obvious. You know what I mean? You know, that's Rick Rubin. He knew it before me, right? So, but what it caused was all these kids sons of senators, daughters of senators, congresspeople, businesspeople, they came home on one of those records. And when that happened, that's what led to the whole falling out with Time Warner that we had when we went in a scope, got thrown out of Time Warner over lyrics. Because Bob Dole, Dolores Tucker, Bill Bennett, right, who was the education czar, 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 some somebody say we were a mustard gas factory or something like yeah yeah but I've been involved with I was involved with John Lennon they tried to throw him I was when I was doing his album Nixon was lit had to go to court every day during Wolves and Bridges because Nixon was trying to throw him out of the country that was real yeah that's that's insane It was real.

43:08Yeah. Because he was against the war, right? So I'm used to that. I'm like, so what? You know, I mean, yeah, I didn't care what those people were saying. So you got him on MTV. You got him on the radio. Once you played the ads on the radio, then people start calling. Of course. They start calling the radio stations, like, play that song. Of course. That is an ad. No one else is doing this. Only because I wouldn't do anything illegal because I'm psychotic about doing anything that, like, is illegal or anything. So I just said, this is legal. Let's do this. I mean, the record business, God knows what they did to get records played.

43:46But they weren't going to play these records. There was no chance. Look, there's nobody better at this. No one. The greatest record executive of all time, of all time, is a guy named Barry Gordy. I've heard that name but know nothing about him. Well, he founded Motown. Oh, okay. During Jim Crow. You know what I mean? So his honest warning allowed off the bus. 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.

44:29So when he got, when he pushed, it stuck. See, if you know what you have is going to stick, and if you are passionate about it, then just break through that wall because there's going to be a lot of resistance. But if it sticks, you win. Yeah. It has to stick though. There's actually a lesson for entrepreneurs in there too because I reread Jeff Bezos' shareholder letters like three or four times. He's like one of the people, one of the entrepreneurs I most admire. And he realized he had a sticky product with Amazon because he saw that once you become an Amazon customer, Not only do you order, but you reorder, and then you ask Amazon to carry more things.

45:08And so he tells a story of this guy emailing him, or he emailed a thousand customers saying, hey, you bought a book. What else would you buy? And one guy goes, can you sell me windshield wipers? And he's like, oh my God, we're going to be able to sell anything like this. And so he goes, okay, if we have high retention with my product, which he knew at Amazon, that means I have a winning system. That means I need to invest heavily in introductions to new customers. Because the 10 million or whatever the number is, let's say you spend 100 million in new customer introductions and advertising marketing this year.

45:36It's like, these people are going to be with me next year, the year after a decade. Well, 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, these guys have built businesses that dwarf anything I've ever even dreamed of, you know. But 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 what do you mean they don't have customers? they don't have a customer they still don't have a customer they don't have the relationship with the end user?

46:14right 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. What was the first time they outsourced the relationship with the end customer? Is this just - So even when you're selling it through record stores back in the day - Record stores, radio, MTV. You would have controlled every - So when you said you want to go lateral, the entrepreneurial version of this, the business version, you want to vertically integrate. You want to vertically integrate all the way down.

46:52So you would have even had Interscope if there's - Yeah, but I want to vertically integrate, if you call it that, to fashion. I mean... Because you guys are controlling the culture. They're having the influence. We're causing it. Causing it. My artists are causing the culture. Artists that I work with, rather, putting it clearly. For example, we put beats in all of our music videos when we first started. You were insistent and relentless with this. So what? But you know... I'm not going to... 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.

47:32So, yeah, man, you know, we did that and it worked. It worked is an understatement. Yeah, yeah, it worked, you know, and we built the number one headphone company in the world. When we sold to Apple, we were number one in 50 countries. Man, we were number one in Germany and Sennheiser was number two. We were number one in Japan and Sony was number two. I still can't believe it, to be honest with you. This goes back to like you have this instinct. I'm still trying to figure out, you know, your, your like web of really special talents. And marketing is definitely one of them. You have this weird instinct to just make the right.

48:03Marketing is empathy. Say more. 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 guess I have a feel for the market of who I want to sell things or communicate with, right? I'm not Bob Dylan. I ain't a 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 was a purist. He wanted to do something great.

48:48But 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.

49:20They 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.

50:00The platform is absolutely beautiful and provides an easy-to-understand picture of your overall health. Once you try Function, you will immediately understand why it's the fastest-growing health platform in the country. You can now join Function for just$365 a year. That's a dollar a day. Learn more and join by visiting functionhealth.com forward slash Senra. and use code SENRA25 for a$25 credit towards your membership. That is functionhealth.com forward slash SENRA. So how long did you have the headphones before you decided? You bought like a small streaming service, right? Yeah, it was about, I bought it in probably 2011.

50:39Like how long were the headphones going? Three years into it. So three years into it, and it's called, what was the, I forgot the. Mog. Okay. Yeah. And you rename it Beats. Yeah, Spotify had 3 million subscribers at the time we sold to Apple. I remade the Beats Music, but I realized I couldn't scale it on my own because, as you know, with Spotify, it costs a lot of money to do that. And I realized I can't do this. Me and Dre, we can't do this on our own. We brought Trent Reznor on, right, who's an incredible talent. Talk about understanding technology and the arts and culture. You know, and his partner, Atticus Ross, they make some of the greatest music in the world right now.

51:24So, you know, there's all the movies and everything he's doing. So you try to run it, and then you realize... I can't scale it on my own. Can't scale it on your own. I wanted it to be at Interscope. And for one reason or another, we couldn't get that done. The guys running at the time weren't in charge, really. There was the whole Vivende thing and all that stuff. I went to them early on. I said, I want to build businesses with your artist. And the guy actually said to me, he goes, Jimmy, I hear you. We paid a lot for your company. I have respect for you. But we want to sell CDs. And that's what we do.

51:58So that's how part of my story that not a lot of people know is I was a CEO of Interscope. I had to get the right to start another business. I asked Vivendi to give me$100 million to Interscope to start businesses with the artists inside Interscope. And in fairness to them, they didn't see that. They didn't want to do it. So I said, my contract was up. And I said, I'm not going to be the guy to sell the last CD. I got no interest in this. You know, I'm going to do something else. They didn't see it at the time that they were in a dying or dwindling business? Of course it wasn't. This is 2003. So you saw it early.

52:48It scared the hell out of me. For some reason, the day it started, Mapster, I said, this is toast. Because I understand the market. I understand why the audience would say, I'd much rather be doing my homework and not have to ask my mother to take me to a record store. Okay, that simple impulse, and it's free? That's a feel that an entrepreneur has. Once you see it, you can't put the genie back in that bottle. There's just no way it's going to work. So I knew that, and then I went and met with people at Intel and places like that, and I heard these guys talk, and I'm like, holy shit. What were they saying that made you say holy shit?

53:28One of the things the guy at Intel said to me is, Jimmy, I got to tell you something. Your story is compelling. He said, but not every industry was built to last forever. I was like, this guy's smarter than me? Yeah, you know, where do you want to start, right? And so I'm like, oh, shit, right? So I went to them and I said, I can't just be in the record business. The music almost goes like something you sell to something that markets another product is how you actually monetize it. I don't know what it is. I just call it lateral. I can't break it down to what it is. I just know the feeling. You told me yesterday, you were like, I'm just a hustler.

54:08I know how to hustle. That's not a bad word. I do, too. No, 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. I don't think it's a pejorative. I don't think it's a negative. Well, people think it is. Oh, not me and you, though. 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.

54:37And 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. As Dre would say, it's a little bit of street knowledge. Yeah. You know. And what is street knowledge? It's an understanding of people as they actually are. Well, because you have no, what street knowledge is, you have to move around because the world isn't, it's tough. You know, in any neighborhood, I don't know what you call it, lower class or whatever it is, you know, my dad was a longshoreman. We lived in an Italian neighborhood in Red Hook, Brooklyn, you know what I mean?

55:11You lived in a neighborhood with actual gangsters. Oh, yeah, but I wasn't. No, I know you weren't, but you were in the neighborhood that the mafia was everywhere. Oh, yeah. Well, my neighborhood was an Italian neighborhood, only in America. I mean, everything was the same. You know, there's four fish stores on a restaurant. There's three pizza places on one street. You know, it was like that, you know. So, and my father worked down at Dox and everybody worked down at Dox. I know you were saying it's instinct. Maybe you weren't, like, there weren't words around this idea. You just understood it.

55:42But you saw it's like if I'm a college kid, and I was at this time, and I was using Napster and Kazaa and all the other, LimeWire 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. One of the hardest things that I had to do when I look back on my career, life, whatever it is, we all have a lot of hard things. One of the hardest things was getting Universal, or Vendate to give me permission to build beats, to build products with my artists. Beats came three years later. This is when your response to them was, I don't want to be the guy that sells the last CD.

56:19That's it. This thing is not going to work the way it is right now. We have to move laterally. I just instinctively knew that, and I wasn't going to do it. I was going to quit. It's an interesting idea if you sit down and actually think about what's happening. For the whole time of recorded music industry, you made the music, you recorded it, and then you sold it physically, right? And you're already understanding, oh, once it's digital and free, that means we have to sell something else that we're not going to be able to sell the music anymore. No, I knew we were invaded. Invaded. Okay. And I knew that something had to change.

56:57I didn't know what it was, but I knew we couldn't just do only what we're doing. And that's like a music instinct. You know who knew that? The Beatles knew that. If you listen to The Beatles, every album was new and different. They reinvented themselves on every album, you know? And they keep it moving. You know, the great company, that's why Apple was so great. It kept it moving, 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?

57:44But 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. Of course, Spotify is worth$150 billion, and the entire record industry is worth half that together. It's 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.

58:22Products, all this other stuff that they're doing. Like you had that insight before in the music industry before anybody else. No, not before anybody else. Hip hop saw it. You're right. Because they were doing the shoes, the sneakers, the alcohol. Def Jam, Adidas. Did they influence your thinking on this? Absolutely. I owe African-American culture so much. I have a debt to black culture. Why do you think rap, because I grew up on hip-hop. I told you, like, it's still almost all the stuff I listen to now. Why did they figure out how to monetize, I hate using that word, or make money off music besides selling music for anybody else?

59:05Because they're practical and they see the truth and they saw what it was. What's the next bite of the apple? The record industry now can rewrite, I guess, the luxury of rewriting the book with AI. They can. AI created music. Yeah. Creative music, many things. It isn't just creating a song. It's how you listen to music, everything. It can affect everything. So there is, let's say, hypothetically, I'm writing the record industry. Your word wrong is not fair. Didn't take advantage of it. Didn't optimize the streaming thing. What would optimizing be? They would have their own distribution. That would be optimizing, and they don't, right?

59:53They have another bite at the apple right now. It could start all, ring the bell all over again, etch a sketch, and go back into it. But where they can make a giant mistake, in my opinion, okay, is if they start licensing their music to every dog and that comes in the door. Which is their normal route of doing things. Yes. You've got to build enterprise around AI now. You can't just give the enterprise to someone else. 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, Will, I can't tell you everything that I'm doing because I think the labels are now realizing it.

1:00:35And again, really, 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, community complex, and it's e-commerce, right? I want to help the labels, if I can, build enterprise around AI and not just be licensed. 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 I don't understand fucking anything You know what I mean?

1:01:25But I know how to get it done You know, I knew how to build I didn't know how to build a headphone People say to me, well, you're a recording engineer I said, Bruce Priestley and Keith Richards Are the greatest guitar players You know, my favorite You know, Keith Richards is incredible If you gave him two pieces of wood He's not going to come out with a guitar You know? So, you know, 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.

1:02:10Absolutely. Five years from now, do you think we're going to have complete AI-created music that is at the top of the charts? Isn't it already happening? I don't know. Let me tell you, I don't fucking know. If I could predict the future, ma 'am, you know what I mean? 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 overpaid for everything. I'm a retail guy. But, you know, it's like, I do know one thing that I don't understand. I hear a lot of these artists coming out against AI. So I come from a place where to get a record deal, going back to when I was a kid, right, in the music business.

1:02:54You have to sing. You have to really sing. Sometimes you have to write, but if you're Bob Astrid's end, you have to sing. Frank Sinatra, you have to sing. Those people can really sing. You know, Sam Cooke, whoo, can he sing? He can sing and write. You know what I mean? Incredible, right? Stevie Wonder. There's a lot of people out now on the charts right now of being really successful, selling out arenas. that can barely sing happy birthday. So what I say to the people that are challenging AI, and they're doing that because of technology. Like auto-tune and stuff like this. Whatever the technology is.

1:03:28So my question is, what's the difference between somebody who can barely sing happy birthday, which is all over the charts right now, to someone who can't sing happy birthday at all, who's just a marketer and a really clever guy or girl that's sitting there mirroring all the moves that everybody does, you know, they watch Madonna like everybody else and say, I can do that. I can act like that. So I don't understand the difference. Yeah, because the amount of technology invented for the music industry since you've been in it, it's like you told me yesterday that Prince did a whole album without a drummer.

1:04:05And I was like, what does that mean? Well, he's one of the first people to use the Lynn drum machine. See, the Lynn drum machine, 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 he had a computer on the session. It was 1977, right? And he had a computer on the session, and in between takes, rather than listening 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 are you doing? I mean, you know, this is a session.

1:04:43We're paying attention to the music. He says, well, I'm creating a drummer. I'm creating a machine that's going to play the drums. I said, well, thank God, because 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 hits it on or before or after. It just drove me crazy working with drummers my whole life, you know. and he said, I'm making a player drum. The guy's name was Roger Lynn. Roger Lynn's a guitar player. That's who made the drum machine? The Lynn machine. I didn't know that. The Lynn drum machine.

1:05:21Oh, wow. Yes. I've seen technology. I grew up with it. 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 Billie Eilish. 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 bullshit. Yeah. Right? So I think the bullshit 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 AI. They're just not telling anybody. AI will never be able to write Blown in the Wind by Bob Dylan.

1:06:07Not in anyone who's listening to this or in my lifetime for sure. AI will take the middle of music, the average music, I believe, and make it better because they're great tools. I'm all in on AI music. All in. And I don't think it's going to hurt the greats. But more importantly than anything that I think is that now it's time for the artist and the labels to get on the enterprise side of it. This is what I wonder if you would agree with or not. Because when you were just telling the story of the person that invented the drum machine, he was inventing it out of necessity. He needed a sound for what he was making.

1:06:50I worry that if these are like professional managers in the music industry, like think about the difference between a professional CEO and a founder. Yeah. Right? Like, you thought completely different because you're an entrepreneur. Like, you were instinctively an entrepreneur. You were an entrepreneur before you even knew you were an entrepreneur. Well, the record producer's an entrepreneur. Record producers, but the people running the big companies. But I was a record producer. Yeah, exactly. Like, you had that instinct. But, like, there's one, almost they don't see the necessity for it. And two, I don't even know if, like, a professional manager can then reinvent their business to survive the next technological wave.

1:07:23You disagree with that? 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 shit who owns 3 % of my company for your company Spotify? Right? I mean, 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.

1:08:05And one of his who? I love it. And one of his heroes was Buckminster Fuller. And Buckminster Fuller 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. And 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. That's my point. 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 pair in those new Facebook Ray-Ban glasses.

1:08:41They made a good product. Yeah. 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 question. Can they innovate? And look, I'm a terrible businessman. I had to learn business at Interscope. You are not a terrible businessman. I know how to do what I know how to do, but I had to learn business for defense when I got into the record business. Oh, that's interesting. 1990, I had no fucking idea how to run a company. None. Zero. Is this when David Geffen sold Geffen?

1:09:21Geffen, yeah. Can you tell that story? David Geffen is brilliant, right? He comes from right near my neighborhood in Brooklyn. He's exactly 10 years older than me. He's like 5 '7". I'm 5 '7". He's Jewish. I'm Italian. We were buddies, right? He was great with artists. You know, he signed Joni Mitchell and the Eagles and all this great shit, right, in his life. So I felt real camaraderie with him I'm producing records I'm actually in the studio for 20 years Making music They go on, they sell all these records I wake up one day, he sold his company for$500 million I'm like, I'm from Brooklyn I want to make a lot of money I'm not embarrassed that I had my whole life I've been like, you know I didn't have any money.

1:10:17I had money as a record producer, but that's a certain amount of money. I wanted to live like I saw on TV. What I love in The Defined Ones, because 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 record produced. 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 That's it Yeah you bet that's it I mean look Look let me tell you something man You gotta tell yourself the truth I'm not Bob Dylan Mick Jagger Chris Springsteen Stevie Wonder Marvin Gaye So I felt the next best way in I got into producing and engineering right That was my next way in right So I'm like Well this feels really good Then I saw Gaffin and I said That feels better Oh shit He's doing the same thing He's not even in the studio all night He goes home at 6 o 'clock I'm like 3 o 'clock in the morning Still working on the drum sound You know like doing that So I said I bet I can do that And then you go talk to him What does he say?

1:11:30He said to me Oh you can start a record company You know how many stupid people there are That have record companies? I said okay So I started a record company. I read something Jeff Bezos said that changed my perspective on the importance of high quality sleep. He said that he makes sure he gets eight hours of sleep a night. And as a result, his mood, his energy, and his decision making is improved. His point was that you get paid to make high quality decisions. And you can't do that if you're sleeping terribly. And the product that has made the biggest impact on my quality sleep for years is 8sleep.

1:12:07I'm lucky enough to be friends with the founder of 8sleep, Mateo, and we live in the same city. A few months after I started using 8sleep, I randomly ran into Mateo at a restaurant, and I was with some friends. So I go over and say hi. When I got back to my table, my friend asked me, who was I talking to? And I said, that's Mateo, the founder of 8sleep. And my friend replied, he looks like he gets good sleep. Mateo is living and breathing his product. I had never had the ability to change the temperature of my bed before I had an 8sleep. I had no idea how much that would improve the quality of my sleep.

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1:13:13The result is you get up to a full hour of additional quality sleep per night. Make the no-brainer investment in your sleep by going to 8sleep.com forward slash Senra, and use the code Senra to get$350 off. You can try it for 30 days at home and return it if you don't like it, but I'm confident you will love it. I will never let anyone take my Eight Sleep from me. Make sure you get yours at eightsleep.com forward slash Senra. People were willing to give you money and back you right away. Why? Did you have previous relationships with them? What did they know about you? No. Well, Doug put up half the money.

1:13:47Geffen was going to put the money up, but he sold his company, so he was very generous with me. And I, no, Jared, Geffen 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've only got half the money. He 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.

1:14:22I 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're that 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 the greatest family in the world and have trauma. You know, just it's your sensitivity compared to the environment and put it all together.

1:15:04So the ones that I know that are truly brilliant have a bend in the pike, you know? What's the bend that you see normally? It's usually trauma from when they were younger. Family stuff. It's always the childhood. Yeah, it's all, yeah. But they had the gift to write or produce or film or paint, right? I mean, they were the ones, the chosen ones. That, you put that trauma, compare with an innate talent, and it makes Picasso. But your bend was it has to be, which brings us to the founding of Interscope. because there was a ton of people after Geffen that had your same idea. We're like, well, I can do that.

1:15:5214 labels started with$50 million in funding in 1989, 90. And how many survived? None. You? Inesco. Yeah. Me, Ted, John, and Tom Wiley. When you say it has to be, what does that mean? When you grow up like I did, and you did, and other people that I know. Yeah, the first time we met, you're like, you're definitely bent. 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, the people I know and I watch, the fear stops them.

1:16:42and the ones that succeed is 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. It controls your entire system. And if you can learn to take that fuel and that will propel you forward, it's a powerful thing. Some of the most successful entrepreneurs on the planet that I've met, I said it's like what drives them is not a love of success it's a fear of failure whatever your fear is you know what I mean so when did when did you when did you have the insight about fear though like when did you you said I trained myself that when I feel fear just to take a step forward well you know look I was the kid in right field playing baseball right I come from a neighborhood where physicality, sports, and tough was the currency.

1:17:38I 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, I sat there with the guy Roy Ciccala, 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 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. And this is why I think it's so important to make the documentaries that you made, to do the podcasts that you do, because like then somebody that you've never met that is in a different industry, it's lived at a different time, reads that and like, I'm like that too.

1:18:20And you said something about your early life where you just felt it was all fucked 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 let me tell you something all i can control that's not genius no it's so it is a simple genius it's very there's a it's practical wisdom you know when you people talk about gene there are real geniuses out there that are freaks but people talk about people that are successful and stuff like that it's basically you're blessed that your instinct drives you in the right direction and your instinct bob dylan's instill bob dylan is a genius but bob dylan's instinct drove him for an entire generation to to lead you know steve jobs or even people that i know my friends that their instinct is commercial or works.

1:19:14But that simple genius of I do more of X and my life gets better. It's very, very smart, especially when you're 20, you're not like, you're not experienced. You're in the room with legends. I heard the interview, the conversation you had with Rick Rubin and you both agreed. There's like, there's never been other famous people like the Beatles. It's not like, oh yeah, that Taylor Swift kind of like the Beatles. Like, no, no, no. You don't understand how big this phenomenon is. And you're, by your own admission, know nothing, insecure, and you're in the room with them, and you still, there's something very, again, I'm going to use the word simple genius, of like your ability to just like, this is, just stay here, and my life will get better.

1:19:50It's also to know which pole to start reeling in. You know, when I was, when I got permission at Interscope to make our own businesses with the artist I had a bunch of things going but soon as Dre said to me I want to sell sneakers and I said no no no no speakers right 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 poles 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 hear. Like, I really learned from it. Where that story, Dre tells the story of that conversation.

1:20:35He said this conversation the entire time was like 10 minutes. Once you had that realization, you dipped out, you just left. And then you call him like a week later to come to the office and you have like 30 prototypes already done. Well, because I'm very lucky to be able to connect the dots. I can see something and my little computer in my brain connects all the dots. I just, and the things that I can see. I don't do the things I can't see, but I saw the headphone thing and I said, okay. And then I started to see, oh man, not only do these guys make ugly products, they don't know how to market, they're not cool, they don't...

1:21:12Back to corny. Corny is a curse. Some people that are corny are really nice, but, you know, too corny is just... I don't know, it's not for me, you know what I mean? It's not for me. You know, it's like, they don't know how to lay in the cut, you know? What does that mean? That means they don't know how to lay back and just watch something happen. They're always like, they want to be noticed. And they don't have a natural feel for like, you know, for themselves. You know, I think. But what do I know? I think that's it right there. Let's go back to the Interscope. When you started Interscope, you're like, my Ben is it has to be.

1:21:44Like the way you described 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. Or it's like, I'm doing this. This will work. because if you think like that, it's an uncomfortable life. 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. First of all, Apple's a great 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 because they're a giant company. I'm in the music side, but they don't want the tail wagging the dog.

1:22:34I don't blame them because I come from a world of breaking things. I would try anything. And they have a very structured, fabulous business, right? And so I said, the combination of it having to be successful, how I see it, plus my team like Trent Reznor, et cetera, and Dre 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 want to be together. And I just said, you know. Were you already married at that point? Yeah. I retired in 2018. I got married in 16. But why I came, started working again, I was dabbling. But why I started, I'm not running any companies right now.

1:23:35You said you don't want the bit in your mouth anymore. Yeah, I don't want it in my mouth. I have to have somebody with that energy that's crazy, that runs the companies, you know? Do you feel the version of you that started Interscope was crazy? No, I was obsessed. We're all sort of obsessive people. I was really obsessed. You considered Interscope a very intense mission that had to succeed. It was obsessed. I had to be obsessed. And you know what? obsession doesn't make for a great partner at home no for sure you know what i mean it's like so you know i'm like okay i'm 65 years old you know how many summers do i have left as uh tom waits would say you know what i mean it's like but how old were you when you started interscope 30 in your 30s i was 38 7 8 and so does that mean every minute of the day is yeah on making sure interscope yeah when did you feel the relief was there any sense of no I love that you didn't want to finish the question.

1:24:35No. Till when? Till I was 65. We talked yesterday, you said something like, you're always like a happy, optimistic person, but miserable at the same time. Yeah, because I remember waking up with Liberty one morning, about months after 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? Because I was waking up and I had nothing on my mind. And I'm like, do people really do that? And that's when I started feeling, I felt really good. And I feel really, see the whole goal to me in life, I think it's most people, but some people don't admit it, is the search for peace.

1:25:29You know, and a lot of people lie to themselves about what pieces. I meet somebody, they run companies and they don't want to quit. And I love what I do. You love that more than sitting on a beach somewhere. I mean, yeah. I do, for sure. I don't want to sit on a beach. Right now you don't. Okay. 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 Interscope anymore or blah, blah, blah, head of Beats. So you lose the status part?

1:26:13Whatever the fuck it is, I didn't care about any of that shit. 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 currency. I just said, I don't give a fuck. I don't want to. I want this. I just don't want to. I want to get rid of the obsession. I mean, 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 not what I had to do for my own sanity. And this is where I want to talk to you about.

1:26:52So from the time, let's say you're 20, you start to 65. You did not feel peace. No, not for one second. But you sell, you become a billionaire. You sell beats to Apple. What'd that feel like? It felt great. Okay. No peace, though. Well, because a company like Apple pays you a lot of money. I'm my father's son. I got a job to do now. But you have a billion dollars in your bank account. It doesn't matter. What matters is there's a job that you're going to do that you're not going to be. I have to get the job done right. But money is a piece of peace. Money is a piece of it. It's really great. You know what I mean?

1:27:33But if I have your money, I'm fucked because I got to do the job. And that's kind of one of the reasons I left because I really couldn't do. This sounds really corny. I couldn't do me there. That's not corny at all. It's a great place. That's not corny at all. It's a great place, but I twitch. It's a big fucking 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 do it. How does it feel when you're going through, when it's like, when you, your version of Bend, is it has to be.

1:28:22Is it just you wake up with overwhelming pressure every day? What is that? 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 never had a victory lap in my life. You don't have any rear view mirror? I didn't have a victory lap. When we sold beats, I mean, it was very public. Like Dre felt great. Oh, the video with Tyrese? I mean, Dre felt great. I felt great, but I didn't like, I'm like, oh shit, these guys gave us all this money. And now we're going to make a streaming service work. And Spotify's got the lead. And I'm like, oh shit.

1:29:07So then the next minute I was thinking about that. How different are you and Dre in the way you approach your work? Because when I watch The Defiant 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 about you that I... Well, we're both record producers. Okay. Okay, so... He seems to need more solitude, though. Is he more comfortable? Why would? I mean, solitude. Dre, I mean, Dre doesn't go anywhere. Every time Dre and I have to go do something, he calls me the night before and says, we really have to do this. This is 32 years of it.

1:29:45Do we really have to do this? Why are we doing this? You know? So, yeah, no, he's much more like that than me. I feel that way, too. Like, this is why I like small conversations like this. But if you say, hey, come to this group dinner or come to this public event, I'm like, that's just not going to happen. Like, there's just no way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Dre's like that. But, you know, you got to have a yin and yang to be partners, you know? It works, you know? So we're very different. But we both record producers. I can't explain it. There's a certain kind of person that's—I get along with every record producer I've ever met.

1:30:19Yeah. Swizz Beatz, Timbaland, Pharrell, you know. I love all these guys, but I get along really well with record producers. And you can't explain why? It's the same kind of personality? What is it? I don't know what it is. I don't think about it. But I know that if I meet a record producer, it's always my favorite people I meet. Yeah, I feel the same way about founders. There's a founder of NVIDIA, Jensen Wong. I read his biography. he said something that's interesting where he, I think reading between the lines, he tortured himself into greatness. I want to go back to the bend of it has to be.

1:30:53Were 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 the guitar sound? What's wrong with, you know, how the headphones are being sold? What's wrong with the sound of them? What's wrong with... I wake up every morning with seeing what's wrong. Your example is very different than most of the founders that I talked to or profile, because like Steve would be working on Apple no matter what, he just absolutely loved it.

1:31:31Work for you was always work. Yeah. It's like, I shouldn't say like you can't wait till it's over. Is that the right way to think about it? Like... Well, you see, the problem that I had was, if it sounds possible, it was the only place I felt relief, but I was still tortured. So, you know, I don't know what the rest of my life was. But we had this conversation yesterday, and I told you I was on the phone with a friend driving to your house, and we had the same conversation. We were just, how are you? And I'm like, I'm fantastic and miserable at the same time. Yeah, well, that's possible. Yeah, I know, and we talked about...

1:32:07I'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 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. The two words you used are happy and miserable. Yeah, but there's a whole other side of you that wants to accomplish something. 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 my kids and I'm really happy.

1:32:48And I mean, now I'm really happy. I'm at 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 just see what's wrong. And it would just drive me bananas. You're the first person I think actually could explain that to me about how I feel. Because I was like, I just was interviewed on another podcast and he's like, are you happy? And I was just like, yeah, I'm happy. But like, I also like am striving to do something. I think Steve Jobs was tortured. Oh, for sure. Most of them are.

1:33:26But my whole thing is like, I don't also want to go through life like that. This is where Bruce Springsteen, I mean, you kind of push me in this direction too when you're like, go watch that movie. You know, because I didn't, when Jimmy A. Bean says, go watch a movie, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go watch a movie. I thought I was gonna watch a biopic of his life. I thought it was gonna be like, he was born and then he did this, he did that. No, it's about the darkest time in his entire life. That's the only movie he would make. Why? He's not gonna 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.

1:34:03So, you know, you ever met me in those days and I was running Interscope and stuff, You would say, oh, you're 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 shit about being the head of Interscope or being the head of B. Ray. I mean, that nonsense. I just wanted a piece. Do you think Bruce is at peace? I think Bruce has found a lot of peace.

1:34:48I 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 don't have - Well, I mean, the words of John Lennon, I'm just trying to get me some peace and Christ, you know, it ain't easy. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, I didn't invent this. No, you didn't invent it, but I think you just said something that I think is important. It's like most people lie to themselves. And Bruce in that book was lying to himself for a while, and then he realized, oh, the actual source of his unhappiness. Well, you know, we all lie to ourselves.

1:35:17Are you still lying to yourself today? I'm sure about some things. You think so? I try not to. I just want to find peace. You know what I mean? And every day is a search for it, you know? and the monsters want to come in, and you got to make your shit bigger than the monster's shit. You know? My father would say, as long as the cat's bigger than the shit, keep the cat. The minute the shit gets bigger than the cat, he went like this. I must have been 13 years old, 12 years old, when he said that to me. And he was right. When you were building Interscope, or really any time in your career, when you were younger, what was your inner monologue like?

1:35:58Was it negative to yourself? Were you like overly self-critical? Only the product. I felt like... So it wasn't, you're like, this product's not good enough. Well, first of all, when you grow up, when you grow up, not having a lot of money and money being a concern and the family and all that kind of stuff, you know, my family was very generous, but you know, we had reality, right? When you grow up like that, that plays a big part in your brain. You know what I mean? Because you don't think, you think 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.

1:36:39When did you lose that fear of being broke? I don't know, but I just know that when I sold to Apple, it didn't fix it. Dude, I thought you were going to say like when you were making tons of money in Interscope. That's wild. No, because I had to get something right. That overrised. 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 what 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. No, because you beat yourself up.

1:37:22You feel that if you can't... So you were still beating yourself up even when you were in your 50s and 60s. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you do it today? No. No, I don't. Today I actually approached the job. Now I get cranky. But when I get cranky, 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 personality-wise to get the job done, and it annoys me when people don't see things clearly or whatever. But when I put the phone down, I don't feel it.

1:38:08When I used to do that, I never stopped feeling it because I had to get it right. I felt like that for a while. This just changed. As a result of the work that I've been doing, there's a guy named Brad Jacobs who started eight separate billion-dollar companies. I did a bunch of episodes of Founders on him. He came to do this show. I've spent a bunch of time with him. And he's 68 years old. He's been an entrepreneur 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 shit out of himself mentally. And he's like, you know what?

1:38:36This is not helping my performance. And talking to him and then using some of 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.

1:39:04Like before, when I woke up this morning, I was like giddy. Cause 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, my self-talk is just like, just love what you do and follow your curiosity. And you're going to be obsessed anyways. 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 go, oh, fuck, I feel like I felt, I thought I killed that monster.

1:39:41But this is a new monster, only it's changed its shape. Where do you think that would happen? It just happens to everybody in life, you know? Some people like to admit it and some people don't. So, like, it might not be in your professional life, but it might be in your personal life. 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 know that it's not for me.

1:40:14I know that I couldn't do it. I'm not that cured. I take what I do serious I don't take myself too serious Because I love having a sense of humor I think laughing extends your life So my father was a really funny guy And we lived like that Growing up, everything was like We saw a sense of humor in everything I remember when he was dying Right before he died He... Something happened, and it was like a person came in and did something wrong, and he just looked at me, and he made a joke, because he knew it was funny, and he grabbed the moment. He had 28 % of his heart left. Did he know he was dying?

1:41:06It was a crazy time in my life. I was 31 years old, or 30, 31, and I went to my grandfather's funeral, his father, 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 all three of them died within eight weeks. So it was a really pretty crazy time and my father, 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 and you learned that from him yeah yeah my father was always a hard worker he was your best friend 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.

1:42:12Was it the worst day of your life? It still is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Worst day of my life by far. By far. Yeah, man. When he died, I made a Christmas album about him. It was called A Very Special Christmas. And we raised over$100 million for Special Olympics. I want to ask you some advice unrelated to work. I just saw that you have on your wrist a bracelet with your wife's name on it. Yeah. How important has that relationship been in your life compared to your work? Well, you know, 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.

1:42:58And that's part of why I have peace. Because 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're super, super intense. You know, so, so right now it's more important than my work. You get more satisfaction out of that. Yeah. It's the only place I find peace, you know, and I'm, I'm really in search of peace, man. The rest of the shit. But I do think we can crack the code at Complex. I really believe that. I believe that we can really do something in education. I really believe that.

1:43:47So I'm very passionate about that. Yeah, you need something to work towards. Not only that, I want to see that I can get something done without being nuts. Without feeling that horrible feeling. I mean, I feel like I can get something done without feeling like that. Yeah, I do too. You know, it really is the truth, you know. But by the way, not everybody feels like that. There are some really talented people who are completely happy about their work. I don't know, but I don't know any of it. But I'm sure there are out there. You've met, like, I mean, your entire world, your entire life was surrounded by top performers, by geniuses, by people that are, you know, at the top of their profession.

1:44:25And that's why I would light you up with questions the last two times that we saw each other about, like, what these people are like. Because what you just said, I want to try to create something great without being nuts. Yeah, me too. And I, like, want these examples of that. Yeah, but, 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? I didn't go to therapy long enough, early enough in my life. Because to unring the bells of your childhood takes a lot of work. I'm very pro-therapy, you know?

1:45:00I really am. To unring the bells of your childhood takes a lot of work. That's a great line. It's true. And you think the only way to do that is through? It's my way. Okay. It's mine. It's not the only way. When did you realize, oh, shit, I need it? I didn't take therapy really serious until my 50s. And I wish I had done it earlier. And what does really serious mean to you? It means twice a week, but take it in. not just not just show up at the point and listen but actually change your behavior yeah were you doing it like in her like in your 30s and 40s i started in my 30s and 40s but i wasn't a good patient pro customer or client yeah whatever the fuck they call so you go you show up you would talk they would talk they would talk the minute i walk on the phone i grab the phone they don't Like, you know, it was like...

1:45:48You weren't ready to take in the information? No, no. What do you think made you ready other than age? My divorce. Very simple. I was in a marriage and we were married and everything was going along. And then when we got divorced, which people do, I realized that that was a time that I needed to get my shit self-contained. All of a sudden, I got an idea about life that I didn't see before. So I pursued that. It's no different than the school or the beats or streaming or any of the things that I... That's a great way to think about it. Yeah. If I had the idea earlier, I would have did it earlier.

1:46:32Why did you tell me yesterday that you think I need to talk to somebody? Because of some of the things that you told me, you know? So some of the personal stuff you told me. I said, it's a lot easier to go with a guide. It's a lot easier to learn how to play tennis with a tennis teacher. It's good to have somebody in your life that doesn't have an agenda. Everybody in your life has an agenda. If you find a person without an agenda, you can get a lot further. You could have those other people who love you very much and care about you, But to have the one without the agenda, for me, was very helpful.

1:47:12Like, why do you think it works with that, with this particular person? I believe this person. Do you trust their judgment? Everything in my life is guttural. Steve was the same way, though. But you have to know you're wrong. A lot of times you're doing things for reasons that are controlled by that childhood, right? So as you work through that, you start doing things for more of a reason, more honest reasons that are not driven by that voice of your childhood. There's another thing that you said to me about you always kept a small circle of... I still do. These are true friends. I try to have an infield.

1:47:53You know, that's how many people sat in? No. I haven't seen baseball. And by the way, I don't need another shortstop until the other one dies. You know what I mean? I limit it. I don't go for six, you know? And it just takes time to develop trust with these people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I trust other people, but not like that. Not to where I connect like that. Yeah. You know, I'm very lucky. You know, when you get to be 72 years old, you have some friendships that are 50 years old. That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice. It's nice. But, you know, on the school thing, we're on to something. And I like to build, I like to do something, which goes back to all the business stuff, that's going to catch on and going to grow on its own, you know?

1:48:47So I think, like the stuff we're doing in the inner city, we have five schools now. These are high schools now? Yeah, 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. So that's the way you want high schoolers and people in college to learn. What's the best way for you to learn something new now? I was terrible in school. When I had to learn something, I just couldn't. How the hell do you learn to produce records then?

1:49:30Well, like anybody my age that's in music or around culturally, there was the Big Bang, which was the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. I was probably 11 years old, right? And I didn't have a currency in my neighborhood. I wasn't an athlete. I wasn't physically big. I wasn't any of the things that worked in the neighborhood. And when I saw the Beatles, I said, oh, there's a currency I can have. Because you tried to create music first, right? Yeah, it was terrible. Coming after, you know, I was in a band, you know. But I realized quick I wasn't going to be in the Rolling Stones. Then I met this woman through my cousin, this woman, Ellie Greenwich, who took me to recording sessions.

1:50:20and that's where I saw that guy with the leather bag and the, you know. And the beautiful woman. And the candles and the pretty girl coming to meet him. I said, oh, that's it. I never saw anybody with a leather bag before, you know. And so you just learned by observing? No, then I got it. I went to get a job. It was cleaning up, you know, cleaning up the studio, setting up the studio, repetition, putting this over there, You know, figuring out, being around it, being the ability to observe. I can see how you can learn to be like an engineer, right? In a recording studio that way. But then you go to a much more almost like creative part of it, which is producing.

1:51:02Well, because I had an instinct. I had an instinct for, again, for what the audience would like and what they wouldn't like and what was good and what was not. Based on your own personal taste? Based on my taste influenced by John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen. Okay. An intense, intense therapy. Sitting next to them every day for five years. And you were up close and you saw what true excellence looked like. Yeah. And they taught me what was cool and what was not cool and what was good and what was great. The difference between good and great and what you do to get there. And so then I was able to produce records because of those two people.

1:51:42I watched them. I watched Landa. I watched John. I watched John Lennon. I watched Bruce. I said, oh, shit. And I just absorbed it. And I applied it. That's how when Bruce gave me the song Because of the Night for Patti Smith, I was able to translate that into a record where I was the producer. I always wanted a song that sounded like the animals, you know, it's my life and, you know, that, that, and we got to get out of this place, right? So when I heard that song and I heard the chorus, because he had the chorus, right? I said shit and then I heard Because the Night Belongs to Lovers I said wow if a woman sings that that's powerful so I said to him you're going to use this song he goes no it doesn't fit on this album I said okay can I use it for Patty and he was great and he said yeah and she rewrote the verses and killed it but connecting the dots you know you could learn a little bit how to connect the dots but you got to be that kind of person that just sees you can connect the dots.

1:52:49And that's as simple and as difficult as it is. I was always able to connect the dots and see what could be, what this is and what it could be. But that's what always tortured me because I would see something and see what it could be and then try to get it to be that is maddening. Even with Beats, I, you know, I saw the iPod and we finally decided to do and I said oh wow it could be that you know it could be as cool as that we got to make it as cool as that because I thought it was really cool you know did you ever meet Akiya Murita the founder of Sony no but you observed them I observed them and Steve would talk to me about him and I saw but I was always very into the fact that he when I met Steve I never understood instinctively why Sony had Columbia Records, the Walkman, PlayStation, and then the CD and all this stuff.

1:53:54And how did Apple become Apple and not them? It's almost like they had all the components, but it was siloed. No, Marito died. Okay. But it goes back to your, I see some kind of connection to the school you're doing. Yes, yes. Because it's like, you had it all. You just had to have one person, like an Akio, if he was alive, or a Steve, or a Jimmy, to put it all together. I am not as smart as those two people. And I'm just telling you the God's honest truth, man. They knew how to do what they were doing. I don't know how to do what I, I don't really know. Yeah, but you know how to put shit together.

1:54:23I do. I know how to put shit together, you know? So that's really cool, but. Did Steve talk to you about the influence? Absolutely. What was he saying about Sony and Akio? He would say that guy was really, knew what he was doing. He really had a feel. And, you know, it was obvious to me, you know, 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? In interviews, he talks about what he loved about Akio and the Walkman in particular, because Akio had to fight to build the Walkman in his own company.

1:55:09They're like, this is the stupidest thing. I remember being with Bruce Springsteen, and he told me, he said, you know, this guy from Sony came up to me, and he runs the company. and he says, the guy asked me to put these headphones on if there was enough bass. And it was him. You know what I mean? Yeah. So this guy got it. Yeah. You know? And I never met him, but I know he got it. You know, I learned a lot from Steve. I learned a lot from John Lennon. I learned a lot from Bruce. I got really blessed. Were you able to learn, those are people, well, I guess Bruce was your age, right? You guys are, he's a little older.

1:55:52He's three years older than me. Were you able to learn from younger people than you? Like, were you learning from your artists? I learned from Bono. You know, a lot from Bono. Bono's 10 years younger than me. When I met Bono in 1983, and we did Under Blood Red Sky, I said, oh, shit, the framing of how artists are thinking is changing. I said, wow, look at this. Their music was different, you know? And the kind of music that was going on that they were doing was different. It was a take on punk, but it was like more ethereal and different. So, and also, he's an extrovert. Whereas the other guys, a lot of the guys I worked with weren't.

1:56:39They're introverted? Really? Dre? So 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.

1:57:00And it was something that I really didn't understand in the beginning. So I was really hungry to learn about it, you know, about hip-hop and the culture and what it was doing and how it applied and the true power of it. So I learned, I mean, I learned everything that I knew about hip-hop from Dr. Dre, period. I feel like he was some kind of like prodigy as a young person, but then he just has this relentless work ethic. So he took like innate talent and I don't, and seems to like just through an insane, like day after day after day after day dedication and made the, because he's the greatest hip hop producer of all time.

1:57:39Well, Dre and Bruce have a lot in common. How so? They are completely uncompromising. Okay. Completely uncompromising. They will not compromise. You have to convince them to move to the left or right. They know completely what they do, and they don't compromise. It's just that simple. Bruce was the lead. When I met Dre and Bruce, it was very similar. They were both broke, and Dre was in trouble and broke. And they were, with that vision. And even back then, they weren't compromising. Not even close. You couldn't rent Bruce Springsteen. You couldn't buy Bruce. Nothing. You could rent me in those days.

1:58:25You know what I mean? Absolutely. You know? But you couldn't anything with that guy. 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, you know, like I saw it. I admired that. So Bono was an extrovert. I'm going to say extrovert. He'll go out. He'll talk to people. And he's passionate. And by the way, in his book and in his play, One Man Show, he talks about the issues he had at home with his dad and all that stuff.

1:59:18But he is the most positive person I met in music. So his bend, same thing, comes from like this childhood trauma. Yeah. But somehow didn't, fixed it along the way. No, no, no. He just is naturally positive person. He's tough. He can get plowed through things. He works his incredible work ethic, incredible writer, incredible lyricist, incredible performer, but he's positive. Whenever you see him, he's got an idea. He wants to do this. He's got a very broad interest. I mean, you know, I didn't go on vacation until I met him. Say more about that. I'd never been on a vacation really until the year 2000 because I was doing Rattle and Hum with him in 1988.

2:00:07And I went to the south of France. I remember, and I was like, whoa, what the fuck? So you were just myopically focused on achievement. Yes. I love this story where you fly to California for the first time, right? I don't think you'd ever been on a plane. No. You were 20? How old are you? 20. You're 20. Never been on a plane, never been in a hotel. Never been in a hotel. And then, I don't know if it's the same trip or later, I think Tom Petty put you in a house. You had never - Lennon put me in the Beverly Hills Hotel. But that's when you start to be like, oh, wait, the world is huge, and there's a lot in front of me if I focus on this Lennon's accomplishment.

2:00:43Well, I remember John took me to a guy named Richard Perry's house. Okay. A very famous record producer. And 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 said, sure. I had nothing to do. I was in the hotel. Takes me there, and this guy's got a house in the hills in Laurel Canyon overlooking, or Doheny or something, overlooking the city. It was at night. He had a 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 scope of possibilities.

2:01:27Yeah, you know, you see for the first time, I've never been on a plane. I mean, I've only been to Manhattan because of the work. Did you know this is where you were going to spend your life? Yeah, the minute I got off the plane and my boss, Roy, said, let's rent the car. We rented a Cadillac, right? And we drove down Sunset Boulevard and it was December and it was 78 degrees or something like that. I said, are you kidding me? He said, no, this is the one in California, you know? So I went to pull into the Beverly Hills Hotel. First hotel you ever stay in. Yeah. Is that, that's wild. Ever. Except the host motel in Pennsylvania, where the car pulls up to the door, you know, one of those places.

2:02:20Yeah. And the pool's on the highway. Right. So. A little different from where you're at. Other than that, this was the first time. And so I go to my room and I come back and I talk to the doorman. I said, can I say something? The regular people live here. And he said, yeah, I'm a regular person. I'm a doorman. I said, I live here. I said, my father's a longshoreman. Are there docks here? Yeah. Said, it's the port of California. Yes, one of the biggest ports in the world or whatever. I said, thanks. I go back to my room. I called my mother. I said, Mom, how did you get this wrong? We land in Ellis Island, and we live 30 feet from Ellis Island.

2:03:12It's freezing. It's cold. Why don't we live in California? So, yeah, I knew I wanted to live in California from that day. So how long did it take for you to move here permanently? 79, Tom Petty, Daniel Torpedos. My whole life was controlled by, was documented by albums. I was Daniel Torpedos when I moved. How many years later was that? Six. Six years. And that's when he put, Tom Petty pulled you up in a house. Yeah. And you were kind of freaked out. You're like, I'm in the... Well, because it was, I wasn't, again, I never had a house. Yeah. I lived in an apartment, right? Yeah. There was noises outside the window, you know what I mean?

2:03:47So I was completely freaked out, you know? But Petty was, Petty was incredible. What'd you learn from him? He was the first guy I worked with that was my age. He was like only two years younger than me or something. But he was like, he was more of a contemporary of mine at that point. We were both trying to prove something, right? So we locked in and he was just a great songwriter. And again, perfectionist in his art. He would never bring a song in. Tom Petty never brought an average song into the studio. He was a great self-editor. he would come in that song would be complete and done Bruce is like that as well but that's another thing his motivating factor was creating the best possible song art yeah he wasn't thinking about again like everybody else you wanted to have a better life you know yeah and then another guy that had issues with his father but you had commercial instincts because there's a great line in the documentary where like he writes some song and you're like I think he wrote a great song and two other ones, you're like, get seven more, we're done.

2:04:57Or like, this song's going to buy you a house. And Tom's like, I've never heard anybody talk that way before. Well, because I, you know, sometimes I sound crass or whatever. Just that I have a sense of humor. I know how funny that would sound. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like Bono one day, I didn't work on Joshua Treat. I wanted to do it, but they chose Brian Eno and Danny Lenoir, 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 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.

2:05:41I said, really? I said, I don't know if I like house music that much. So he plays me with or without you. I said, Bono, that's house music. He said, no, it's not. You don't know what you're talking about. I said, Bono, that other song, that's apartment music. You put this song out, you're getting a house. 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 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.

2:06:22But my father was like that. He couldn't resist a good line. It goes back to one of the first things we talked about. It's like the fact that they want you in the room because 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 when I sent this clip when you're on Ari Emanuel's podcast. And at the end, I sent the clip to Daniel Eck. And me and him were just laughing about it because you're like the production. He goes, this is Ari's podcast. It's a reduction value. There was a velour couch.

2:06:53And he says it's not a velour couch. I grew up with velour couches, okay? Only my velour couchs have plastic on them. 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. Yeah, no, it felt. And Rick Rubin's sitting there in Italy in this incredible house, backlit. He looks like Moses. I'm like, what the fuck? I'm going to last thing. What did you think of production value today? You happy? I thought it was good. When you finally get going, I mean, the wood paneling is just not really for me. You know, I'm not like, because I had wood paneling growing up.

2:07:34You 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. It's a very nice time. It's a very nice place. It's perfect. I absolutely love you. I tell you this all the time. You're one of the people I most admire. This was fun. You might want to most be like, thank you so much for taking the time. This was fun. Hey, look, you know. Oh, don't leave me hanging. Don't leave me hanging, Jimmy. Come on. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see that. I was looking for my microphone. No, you're good.

2:07:59Thanks, man. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening and leave a review. And make sure you listen to my other podcast founders. For almost a decade, I've obsessively read over 400 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs searching for ideas that you can use in your work. Most of the guests you hear on this show first found me through founders.