how’s it going guys so let’s talk about
fear for a second cuz my talk is gonna
be about fear who here is afraid of
spiders I can’t look at that picture
how about snakes yeah sir I’m not that
bad with snake snakes I can hold and
it’d be alright
how about Heights that’s a big one for
people yeah these are fears that are
pretty palpable because they’re obvious
right but what about fears that are a
little bit under their radar a little
bit more hidden who’s here afraid of
failure right we see afraid of being
alone alright so there’s a lot of fears
but you ever notice how some of these
things seem to evolve from survival
right fear was a natural mechanism that
kept us alive and because it kept us
alive we’re here today you know
saber-toothed tiger doesn’t maul our
ancestors therefore here we are right so
fear is an important basis for its
evolution our tendency to congregate in
group Sam you have to be social as part
of that whole thing too but ever notice
how when kids first start out they’ve
absolutely no fear
I see three or four year-olds on the ski
slopes and they’re just like they’ve
absolutely no fear whatsoever meanwhile
as we get older it’s like oh no a mogul
I’m gonna die so what’s interesting here
is where does this come from I’m gonna
address a lot of these things is it
effective to have fear what how does if
you’re evolved so I actually believe
fear is in appendix you know in
appendices it’s a useless vestige of
something that used to be part of our
larger test and then no longer Nellie
does it no longer serve us but it
actually can get inflamed and hurt us I
really fear as a part of that we live in
a very safe world these days relative to
when saber-toothed Tigers were out
stalking us and unless you’re in the
middle of Montana where Grizzlies are
still attacking people then in for the
most part fear is kind of an irrelevant
I think for us so my name is sam
tarantino i started a company called
Grooveshark which was one of the first
music streaming services today you all
use Spotify and Pandora and things like
that we were one of the first ones in
2005 and 6 to do stream music we grew
that company to 120 employees 35 million
users and about 50
million a year in revenue all to see it
gets sued for 17 billion dollars lose it
and then watch my partner pass away at
28 years old so I’ve seen the rise and
the fall and all the stories that go
along with that and I can tell you that
fear the entire ride was a major part of
it and having gone through that wife
here is a complete illusion now so let’s
start with my story I have been a
musician since I was 12
I started playing piano then I learned
guitar and as I got older I found a
place of comfort in the fact that I was
really good at it so I went to UF and
Florida or I continued to be involved
with music and I went into a band and of
course when I told my parents I wanted
to be a musician not an economist they
said fine let’s see how you handle your
bank account being turned off which
became the impetus to say oh I need to
actually build a business this is
interesting now I had no idea what
entrepreneurship was entrepreneurship
was this thing that really wasn’t
defined yet it was sort of like these
people that build businesses but I knew
I wanted to do something in music so I
go to this entrepreneurship Club meeting
which sounds very nerdy and it is but I
encourage you if – if you want to be in
and doing anything in entrepreneurship
go to a non traditional club meeting in
college when he go there because it’s
it’s a very inspiring place that people
trying to do cool things and there I met
my eventual co-founder Josh Greenberg
who was a technology guy I was a
business guy I looked I looked at things
from the music side and from the
business side and we became really
complementary I said you know what let’s
do it he was very analytical he knew how
to do product development and I knew how
to do the entire business side because I
was an economics major now I wanted to
kill him at times because there were
times throughout our entire 10 years of
doing Grooveshark where I said why did
you make that decision oh my god I’m
gonna kill you but I knew that there was
an underlying trust there that he would
do what’s best for the company and I
would do what’s best for the company so
that partnership was really strong so
with my early college savings he
basically got our first office this was
about a hundred square foot well that is
actually there’s like garbage that we’re
working on it was the white board box
that we kind of put on top of another
box and that became where kind of early
early conference table so and
Josh actually yelled at me when I got an
actual desk is accuse me $50 of our
startup capital on a desk yes and that
is actually a CRT monitor were you think
that’s not just a prob this was 2006 so
early days and we were just you know
getting started now the first version of
the product was terrible this is this is
so embarrassing I dug this up and just
the fact that it’s pink and blue and
very when web 2.0 was like what people
called it first version was terrible
second version was terrible who their
version was terrible
and what we found was that people want
to actually just perform an action and
something that really disrupted
everything was it in 2007 the iPhone was
released well this is the first time by
the way let me set the stage here this
is 2006 there was no iPhone most of you
probably grew up with headphones but I’m
having a time when you didn’t have a
portal to all the humanities knowledge
at your fingertips that was a day that
there was no streaming right you
actually had to load up songs onto an
iPod from iTunes which used to be a
terrible piece of software and that was
a six step process to get songs on the
go that when I was in high school it’s
actually the CDs that you had to burn
and rip and I’m not even gonna go there
I’m feeling old so when the iPhone came
out as a big deal because we said you
know what into in a couple steps you’re
gonna be able to just play a song
directly to your hand basically which
was insane
and that was the version of Grooveshark
that actually started to really explode
another thing at this time myspace was
the largest site on the Internet
so put that into perspective yes
my space was like early Facebook before
Facebook came along so they were doing a
little bit of streaming music but it
wasn’t really popularized yet so this
version you literally just searched and
then you’d play a song so in two clicks
you were playing a song right away and
we had that on the on the first versions
of the iPhone as well now that was
revolutionary because that had never
been done before and it hadn’t even done
without any sort of plugins or signups
or anything you literally just went to
the site search the song played song and
that was what started blowing us up we
started growing by about 200,000 users a
month and that kind of growth was pretty
well there’s a source to Spotify we when
you’re growing that fast
you’re starting to spend money more fast
– kids laugh see you’re using servers
and stuff and at the time we were
ecstatic we said oh man like we need a
new office space we need to like hire
people to like maintain all this growth
and serve people then we actually had to
grow revenue and stuff so at the time we
actually did install servers and so we
spent a lot of 2/3 ham nights to serve
her home at the data center actually
turned installs now these days if any of
you are gonna build a service you just
go on this nice little thing called
Amazon Web Services or Google cloud and
you hit a button and it now creates a
server so it does all of this in about
15 seconds which shows you how much
technology has progressed and how much
easier it is to build things as time
goes on so one day I get a random call
we’re sitting here like struggling oh no
we’re running at a cache like next month
what am I gonna do like we have 5-10
employees like this is crazy
well I got a call one day from this guy
at Intel I think at the time we were
about a hundred thousand employees I got
this guy he says my son uses your site
every day and we don’t like Intel is in
the company Intel is and again I’m 23
years old just like I just got a call
from a fortune 500 company they want to
invest and I told my co-founder Josh I
think we should fly out there this
sounds important and so we flew out
there and they invested the first series
a which are the first seed round which
is a couple hundred thousand and our
team grew from this initial team to this
team – over the next couple years this
team and it was about a hundred twenty
people the peak and throughout that time
we’re growing up to about thirty five
million users at the peak and actually
we were very very big in particular in
Latin America
Latin America the net Pandora I wouldn’t
have anything and they used to call us a
groove there which was really cool it’s
like a nickname so we would go down to
the various markets and I would start
building with my team the various
revenue components and Josh would
continue working and iterating on the
product so that was a story of the rise
and the thing about this interesting is
that at every milestone we kept popping
in a pain because it was wild right
we’re growing so fast it was like oh my
god million users whoa champagne you
know five million users yeah 10 million
users for champagne actually our
landlord was yelled at us because the
roof this the roof part of it was was
all sticky from worship so we were
living a dream it’s I don’t know if you
guys have seen the Facebook movie but
that whole like excitement about growth
and stuff it was real like it was
everything that I could have ever
imagined that the startup world would
actually be and better and every time
we’ve done a street you go oh my god I
used rashard that to me was the biggest
reward because they know that something
that came out of our heads and we built
that people actually use on a daily
basis and affected all these lives was
just mind-blowing to this day I don’t
even like 35 million users doesn’t even
register it’s like a weird it’s just
some people they used it and we were on
the you know Forbes 30 under 30 three
years in a row and we were like the
spotlight and it was strange because
here I was this college kid that now was
had created a real product in a real
business even during the crash as hard
as it was to raise funding and I have a
whole bunch of stories and raising
funding even during the 2008 crash a lot
of our competitors are going into
business so they were coming to us so we
grew actually faster during after the
2008 crisis the challenge on that front
was actually raising money to help pace
thing that amount of growth that was
happening so we got through all the
crisis problems which again I could
spend an hour I’m head alone but
breaking even if you’re doing a business
and that’s what you want to do I can
tell you breakeven is the greatest day
of your life it is very very liberating
that you actually build a business that
is self-sustaining and running and
you’re actually growing on your own now
actually got a mascot that would go
around to all the conferences and sort
of parade card company
and then we had a real issue we had to
get all four of the record labels in the
music industry in order to become viable
and it’s a bit of a catch-22 you need
money to get to sign the labels you need
the labels doesn’t get money and there’s
a lot of political you know it’s not
part of politics inside of the record
labels and we had two of the four record
labels but the other two weren’t playing
ball so the other two sued us and we had
a seventeen billion dollar lawsuit on
our hands it’s okay we can handle this
like we’ve gone through though a crisis
and some other things and I felt like we
could handle it the press was very
innovative in their portrayal of the
tatha crew shark we had this for about
six years we were fighting the lawsuit
and of course every month there was you
know a shark through a roof is it over
but then it actually happened after a
while it finally ended and we got about
a week away from trial and we decided to
wave the white flag his trial is a
lose-lose situation you spend all your
money regardless of whether he win or
you lose
so we decided to shut down and take a
take the summer off this was the last
wall of all of our employees that signed
the goodbye for Grooveshark and at the
time Spotify had just entered the market
and they had raised about half a billion
dollars and didn’t pay the labels a ton
of money to come here the US which is
why you use Spotify today in that
crusher so we figured it’s okay we’ll
take this would be half time you know
sometimes you know Tom Brady just lost
the Super Bowl there’s next year we
figured this was our lost Super Bowl and
we would win then we would win in the
next round but that wasn’t gonna happen
because Josh was found dead for no cause
at 28 years old and I got a call from
his girlfriend that he had passed away
this is the what do you the last
voicemail yeah hey I feel weird leaving
this in your voicemail but I imagine the
concept of a piano teacher
on oculus imagine learning piano through
oculus so picture like a a virtual piano
teacher who understands so it was last I
heard of it was the night before he
passed and what it illuminated for me
was how short life was
how you could just not exist and then
the flash and a28 I thought I was doing
the unthinkable which was giving funeral
for my best friend my co-founder person
who was going to continue on to the next
startup with Josh I thought who’s
vegetarian
healthy how could someone like that just
die I mean I eat meat for that reason
how can I justify it say hey you know
not the ready to go but in all
seriousness there were no answers there
wasn’t even a cause I could get around
so I went into this very dark place
what’s the purpose of anything and why I
did great people to get taken from us
and loss became the set of waves that
sort of as time passed the ripples
dissipated and a friend described it as
the ripples continued to dissipate for a
while but they’re always there and
always in the background of your
thinking now it really taught me a lot
about fear 700 people showed up at a
Funeral kid was 28 years old 700 people
we actually at UF we’re in Gainesville
and at UF we had to actually get the
auditorium for his funeral and it
thought taught me it’s funny how someone
so young could have such a massive
impact on a community not to mention the
35 million users that we had I was
getting thousands of tweets saying sorry
fear loss and it’s interesting because
like the whole time leading into
Grooveshark and on the way up I was
afraid of failure terrified failure what
if this doesn’t work I dropped out of
school it’s sophomore year because Intel
came in on his investors fact that I
dropped out of school was because what
if I fail Intel what if all this happens
and to think about what is is there not
real just like this Mirage looks as real
as water right but if you get closer to
it it goes away and that’s a real real
lesson on on fear the closer you get to
it the closer you get to the things that
you’re afraid of the more they actually
start to disappear and the whole process
of Josh really taught me that everything
I had feared not only did things happen
so much worse than what I figured
but I survived it I got through it I’m
standing here in front of you today who
knows this photograph this is the most
famous photograph of all time right it’s
when the Wright Flyer first took off but
what people don’t see are these photos
two crashes once where they flip or in
early parts of the development of the
Wright Flyer they actually had to the
Wright brothers had to get by in in
order to get a military contract from
this guy Thomas Selfridge well they took
him on a test flight to see if he wasn’t
wanted to buy a bunch of right flyers it
crashed Orville and him crashed and they
he got killed not a great way to get a
military contract she killed a guy who
was the buyer of the planes so after
that Orville really flew but they got
back up they worked hard to get it fix
the bugs fix the issues and get back on
on the horse so I offer a couple tips on
recovery because and I never do believe
this stuff happens to all of us bad
things will happen at some point in our
lives and the question is how do we deal
with them that’s the only choice we have
and I realized that fear as it relevant
as fear has become and is unreal as it
is the way to get through it is actually
have courage and courage I believe is a
set of choices and those choices I think
are as follows
trusting and having faith if you’re
religious it’s faith sometimes it’s in
the universe it’s very in various worlds
it’s a different name but trusting that
there’s some sort of balance always
believe like from physics every action
as an equal and opposite reaction and so
with bad things come good things and
there’s a balance in the universe
learning and teaching after Josh died I
had to immerse myself in technology I
didn’t know how to code I didn’t know
anything but in learning the process of
the things that he’s done over the years
it actually brought me hope and I could
feel his spirit in me of like wow this
is what he did I can actually feel it
and I am now part of that whole world
and teaching others is another thing
because as you see people light up an
excitement they can do what you do it
actually gets you out of that sadness
friends and family I had friends and
family go through me this entire just
entire process and I couldn’t have done
it without
and facing discomfort I used be
terrified of public speaking like
terrified and facing discomfort is
something that actually strengthens you
I’m I was heard to quote that the way a
diamond is made is through pressure and
facing discomfort you can’t get any more
pressure than things that you absolutely
got viscerally have a discomfort on
and lastly preparation preparation is an
interesting one because I’m a huge
nature lover I do a lot of
mountaineering and the thing about
nature and outdoors is preparation is a
key part of survival when you’re out in
the outdoors in the nature without
preparation you could be in some serious
life-threatening situations fear on the
other hand is what makes you more more
likely to hurt yourself and there’s a
good analogy there
Joseph Campbell says follow your bliss
and universe will open where there were
only walls easier said than done right
there’s all this fear that we have like
what if this doesn’t work what if I get
out of this relationship and there’s no
one for me what if you know there’s all
these what ifs that we have but the hard
part is to have those curves that have
the courage to go through those and say
I’m gonna ignore this fear and I’m gonna
go right towards it so that leads me to
today I year and a half ago moved to
this place where I used to vacation
called Colorado all the time and I said
I can make a choice right now to be
happy to stop being sad to get off my
butt and actually start taking action to
change the way I think action is an
incredible thing because it’s the only
thing you have control over is what you
do things happen all around again back
to the nature analogy storms hit like
things that are all fires hit like so
there’s all these things that already
control but all you have control over is
action so I moved to Colorado and began
this new company called chromatic which
was an offshoot of one of the features
of Grooveshark and it’s where people
make their own radio shows and it to me
this was not just about creating a new
company but it’s about finishing when I
started the future finishing what I
started with Josh and actually taking it
to the next half that we did so I want
to talk about traps
because inevitably you all deal with
this at some point and I think it’s
helpful to look at at the things that
can trip you up and I thought oh I have
all this experience second company is
gonna be so much easier experience
yields ease right turns out is exactly
the opposite what the hardest thing to
deal with is a victim mentality why did
this happen to me why it’s natural to
think when something bad happens like
Josh dying or whatever why did this
happen to me that’s everyone’s first
reaction and the reality is bad things
happen everyone and so there’s no
specific personalization to you and
getting into mentality if I’m a victim
actually leads you down a path that
keeps you a victim but to say I’m not a
victim I’m gonna get through this gets
you past it another trap I found was
entitlement 31 now I started your shark
at 19 I had no idea what I was doing I
mean I had probably I was like yeah I
was basically getting homeless your age
no idea what’s inside no reference no
frame of reference as to what could go
wrong well when you’re older and things
go wrong you now suddenly get stuck
sometimes on well I paid my dues or I
are I deserve this already because I
already went through all this bad stuff
and the reality is the like the universe
and the world doesn’t really care like
you will it’s gonna be hard regardless
lastly past in our thirdly past and
future thinking there’s a tendency I’ve
had at least to think oh wow it was like
this a crew shark therefore it should be
like at this but the world’s changed the
world continues to change and it’s hard
to get stuck into like how something was
and to stay into that world versus how
should be so presence I found is
something that’s really really important
you got to stay present and and in the
current moment because everything
changes so fast these days external
control and expectation it’s easy to say
well it’s all out of my control Josh
died people that I grew shark dies but
at the end of the day again you can take
action and the hardest thing to do that
I found is to have non attachment to the
outcomes of things but still work 110
percent knowing that it may not work out
the way you want it to that’s hard but
that’s what
creates anything right the best athletes
in the world don’t expect to get gold
medals they go out there wanting gold
medals and working towards gold medals
and then the non attachment to the
outcome it could be for years could be
eight years could be twelve years until
they get that gold medal but they work
as hard as they can to do it and lastly
this grows I’ve noticed as you get older
here as fears of uncertainty again when
you’re first starting out who knows
maybe it’ll like just see what happens
as bad things happen to you you start to
get into a mode if I never want that to
happen again and then it’s poisonous
because that becomes the reality that
you will it amazes me how much what you
think becomes the reality again I’ve
seen the side of growth and excitement
and I’ve seen the side of death and
ending and having been on both sides and
seeing the whole thing the entire
consistency of the whole process was
what I thought became reality and that
is mind blowing that goes to show you
how powerful you are in the process of
creating anything and getting through
anything so I’ll leave you with this
because I believe there is a capacity
for greatness in every single one of you
this is this is probably many of you
about po2 college and it got into the
world and the reality is there is every
single person here has fears doubts
uncertainties but every single one of
you has an courage inside of you that
can get through it I love you at this
quote I do not think I’m especially
especially fitted for success in any
commercial pursuit even if I had the
proper personal and business influences
to assist me
I might make a living but I doubt I
would do ever more than this this is
Wilbur Wright inventor of the airplane
like the fact that even someone like
this and literally is little hitter he’s
left history is littered with examples
like this people that thought there’s no
way that’s gonna happen the founding
fathers who we looked at as these
mythical creatures and gods they knew
that they were going to get hanged if
they lost the American Revolution so
everyone has fears and it’s a matter of
the courage that you have
to make the choices to take action to
get over those fears because remember
fear is an evolutionary vestige and we
live in a safe fairly safe environment
where fear is no longer needed so go out
there conquer those fears push yourself
to have courage because history is eagerly awaiting you thanks guys
fear for a second cuz my talk is gonna
be about fear who here is afraid of
spiders I can’t look at that picture
how about snakes yeah sir I’m not that
bad with snake snakes I can hold and
it’d be alright
how about Heights that’s a big one for
people yeah these are fears that are
pretty palpable because they’re obvious
right but what about fears that are a
little bit under their radar a little
bit more hidden who’s here afraid of
failure right we see afraid of being
alone alright so there’s a lot of fears
but you ever notice how some of these
things seem to evolve from survival
right fear was a natural mechanism that
kept us alive and because it kept us
alive we’re here today you know
saber-toothed tiger doesn’t maul our
ancestors therefore here we are right so
fear is an important basis for its
evolution our tendency to congregate in
group Sam you have to be social as part
of that whole thing too but ever notice
how when kids first start out they’ve
absolutely no fear
I see three or four year-olds on the ski
slopes and they’re just like they’ve
absolutely no fear whatsoever meanwhile
as we get older it’s like oh no a mogul
I’m gonna die so what’s interesting here
is where does this come from I’m gonna
address a lot of these things is it
effective to have fear what how does if
you’re evolved so I actually believe
fear is in appendix you know in
appendices it’s a useless vestige of
something that used to be part of our
larger test and then no longer Nellie
does it no longer serve us but it
actually can get inflamed and hurt us I
really fear as a part of that we live in
a very safe world these days relative to
when saber-toothed Tigers were out
stalking us and unless you’re in the
middle of Montana where Grizzlies are
still attacking people then in for the
most part fear is kind of an irrelevant
I think for us so my name is sam
tarantino i started a company called
Grooveshark which was one of the first
music streaming services today you all
use Spotify and Pandora and things like
that we were one of the first ones in
2005 and 6 to do stream music we grew
that company to 120 employees 35 million
users and about 50
million a year in revenue all to see it
gets sued for 17 billion dollars lose it
and then watch my partner pass away at
28 years old so I’ve seen the rise and
the fall and all the stories that go
along with that and I can tell you that
fear the entire ride was a major part of
it and having gone through that wife
here is a complete illusion now so let’s
start with my story I have been a
musician since I was 12
I started playing piano then I learned
guitar and as I got older I found a
place of comfort in the fact that I was
really good at it so I went to UF and
Florida or I continued to be involved
with music and I went into a band and of
course when I told my parents I wanted
to be a musician not an economist they
said fine let’s see how you handle your
bank account being turned off which
became the impetus to say oh I need to
actually build a business this is
interesting now I had no idea what
entrepreneurship was entrepreneurship
was this thing that really wasn’t
defined yet it was sort of like these
people that build businesses but I knew
I wanted to do something in music so I
go to this entrepreneurship Club meeting
which sounds very nerdy and it is but I
encourage you if – if you want to be in
and doing anything in entrepreneurship
go to a non traditional club meeting in
college when he go there because it’s
it’s a very inspiring place that people
trying to do cool things and there I met
my eventual co-founder Josh Greenberg
who was a technology guy I was a
business guy I looked I looked at things
from the music side and from the
business side and we became really
complementary I said you know what let’s
do it he was very analytical he knew how
to do product development and I knew how
to do the entire business side because I
was an economics major now I wanted to
kill him at times because there were
times throughout our entire 10 years of
doing Grooveshark where I said why did
you make that decision oh my god I’m
gonna kill you but I knew that there was
an underlying trust there that he would
do what’s best for the company and I
would do what’s best for the company so
that partnership was really strong so
with my early college savings he
basically got our first office this was
about a hundred square foot well that is
actually there’s like garbage that we’re
working on it was the white board box
that we kind of put on top of another
box and that became where kind of early
early conference table so and
Josh actually yelled at me when I got an
actual desk is accuse me $50 of our
startup capital on a desk yes and that
is actually a CRT monitor were you think
that’s not just a prob this was 2006 so
early days and we were just you know
getting started now the first version of
the product was terrible this is this is
so embarrassing I dug this up and just
the fact that it’s pink and blue and
very when web 2.0 was like what people
called it first version was terrible
second version was terrible who their
version was terrible
and what we found was that people want
to actually just perform an action and
something that really disrupted
everything was it in 2007 the iPhone was
released well this is the first time by
the way let me set the stage here this
is 2006 there was no iPhone most of you
probably grew up with headphones but I’m
having a time when you didn’t have a
portal to all the humanities knowledge
at your fingertips that was a day that
there was no streaming right you
actually had to load up songs onto an
iPod from iTunes which used to be a
terrible piece of software and that was
a six step process to get songs on the
go that when I was in high school it’s
actually the CDs that you had to burn
and rip and I’m not even gonna go there
I’m feeling old so when the iPhone came
out as a big deal because we said you
know what into in a couple steps you’re
gonna be able to just play a song
directly to your hand basically which
was insane
and that was the version of Grooveshark
that actually started to really explode
another thing at this time myspace was
the largest site on the Internet
so put that into perspective yes
my space was like early Facebook before
Facebook came along so they were doing a
little bit of streaming music but it
wasn’t really popularized yet so this
version you literally just searched and
then you’d play a song so in two clicks
you were playing a song right away and
we had that on the on the first versions
of the iPhone as well now that was
revolutionary because that had never
been done before and it hadn’t even done
without any sort of plugins or signups
or anything you literally just went to
the site search the song played song and
that was what started blowing us up we
started growing by about 200,000 users a
month and that kind of growth was pretty
well there’s a source to Spotify we when
you’re growing that fast
you’re starting to spend money more fast
– kids laugh see you’re using servers
and stuff and at the time we were
ecstatic we said oh man like we need a
new office space we need to like hire
people to like maintain all this growth
and serve people then we actually had to
grow revenue and stuff so at the time we
actually did install servers and so we
spent a lot of 2/3 ham nights to serve
her home at the data center actually
turned installs now these days if any of
you are gonna build a service you just
go on this nice little thing called
Amazon Web Services or Google cloud and
you hit a button and it now creates a
server so it does all of this in about
15 seconds which shows you how much
technology has progressed and how much
easier it is to build things as time
goes on so one day I get a random call
we’re sitting here like struggling oh no
we’re running at a cache like next month
what am I gonna do like we have 5-10
employees like this is crazy
well I got a call one day from this guy
at Intel I think at the time we were
about a hundred thousand employees I got
this guy he says my son uses your site
every day and we don’t like Intel is in
the company Intel is and again I’m 23
years old just like I just got a call
from a fortune 500 company they want to
invest and I told my co-founder Josh I
think we should fly out there this
sounds important and so we flew out
there and they invested the first series
a which are the first seed round which
is a couple hundred thousand and our
team grew from this initial team to this
team – over the next couple years this
team and it was about a hundred twenty
people the peak and throughout that time
we’re growing up to about thirty five
million users at the peak and actually
we were very very big in particular in
Latin America
Latin America the net Pandora I wouldn’t
have anything and they used to call us a
groove there which was really cool it’s
like a nickname so we would go down to
the various markets and I would start
building with my team the various
revenue components and Josh would
continue working and iterating on the
product so that was a story of the rise
and the thing about this interesting is
that at every milestone we kept popping
in a pain because it was wild right
we’re growing so fast it was like oh my
god million users whoa champagne you
know five million users yeah 10 million
users for champagne actually our
landlord was yelled at us because the
roof this the roof part of it was was
all sticky from worship so we were
living a dream it’s I don’t know if you
guys have seen the Facebook movie but
that whole like excitement about growth
and stuff it was real like it was
everything that I could have ever
imagined that the startup world would
actually be and better and every time
we’ve done a street you go oh my god I
used rashard that to me was the biggest
reward because they know that something
that came out of our heads and we built
that people actually use on a daily
basis and affected all these lives was
just mind-blowing to this day I don’t
even like 35 million users doesn’t even
register it’s like a weird it’s just
some people they used it and we were on
the you know Forbes 30 under 30 three
years in a row and we were like the
spotlight and it was strange because
here I was this college kid that now was
had created a real product in a real
business even during the crash as hard
as it was to raise funding and I have a
whole bunch of stories and raising
funding even during the 2008 crash a lot
of our competitors are going into
business so they were coming to us so we
grew actually faster during after the
2008 crisis the challenge on that front
was actually raising money to help pace
thing that amount of growth that was
happening so we got through all the
crisis problems which again I could
spend an hour I’m head alone but
breaking even if you’re doing a business
and that’s what you want to do I can
tell you breakeven is the greatest day
of your life it is very very liberating
that you actually build a business that
is self-sustaining and running and
you’re actually growing on your own now
actually got a mascot that would go
around to all the conferences and sort
of parade card company
and then we had a real issue we had to
get all four of the record labels in the
music industry in order to become viable
and it’s a bit of a catch-22 you need
money to get to sign the labels you need
the labels doesn’t get money and there’s
a lot of political you know it’s not
part of politics inside of the record
labels and we had two of the four record
labels but the other two weren’t playing
ball so the other two sued us and we had
a seventeen billion dollar lawsuit on
our hands it’s okay we can handle this
like we’ve gone through though a crisis
and some other things and I felt like we
could handle it the press was very
innovative in their portrayal of the
tatha crew shark we had this for about
six years we were fighting the lawsuit
and of course every month there was you
know a shark through a roof is it over
but then it actually happened after a
while it finally ended and we got about
a week away from trial and we decided to
wave the white flag his trial is a
lose-lose situation you spend all your
money regardless of whether he win or
you lose
so we decided to shut down and take a
take the summer off this was the last
wall of all of our employees that signed
the goodbye for Grooveshark and at the
time Spotify had just entered the market
and they had raised about half a billion
dollars and didn’t pay the labels a ton
of money to come here the US which is
why you use Spotify today in that
crusher so we figured it’s okay we’ll
take this would be half time you know
sometimes you know Tom Brady just lost
the Super Bowl there’s next year we
figured this was our lost Super Bowl and
we would win then we would win in the
next round but that wasn’t gonna happen
because Josh was found dead for no cause
at 28 years old and I got a call from
his girlfriend that he had passed away
this is the what do you the last
voicemail yeah hey I feel weird leaving
this in your voicemail but I imagine the
concept of a piano teacher
on oculus imagine learning piano through
oculus so picture like a a virtual piano
teacher who understands so it was last I
heard of it was the night before he
passed and what it illuminated for me
was how short life was
how you could just not exist and then
the flash and a28 I thought I was doing
the unthinkable which was giving funeral
for my best friend my co-founder person
who was going to continue on to the next
startup with Josh I thought who’s
vegetarian
healthy how could someone like that just
die I mean I eat meat for that reason
how can I justify it say hey you know
not the ready to go but in all
seriousness there were no answers there
wasn’t even a cause I could get around
so I went into this very dark place
what’s the purpose of anything and why I
did great people to get taken from us
and loss became the set of waves that
sort of as time passed the ripples
dissipated and a friend described it as
the ripples continued to dissipate for a
while but they’re always there and
always in the background of your
thinking now it really taught me a lot
about fear 700 people showed up at a
Funeral kid was 28 years old 700 people
we actually at UF we’re in Gainesville
and at UF we had to actually get the
auditorium for his funeral and it
thought taught me it’s funny how someone
so young could have such a massive
impact on a community not to mention the
35 million users that we had I was
getting thousands of tweets saying sorry
fear loss and it’s interesting because
like the whole time leading into
Grooveshark and on the way up I was
afraid of failure terrified failure what
if this doesn’t work I dropped out of
school it’s sophomore year because Intel
came in on his investors fact that I
dropped out of school was because what
if I fail Intel what if all this happens
and to think about what is is there not
real just like this Mirage looks as real
as water right but if you get closer to
it it goes away and that’s a real real
lesson on on fear the closer you get to
it the closer you get to the things that
you’re afraid of the more they actually
start to disappear and the whole process
of Josh really taught me that everything
I had feared not only did things happen
so much worse than what I figured
but I survived it I got through it I’m
standing here in front of you today who
knows this photograph this is the most
famous photograph of all time right it’s
when the Wright Flyer first took off but
what people don’t see are these photos
two crashes once where they flip or in
early parts of the development of the
Wright Flyer they actually had to the
Wright brothers had to get by in in
order to get a military contract from
this guy Thomas Selfridge well they took
him on a test flight to see if he wasn’t
wanted to buy a bunch of right flyers it
crashed Orville and him crashed and they
he got killed not a great way to get a
military contract she killed a guy who
was the buyer of the planes so after
that Orville really flew but they got
back up they worked hard to get it fix
the bugs fix the issues and get back on
on the horse so I offer a couple tips on
recovery because and I never do believe
this stuff happens to all of us bad
things will happen at some point in our
lives and the question is how do we deal
with them that’s the only choice we have
and I realized that fear as it relevant
as fear has become and is unreal as it
is the way to get through it is actually
have courage and courage I believe is a
set of choices and those choices I think
are as follows
trusting and having faith if you’re
religious it’s faith sometimes it’s in
the universe it’s very in various worlds
it’s a different name but trusting that
there’s some sort of balance always
believe like from physics every action
as an equal and opposite reaction and so
with bad things come good things and
there’s a balance in the universe
learning and teaching after Josh died I
had to immerse myself in technology I
didn’t know how to code I didn’t know
anything but in learning the process of
the things that he’s done over the years
it actually brought me hope and I could
feel his spirit in me of like wow this
is what he did I can actually feel it
and I am now part of that whole world
and teaching others is another thing
because as you see people light up an
excitement they can do what you do it
actually gets you out of that sadness
friends and family I had friends and
family go through me this entire just
entire process and I couldn’t have done
it without
and facing discomfort I used be
terrified of public speaking like
terrified and facing discomfort is
something that actually strengthens you
I’m I was heard to quote that the way a
diamond is made is through pressure and
facing discomfort you can’t get any more
pressure than things that you absolutely
got viscerally have a discomfort on
and lastly preparation preparation is an
interesting one because I’m a huge
nature lover I do a lot of
mountaineering and the thing about
nature and outdoors is preparation is a
key part of survival when you’re out in
the outdoors in the nature without
preparation you could be in some serious
life-threatening situations fear on the
other hand is what makes you more more
likely to hurt yourself and there’s a
good analogy there
Joseph Campbell says follow your bliss
and universe will open where there were
only walls easier said than done right
there’s all this fear that we have like
what if this doesn’t work what if I get
out of this relationship and there’s no
one for me what if you know there’s all
these what ifs that we have but the hard
part is to have those curves that have
the courage to go through those and say
I’m gonna ignore this fear and I’m gonna
go right towards it so that leads me to
today I year and a half ago moved to
this place where I used to vacation
called Colorado all the time and I said
I can make a choice right now to be
happy to stop being sad to get off my
butt and actually start taking action to
change the way I think action is an
incredible thing because it’s the only
thing you have control over is what you
do things happen all around again back
to the nature analogy storms hit like
things that are all fires hit like so
there’s all these things that already
control but all you have control over is
action so I moved to Colorado and began
this new company called chromatic which
was an offshoot of one of the features
of Grooveshark and it’s where people
make their own radio shows and it to me
this was not just about creating a new
company but it’s about finishing when I
started the future finishing what I
started with Josh and actually taking it
to the next half that we did so I want
to talk about traps
because inevitably you all deal with
this at some point and I think it’s
helpful to look at at the things that
can trip you up and I thought oh I have
all this experience second company is
gonna be so much easier experience
yields ease right turns out is exactly
the opposite what the hardest thing to
deal with is a victim mentality why did
this happen to me why it’s natural to
think when something bad happens like
Josh dying or whatever why did this
happen to me that’s everyone’s first
reaction and the reality is bad things
happen everyone and so there’s no
specific personalization to you and
getting into mentality if I’m a victim
actually leads you down a path that
keeps you a victim but to say I’m not a
victim I’m gonna get through this gets
you past it another trap I found was
entitlement 31 now I started your shark
at 19 I had no idea what I was doing I
mean I had probably I was like yeah I
was basically getting homeless your age
no idea what’s inside no reference no
frame of reference as to what could go
wrong well when you’re older and things
go wrong you now suddenly get stuck
sometimes on well I paid my dues or I
are I deserve this already because I
already went through all this bad stuff
and the reality is the like the universe
and the world doesn’t really care like
you will it’s gonna be hard regardless
lastly past in our thirdly past and
future thinking there’s a tendency I’ve
had at least to think oh wow it was like
this a crew shark therefore it should be
like at this but the world’s changed the
world continues to change and it’s hard
to get stuck into like how something was
and to stay into that world versus how
should be so presence I found is
something that’s really really important
you got to stay present and and in the
current moment because everything
changes so fast these days external
control and expectation it’s easy to say
well it’s all out of my control Josh
died people that I grew shark dies but
at the end of the day again you can take
action and the hardest thing to do that
I found is to have non attachment to the
outcomes of things but still work 110
percent knowing that it may not work out
the way you want it to that’s hard but
that’s what
creates anything right the best athletes
in the world don’t expect to get gold
medals they go out there wanting gold
medals and working towards gold medals
and then the non attachment to the
outcome it could be for years could be
eight years could be twelve years until
they get that gold medal but they work
as hard as they can to do it and lastly
this grows I’ve noticed as you get older
here as fears of uncertainty again when
you’re first starting out who knows
maybe it’ll like just see what happens
as bad things happen to you you start to
get into a mode if I never want that to
happen again and then it’s poisonous
because that becomes the reality that
you will it amazes me how much what you
think becomes the reality again I’ve
seen the side of growth and excitement
and I’ve seen the side of death and
ending and having been on both sides and
seeing the whole thing the entire
consistency of the whole process was
what I thought became reality and that
is mind blowing that goes to show you
how powerful you are in the process of
creating anything and getting through
anything so I’ll leave you with this
because I believe there is a capacity
for greatness in every single one of you
this is this is probably many of you
about po2 college and it got into the
world and the reality is there is every
single person here has fears doubts
uncertainties but every single one of
you has an courage inside of you that
can get through it I love you at this
quote I do not think I’m especially
especially fitted for success in any
commercial pursuit even if I had the
proper personal and business influences
to assist me
I might make a living but I doubt I
would do ever more than this this is
Wilbur Wright inventor of the airplane
like the fact that even someone like
this and literally is little hitter he’s
left history is littered with examples
like this people that thought there’s no
way that’s gonna happen the founding
fathers who we looked at as these
mythical creatures and gods they knew
that they were going to get hanged if
they lost the American Revolution so
everyone has fears and it’s a matter of
the courage that you have
to make the choices to take action to
get over those fears because remember
fear is an evolutionary vestige and we
live in a safe fairly safe environment
where fear is no longer needed so go out
there conquer those fears push yourself
to have courage because history is eagerly awaiting you thanks guys
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