Shawn Fanning is an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and angel investor. He developed Napster, one of the first popular peer-to-peer "P2P" file sharing platforms, in 1999. The popularity of Napster was widespread and Fanning was featured on the cover of Time magazine.
The site in its initial free P2P incarnation was shut down in 2001 after the company's unsuccessful appeal of court orders arising from its encouraging the illegal sharing of copyrighted material. A paid subscription version of the site followed, and was purchased by Rhapsody on December 1, 2011. Following his involvement with Napster, he joined, and invested in, a number of early-stage technology startup companies.
Computer career
Napster
On June 1, 1999, Fanning released a preliminary beta program of Napster and soon, hundreds of college students at Northeastern were trading music. Sean Parker was the co-founder. They got the name from Shawn's Harwich High School nickname "Nappy", in reference to his Afro. Shawn played on the Harwich Tennis Team.
Snocap
In 2002, Fanning was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35. In 2003, he opened a new company, Snocap, along with Jordan Mendelson Napster's Chief Architect, and Ron Conway. The company aspired to be a legitimate marketplace for digital media. However, their partners and the public did not respond well. Customer support was poor, and technical issues were numerous. One of their primary partners, CD Baby, wrote a scathing account of their relationship. In late 2007, Snocap laid off 60% of its workforce. ValleyWag wrote an article that Fanning had long left Snocap and began to work on another venture, Rupture. The ValleyWag article stated that the failure was largely due to Snocap's CEO Rusty Rueff and that of former VP Engineering Dave Rowley, who "made a mess of engineering before he was fired". Snocap was looking to sell itself and fast. In 2008, they found a buyer; imeem acquired Snocap in a fire sale.
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The Rupture project was announced in 2007 with seed funding.
In December 2006, Fanning, along with Co-founder Jon Baudanza, developed Rupture, a social networking tool designed to handle the task of publishing gamers' individual profiles to a communal space and facilitating communication between World of Warcraft players. Rupture was later acquired by Electronic Arts for $30 million. Fanning's career at Electronic Arts was short-lived as a round of layoffs in November 2009 included him and his team at Rupture.
Path
A few months after Fanning was laid off from Electronic Arts, he started a new company called Path.com. In January 2010, Dave Morin announced he was leaving Facebook, where he was a Senior Platform Manager, to join Fanning and become CEO at Path.
Airtime
In 2011 Fanning reunited with Napster cofounder Sean Parker to found Airtime.com. Some of the investors are Ron Conway, Michael Arrington, and Ashton Kutcher. Fanning serves as CEO and Parker as executive chairman.
Airtime launched in June 2012 at a disastrous public event where Parker and Fanning paid huge amounts of money to have celebrities present but the product repeatedly crashed and ultimately failed to work. Greg Sandoval of CNET commented, "To launch his new start-up, Sean Parker should have spent less of his billions on celebrity guests and more of it on fixing his technology."
Helium Systems
In 2013 Fanning founded Helium Systems together with Amir Haleem, and Sean Carey. In December 2014, the company announced that it has raised $16 million in funding led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from FirstMark Capital, Digital Garage, Marc Benioff, SV Angel, and Slow Ventures among others.
In popular culture
In 2000, Fanning appeared as a presenter at the MTV Video Music Awards. He appeared wearing a Metallica T-shirt as the Metallica v. Napster, Inc. lawsuit had been filed a few months prior. "For Whom the Bell Tolls" played in the background. When asked where he got the shirt, Fanning stated, "a friend of mine shared it with me." Lars Ulrich was sitting in the audience, and his reaction was shown as feigned boredom.
In October 2000, Fanning was featured on the cover of Time magazine.
Fanning had a cameo appearance as himself in the 2003 film The Italian Job. In the film, Seth Green's character Lyle accused Fanning of stealing Napster from him while he was taking a nap in their Northeastern University dorm room. Although other characters see this as mere bragging, a scene shows Fanning in fact creeping over Lyle's sleeping body and stealing a 3-1/2" floppy disk.
In early 2008, Fanning appeared in a Volkswagen commercial directed by Roman Coppola, in which he poked fun at his file-sharing past.
Fanning and Napster were the subject of Alex Winter's documentary Downloaded in 2013.
Top questions
Who is Shawn Fanning?
Shawn Fanning is an American computer programmer, entrepreneur and angel investor, best known for developing Napster in 1999. Napster was one of the first popular peer-to-peer file sharing platforms. Its popularity was widespread, and Fanning appeared on the cover of Time magazine in October 2000. After Napster he joined, and invested in, a number of early-stage technology startups.
How did Shawn Fanning create Napster?
On 1 June 1999, Fanning released a preliminary beta program of Napster, and soon hundreds of college students at Northeastern University were trading music with it. Sean Parker was the co-founder. The name came from Fanning's nickname "Nappy". Napster became one of the first popular peer-to-peer file sharing platforms.
Why was Napster shut down?
The free peer-to-peer version of Napster was shut down in 2001 after the company's unsuccessful appeal of court orders arising from its encouraging the illegal sharing of copyrighted material. The band Metallica had filed a lawsuit against Napster in 2000. A paid subscription version of the service followed and was purchased by Rhapsody on 1 December 2011.
What did Shawn Fanning do after Napster?
In 2003 Fanning opened Snocap, which aspired to be a legitimate marketplace for digital media but struggled, and imeem acquired it in 2008. In December 2006 he developed Rupture with co-founder Jon Baudanza, a social networking tool for World of Warcraft players. Electronic Arts later acquired Rupture for $30 million, and a round of layoffs in November 2009 included Fanning and his team.
What companies did Shawn Fanning found in the 2010s?
A few months after his Electronic Arts layoff, Fanning started Path.com, and Dave Morin left Facebook in January 2010 to become its CEO. In 2011 he reunited with Napster cofounder Sean Parker to found Airtime.com, which launched in June 2012. In 2013 he founded Helium Systems with Amir Haleem and Sean Carey, which announced $16 million in funding in December 2014.
What recognition has Shawn Fanning received?
In 2002 MIT Technology Review named Fanning to its TR100 list of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35. In October 2000 he was featured on the cover of Time magazine. He appeared as himself in the 2003 film The Italian Job, and Alex Winter's 2013 documentary Downloaded was about Fanning and Napster.
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