Roger Fingas
The founders of Beats, now executives at Apple Music, broke ground this week on a new academy named after them at the University of Southern California.
The Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation will offer courses in art and design, communication, engineering, computer science, and business and venture management, ABC 7 said. The aim is an interdiscplinary approach, and Iovine invoked Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' famous maxim about bridging "technology and liberal arts."
The academy will measure about 10,000 square feet, and should officially open in fall 2019. Some classes and programs are already operating in other USC buildings, and 114 students are expected to graduate in May 2018.
Iovine and Young — the latter better known as rapper and producer Dr. Dre — donated $70 million towards the academy in 2013, a year before Beats was bought by Apple in a deal worth $3 billion.
Apple has remained vague about what Iovine and Young are responsible for at Apple Music, which recently hit 30 million subscribers. Both do have deep industry connections, particularly Iovine, who helped engineer and produce artists like Bruce Springsteen, and co-founded Interscope Records in 1990. Interscope distributed material by Death Row Records, co-founded by Young.
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5 Comments
Too bad they didn’t actually break ground with those shovels. I like how they pose in hard hats and construction tools like they worked on the building. lol
No hate here I just find it funny how execs etc. do this while wearing fresh clothes and clean faces.
I love these guys and believe they’re a vital addition to Apple’s philosophy, work ethic and future.
I believed he was the first Billionaire rapper, matured one that is.
Dre looks stiffer than Al Gore in that get-up
I applaud any effort hat keeps them away from Apple campuses
This is a cool moment. I hope they head a new Apple shop in Los Angeles and move all of the creative-app (eg, Logic, Garage Band) software devs down from that circular food court just to get them closer to "base reality". Also would like to see their Beats-brand extended to iPads with some models made of carbon-fiber/fiber-glass, all including LTE-M (just for remote administration) and 14 hours of free WiFi per week somewhere all on a no-qualifier lease distributed through Wally World or maybe even McCafes. While I'm dreaming, how about Swift Playgrounds that can work with an iCloud-hosted "Gitlab" and the ability to "push" apps to a new AppStore that targets engineers, scientists, students and makers with "reputation scores" and "stars" (like StackOverflow and Github) rather than iTunes Reviews filled with comments like "What a waste! a Roomba control app that requires owning a Roomba!"