NYT: DR. DRE AND JIMMY IOVINE START A ACADEMIC PROGRAM AT USC FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF START-UP FOUNDERS

FROM THE NYTIMES.COM

The music moguls, who founded the wildly popular Beats headphone business, are giving $70 million to the University of Southern California to create a degree that blends business, marketing, product development, design and liberal arts. The gift is relatively modest, as donations to universities go. But the founders’ ambitions are lofty, as they explained in an interview Monday in the elaborate presidential dining room on the lush U.S.C. campus.

“If the next start-up that becomes Facebook happens to be one of our kids, that’s what we are looking for,” said Mr. Iovine, an energetic 60-year-old dressed in his trademark uniform of T-shirt and fitted jeans, faded baseball hat and blue-tinted eyeglasses.

Like many celebrities, Mr. Iovine and Dr. Dre have been seduced by the siren call of the tech world, which has lured celebrities like Justin Bieber, Tyra Banks and Leonardo DiCaprio to finance a start-up or develop their own idea. They have had more success than most with Beats, a private company that they say makes $1 billion in sales annually.

Still, the world of academia is far from familiar to Mr. Iovine and Dr. Dre. Neither went to college. And during the interview, Mr. Iovine confessed more than once that he was “out of my depth” when it came to discussing details of the program. He referred those questions to Erica Muhl, dean of the university’s fine arts school, who will be the inaugural director of the program and in charge of devising the curriculum, selecting professors and reviewing applications.

Dr. Dre, 48, svelte and relaxed in black jeans and a black sweater that just barely concealed a faded forearm tattoo, has an easy rapport with Mr. Iovine, and was content to let him do most of the talking. The rapper nodded often, ate chocolate chip cookies with evident pleasure, and chimed in occasionally. When he did, he chose his words carefully.

As a rapper, Dr. Dre was lauded for his blend of agile West Coast lyrics and rich, blunt beats; asked if he ever expected as a young performer that he would help start a university program, he leaned forward and laughed long and hard.

“Never in a million years,” he said.

But he and Mr. Iovine are betting that their instinct and keen ears — which helped Mr. Iovine find and sign Dr. Dre who, in turn, ferreted out Snoop Dogg and Eminem when they were budding musicians — will help them find future chief executives.

It doesn’t matter whether it is the next Gwen Stefani, Mr. Iovine said, whom he signed at 19, or recruiting and nurturing the next Marissa Mayer.

 IT WOULD HAVE BEEN GREAT FOR THIS MONEY TO HAVE GONE TO AN HCBU.
source