Apple has made the biggest buy in its history—and made Dr. Dre the richest man in hip-hop history. The company has confirmed that it is buying Beats Electronics for $3 billion, down from the $3.2 billion discussed earlier this month, reports Bloomberg, which notes that Apple is sitting on enough cash to have bought the headphone and music-streaming firm 50 times over and CEO Tim Cook appears ready to use the money pile more aggressively than predecessor Steve Jobs ever did. Dre has a 25% stake in the firm and the deal puts him close to being rap's first billionaire, the BBC notes.
So what's in it for Apple? The company appears to be paying a "star-struck valuation" for a cool company, one analyst tells CNET, saying the price tag appears too high unless Apple has a secret strategy like "expanding into headphones used as wearable tech." But Cook says the buy was a "no-brainer" and while Apple could easily have built a similar streaming service, the talent at Beats Electronics is the most exciting part of the deal. "These guys are really unique," he tells the New York Times. "It's like finding the precise grain of sand on the beach. They're rare and very hard to find." (More Beats Electronics stories.)
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