“A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A billion dollars.”
This is the famous saying of “Sean Parker” in The Social Network , a movie which tries
to tell the story of the founding of Facebook. The story is loosely based on
reality, but one thing is true about the above quote, a billion dollars is
cool, and Parker has a couple of billions to his name.
Sean Parker, the real Sean Parker, is a
billionaire who has featured in several rich lists. He is the 19 year old
genius behind Napster, the founding President of Facebook, the co-founder of
Plaxo and the brain behind Spotify. All of these companies have been
instrumental in changing the way we as human live. But it hasn’t been all roses
for this tech-billionaire:
“It hasn’t been some kind of fairy tale for me. All of my success has
been born of failure. Your childhood dreams are always tales of glory; reality
is a lot messier and more dramatic.”
- Sean Parker
A Dalliance With The FBI At 16 years Of Age
During his teenage years, Parker
was a pretty good hacker, and basically, that is pretty much what he used to do.
Once, his father, having been outraged at Parker’s inconsistent performance in
school, grabbed the keyboard from his hands and tore it out of the computer.
This is how Parker recalls it: “I started crying and saying, ‘Dad! You
don’t know what you’re doing! I have to log out!’ But he didn’t let me.” Unable
to cover his tracks, the FBI was able to locate him and this earned him a sentencing
to community service (he was a minor).
Was this a really bad thing for the billionaire-to-be? Not really.
Not according to Parker. Seemingly, being sentenced to community service for
hacking into a Fortune 500 company produced one of his most romantic
experiences. There, he met a girl. One day she wrote
her phone number on Parker’s hand—in ballpoint pen, he remembers fondly—and a
few months later, he says, “I lost my virginity to her.” He explains: “I
thought it was an incredible cosmic irony. This was the most romantic
experience of my life and I met her because I’d been raided by the F.B.I.”
The
Napster Affair
At 19 years of age, together with his younger
friend Shawn Fanning, Sean Parker created the free song-sharing service that
changed the music industry forever. In its first
year, the music file-sharing network gained tens of millions of enthusiasts.
This was it for him, right? No, wrong. The first nail to the fairy tale were the
numerous lawsuits filed against the company for supposed copyright
infringement. The final nail was he being pushed out of the company he helped
to create.
“I lived
on couches for something like six months. I had no home. I was totally broke. I
would stay at a friend’s house for two weeks, then move because I didn’t want
to become this permanent mooch.”
- Sean parker
A Company Named Plaxo
After realizing that his electronic
address book was outdated, Sean Parker got the idea of helping people to keep their
address books updated. It took some time for the idea to finally crystallize, but
after knocking on several doors, they managed to get funding from Sequoia, the venture
capitalist firm.
Within no time, people warmed up
to this service. It became one of the most famous service providers on the web.
He had brought viral marketing to a new high. Things were shaping up for the budding
billionaire. But just then, he got kicked out of yet another company he had
helped to create from scratch. This was in early 2004. He was again on the
streets, as always, seriously broke.
And Then There Is Facebook
“Sean
consistently argued that Facebook was going to be really big. If Mark ever had
any second thoughts, Sean was the one who cut that off.”
- Peter Thiel, 1st Facebook Investor, Bilionaire
Hedge-Fund Manager and Co-founder of PayPal
Sean Parker then stumbled upon something
which was then called “TheFacebook”. As people around at the time confess, he
played a pivotal role in helping to shape up the company to be the global
phenomenon that it is today. As David Kirkpatrick notes in his Vanity Fair article, “Had he not joined
founder Mark Zuckerberg in Palo Alto in the summer of 2004,
when the fledgling Facebook was just five months old, the service almost
certainly would not be the colossus it is today.”
His experiences in being kicked
out of companies he owned helped him to protect the Facebook co-founder. He was
instrumental in ensuring that Mark held control at all times. Well, as for him,
he was later forced to leave the company later on.
Currently
Well, Sean Parker is rich. Very
rich. He loves the good life and he isn’t afraid to spend his wealth on a
closet full of Tom Ford suits, exclusive white shoes, $100, 000 luxury cars or
several charities of his choice. He is still rolling, he is till going. He is
doing it all in style. Billionaire style.
“If there’s some triumphant end of the story, I guess in a roundabout
way I’ve gotten what I wanted… which is the ability to do interesting things
and the wealth to be free.... I can sort of do what I want. “
-
Sean
Parker
Sean Parker At Amazon.com
Sean Parker At Amazon.com
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