According to new reports, Jimmy Iovine is set to depart from Apple Music in August of this year.
It was in 2014 that Iovine, formerly the CEO of Interscope Records, joined Apple after selling his and Dr. Dre's Beats music and electronics company to the tech giant for a whopping $3 billion. The duo launched the first Beats headphones back in 2008, and together, expanded the company into Beats Music, the subscription-based version of the brand prior to selling to Apple.
According to several sources, Iovine's exit is in conjunction with his shares in Apple fully vesting, meaning that he can now leave the company while still maintaining and excercising his stock options.
It was under Iovine's spearheading of crafting original programming on the Apple Music subscription service, launched in June of 2015, that the service developed a user base of over 30 million paying subcribers.
As to what Iovine will do after parting ways with Apple, there's no telling. But, based on a previous conversation with Billboard, he'll likely continue to find ways to revolutionize the music industry. "I’m 64 years old. I have no idea [what I’m doing next]," he said as he touched on the streaming industry as a whole following Goldman Sachs' prediction that subscription streaming would lead to the record industry amassing $41 billion globally by 2030.
"There’s just a problem here that needs some sort of solution, and I want to contribute to it. Goldman Sachs may think it’s solved, but I don’t. We’re not even close.”
