This past Thursday evening, I had the pleasure of attending the Pandora Listener Town Hall hosted by the music discovery service’s founder, Tim Westergren.
From the moment it began at 7 p.m., to the end two and half hours later, Westergren led a casual conversation around his personal story, the backstory of Pandora, and where Pandora is going in the future. He took an extended Q&A and stuck around afterward to answer questions one-on-one with attendees.
In short, it was one of the most authentic founder to user interactions I’ve experienced. It’s evident Westergren deeply believes in Pandora and appreciates those who use it.
The following video is Charlie Rose‘s interview with Westergren this past July. Tune into Silicon Prairie News tomorrow for my Town Hall wrap up post and Westergren video interview, but to see a video in which the backstory of Pandora is discussed, I suggest you watch Rose’s interview below.
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Early on in the interview, Westergren starts his story:
It was 1999, so it was the apex of the first big dot-com bubble. I was living in the Bay Area, San Francisco, and there was a lot of entrepreneurial energy all around. I shared the idea with a friend of mine, a fella named Jon Kraft, and he said, ‘Hey, that sounds like a great idea, let’s go raise some money and start a company.’ It was kind of sudden, in a matter of weeks we had a business plan and went out raising money.
As their perseverance would have it, they raised their first round of money in March 2000.
Click the image below to be taken to the video on Rose’s website: charlierose.com/view/interview/11097.
