Lee spent most of the time talking about how he built up his company and helped launch Beats by Dr. Dre in his keynote session titled “Monetizing the Emerging Ecosystem of Telecoms and Streaming Music”. The Beats brand was instrumental in illustrating how Lee used celebrities to increase the “cool” factor of his company, a recurring theme of his talk as he flipped through numerous slides showing him standing next to various music personalities.

When Beats sold to Apple for $3 billion earlier this year, Monster has already separated from the brand, and Lee did not see any of the money. He said he is not bothered by it because his work is about his passion for music quality. While hard to imagine not blinking at such a sizable sum of money, the separation from Beats tied into another theme of Lee’s talk.

“Your ability to reinvent yourself is really key to your survival and, I’m going to say, your relevance to the consumers at large,” he told the audience of electronics buyers.

Lee knows a thing or two about reinventing a brand. Monster started out producing audio cables and has since branched out into other consumer products. Today the company also makes HDMI cables and is now producing headphones under its own brand to compete with its former collaborative project now under Apple’s helm.

Lee is now trying to make his company’s new headphones appear cool by partnering with established fashion brands like Chanel, Lamborghini and Adidas.

“Here is why we are in China today, and here’s why I am here today: We want to invite collaboration,” Lee said. “Collaboration on innovation and creativity.”