The Culture-Tech Paradox: Why Founders Need More than Just Code. An anecdote from Steve Jobs and Jimmy Iovine.
Every once in a while, the course of an industry is shifted by a groundbreaking vision, an audacious challenge to the status quo, and an unexpected alliance.
Perhaps you’ve heard of Jimmy Iovine, the legendary music producer. If not (though you may know legendary music albums he produced), you might know the company he co-founded — Beats Music.
As a music industry veteran, #JimmyIovine knew the industry’s ins and outs like the back of his hand. At the beginning of the new millennium, file-sharing platforms were on the rise, threatening the traditional business model of the music industry. The future of music seemed caught between the hard place of technological change and the rock of the industry’s traditional ways.
Enter Steve Jobs, a man recommended to Iovine as someone who might hold the key to this challenge. Back then, Jobs worked on a novel platform known to us today as iTunes. When Iovine met with Jobs, he found someone who shared his vision for the future of music.
“He was speaking a language that no one else in tech was speaking.”
Reflecting on their encounter, Iovine said, “Steve understood the crossing of liberal arts and technology. No one else gets it.” Jobs, said Iovine, didn’t just enjoy music; he understood the very soul of the artists behind it. This profound connection to the ‘why’ of music resonated deeply with Iovine, driving him to support Jobs. Iovine led Interscope Records, his record label, to become one of the first music labels to fully embrace iTunes, the innovative platform that bridged the gap between tech and music.
To truly revolutionize the music industry, Iovine needed a partner who could speak both the language of music and technology. “The only person that I ever met that understood it — truly understood it — was Steve Jobs,” said Iovine. “He was speaking a language that no one else in tech was speaking.” This mutual understanding and shared vision eventually, years later, led to Apple’s acquisition of Beats, the audio company co-founded by Iovine, for 3 billion dollars, the largest acquisition in Apple’s history, and made Iovine head of Apple Music.
My takeaway from this? To change an industry, oftentimes, we must first change the culture. And to change culture, we must deeply understand and collaborate with the artists who are its lifeblood.
P.S
Highly recommend listening to Angela Ahrendts speaking with Ivoine about his story in the podcast “Master of Scale.”
