Chris Barton is the founder and creator of Shazam, the app that changed the way the world discovers music. A keynote speaker, inventor and tech investor, Chris helps audiences bring impossible ideas to life, overcome obstacles with imagination and create magic in defiance of the status quo.
Chris Barton is best known as the founder and creator of Shazam, one of the world’s most recognised music discovery apps. Long before iPhone apps became part of everyday life, Chris created Shazam from an outlandish idea: use a mobile phone to identify almost any song in seconds.
It was far ahead of its time. The technology was complex, the market was uncertain and many people thought the idea was impossible. Chris challenged those assumptions and helped turn Shazam into a product that changed the way the world discovers music.
Creating Shazam took more than a great idea. Chris and the team had to build the technology, the music database and the user experience needed to make music recognition feel effortless.
In creating Shazam, Chris faced obstacles that would have stopped many founders. Instead, he used scrappy and creative hacks, persistence and imagination to move the idea forward. His story gives audiences a rare look at how seemingly impossible ideas can become real when people are willing to challenge the status quo.
Today, Shazam has had more than two billion downloads and was acquired by Apple in 2018 for a reported $400 million. Chris’s best known creation remains a powerful example of how technology can feel like pure magic when it removes effort for the user.
Chris Barton’s career goes beyond Shazam. He spent eight years at Google and four years at Dropbox, working on mobile partnerships, Android, search and growth. At Google, he was the first employee focused on mobile partnerships and helped create the carrier partnership framework for Search and Android. At Dropbox, he joined when the company had around 90 employees and helped build its mobile business.
Chris is also the founder…
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