Contents
What is Shawn Fanning’s Net Worth?
Shawn Fanning is an American laptop programmer, serial entrepreneur and angel investor who has a net worth of $70 million {dollars}. Shawn Fanning might be greatest identified for creating Napster, the file-sharing platform that was extremely popular across the flip of the century. Since then, he has invested in a wide range of different tech start-up corporations, most notably Uber.
Early Life
Shawn Fanning was born on November 22, 1980, in Brockton, Massachusetts. At the age of 14 in 1994, Shawn Fanning met future collaborator Sean Parker over the web. The two initially bonded in over matters like hacking and physics after which met in actual life after Fanning began attending Northeastern University.
In 1998, whereas he was attending Northeastern University, Shawn wrote the code for what turned one of many first well-liked peer-to-peer (“P2P”) file sharing platforms. He known as it Napster. Parker raised the preliminary funds to construct this system.
Napster
Once a preliminary beta program turned out there on June 1, 1999, a whole bunch of college college students at Northeastern have been up and buying and selling music furiously. Shortly after, Shawn and Sean moved the corporate from Hull, Massachusetts to a extra spacious location in San Mateo, California and even employed new workers to enhance on the Napster Program. Napster was so well-liked that earned him a spot on the quilt of Time journal. Tens of hundreds of thousands of customers have been quickly downloading all types of recordsdata by this system.
However, its success was not with out trials and Napster was in the end sued into oblivion. The Recording Industry Association of America vehemently opposed the platform, as did quite a lot of bands and performing teams. Though it was one of many fastest-growing enterprise of all time, it was finally shut down on account of huge lawsuits. However, regardless of its fast demise, Napster had an enduring affect on the music trade, and a few even credit score it with being one of many early inspirations for companies like iTunes. Fanning’s success with Napster helped him land on the listing of prime 100 innovators on the planet below age 35 by the MIT Technology Review.
Chris Hondros/ Getty Images
Later Venture
After Napster, Sean Parker went on to be an early advisor at Facebook and finally earned a multi-billion private fortune.
After Napster, Shawn Fanning joined and invested in quite a lot of early-stage know-how startup corporations, together with Snocap, Rapture and Path. He co-founded Snocap with Jordan Mendelson who had beforehand labored as Napster’s Chief Architect with funding from investor Ron Conway in 2003.
Within a couple of years, the corporate had laid off over half of its workforce. Fanning left Snocap earlier than Snocap formally combusted, occurring to develop Rupture in 2006. His timing was good, as Snocap was bought in a hearth sale in 2008.
Shawn formally turned CEO of Rupture on October 2, 2007. Rupture’s future appeared vibrant because it was quickly acquired by Electronic Arts for $15 million, however Fanning’s workforce at Electronic Arts was sacked in November 2009 in a spherical of layoffs. Only few months later, he began a brand new firm known as Path.com.
Path operated as a social community platform targeted on photograph sharing and messaging. A yr later, in 2011, he once more joined Sean Parker to discovered Airtime.com, a gaggle video chat app. However, the launch of the corporate was disastrous. Despite the star-studded occasion, the app stored crashing repeatedly throughout its June 2012 public launch occasion.
A yr later, Fanning began the corporate Helium Systems together with Amir Haleem and Sean Carey. Since then, he has continued investing in different initiatives, primarily nonetheless specializing in the tech and start-up house.
Uber Investment
Uber launched in San Francisco in June 2010. It was an enormous hit with clients, however buyers weren’t precisely beating down Uber’s doorways to put money into the fledgling startup on the time. In late summer season 2010, Uber raised a $1.25 million seed spherical from First Round Capital, investor Chris Sacca, and Shawn Fanning. Shawn ponied up $25,000. Fast ahead to May 2019 and Shawn’s stake, assuming he hasn’t offered any of his shares, was value $125 million after Uber’s IPO.
Other Public Appearances
Due to Napster’s success, Fanning has been featured in quite a lot of movies and media. He was a presenter on the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards and wore as shirt that mentioned “Metallica v. Napster, Inc” representing the lawsuits that Napster was the embroiled in. He additionally has made a cameo look as himself in “The Italian Job” through which he’s accused of stealing the thought from Seth Green’s character whereas Green is napping. He additionally appeared in a 2008 Volkswagen industrial that references his previous with file-sharing platforms and was the topic of the 2013 documentary, “Downloaded.”
All internet worths are calculated utilizing information drawn from public sources. When supplied, we additionally incorporate non-public suggestions and suggestions acquired from the celebrities or their representatives. While we work diligently to make sure that our numbers are as correct as doable, until in any other case indicated they’re solely estimates. We welcome all corrections and suggestions utilizing the button beneath.
