How Jimmy, Dre and Ian could transform Apple’s tech culture

Apple has an incredibly strong corporate culture. That culture remained fairly constant under the black-turtlenecked tutelage of Steve Jobs. Tim Cook eased the company into his own style of leadership, and the acquisition of Beats has the chance to expand that evolution in a very positive way.

None of the streaming-music companies have a leader who built one of the most dominant labels in the past 20 years, like Iovine did. Nor do they have someone who invented a new music genre, developed the talent, and then blew it up for a commercial audience, like Dre did. That’s a massive difference between Apple and Spotify, Google, Amazon and any other tech company dipping their toe into music.

And Ian Rogers?

Beyond the gravitas of Iovine and Dre, there’s another talent coming on board in Beats Music CEO Ian Rogers, a talented digital marketer who has spent a great deal of his career figuring out how to exploit new media channels to build revenue streams for artists.

Rogers understands technology and how it can be used to help artists market to fans. From his days building the Beastie Boys’ website to his time as CEO of Topspin, he has been on the leading edge of new ways to communicate directly with fans. And there has never been a better potential platform for artists and fans to connect than streaming services.

He represents Generation Next of digital-music execs, those who understand the life cycle of artists, marketing, customer demand, and the technology that powers all these. Rogers has built a vastly different streaming service from anyone else in the space, one that has a more balanced approach between those disciplines.

I think it will be a long time until the folks outside Apple’s management team truly understand the value that Beats brings to the table.