Happy Passover! Mix a Prankster, Stolen Music, & an App & You get What? A Napster Billionaire!

This Submission was supplied by Dash VerPlanck, a sophmore at Stanford University.   No doubt being a Stanford in the middle of Silicon Valley makes any student there acutely aware of the nearby kids who are creating apps and tech that could become the next billion dollar unicorn... kind'a like RoadSpoke. 

Thanks Dash!
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Hear this here:
EXIT 169 I-95s To: Franconia, Virginia and Springfield, Virginia


"Never content with just one gig, super hacker whiz kid Sean Parker attended nearby Oakton High School and Chantilly High School.


When little Sean was 7, his father taught him how to program. Parker’s father, who put his family before his entrepreneurial dreams, told Parker "If you are going to take risks, take them early -- before you have a family."


Maybe Dad also should have told Sean not to break the law. Or maybe not. 

One night, while hacking into the network of a Fortune 500 company, Sean was unable to log out after his father unplugged and confiscated his computer keyboard.  Because his IP address was exposed, FBI agents tracked down and convicted  the 16-year-old.  Since Sean was under 18, he was sentenced to community service.   Rewind a year. When Sean was 15, he met 14 year-old Shawn Fanning over the Internet where the two bonded over esoteric topics like theoretical physics.  Now fast forward a few years.  The 2 Shawns co-founded Napster, a free file-sharing service for music. Only problem was, they did not tell the musicians they were freely sharing their songs.  Within one year, by June 2000, Napster with its black cat logo had tens of millions of users.  Lawsuits by various celebrity musicians including Lars Ulrich and heavy metal band Metallica eventually shut down Napster.

Napster had been called the fastest-growing business of all time. Depending on your perspective, it is credited or demonized with revolutionizing the music industry, and is considered to be a precursor to Apple’s iTunes and Spotify.  Incidentally, Spotify one day would ask the original music Napster for an early investment and later Sean even join Spotify’s Board of Directors. ​

But that is not surprising since Sean has been an early participant in several startups.


Rewind again to the early two thousands.  Trolling his desktop in 2004, Sean Parker saw a site he found interesting. That website showed images, profiles, and shared information and musings of college students.

The website was called "The Facebook".  He contacted the Harvard student, Mark Zuckerberg who hired him as President. Sean famously advised Mark to change the name from "The Facebook" to simply "Facebook".  Mark Zuckerberg said "Sean was pivotal in helping Facebook transform from a college project into a real company."   Later in 2014, no less than Justin Timberlake would play the part of Sean Parker in the major motion picture, THE SOCIAL NETWORK. ​

Sean Parker is now fully reformed. He is married to the beautiful artist Alexandra Lenas. They have two kids.  While Sean's tenure as Facebook President ended he is still a major Facebook shareholder.


Sean now busies himself being a big time philanthropist. The former black cat hacker who grew up off the next exit is personally worth over three billion dollars. A husband and father, he travels with his brood in private jets. ​

Ironically,  Sean now hangs out with the same Musicians he used to rip off. He makes the scene with Lady Gaga and Snoop Dogg. ​

In fact, Sean has even friended his old nemesis Metallica.  They kissed and made up in a very public way -- onstage and infront of thousands.
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Giving away  tens of millions, Sean is a major establishment figure in Silicon Valley.  His Sean Parker Foundation’s main targets are eradicating malaria, understanding allergies, and yes, even curing cancer.


Not bad for a former juvenile delinquent from Virginia, right?   


#SeanParker #OaktonHighSchool #ChantillyHighSchool #Facebook #JustinTimberlake #MarkZuckerberg #ShawnFanning #FranconiaVirginia #SpringfieldVirginia   ​#SnoopDogg #Metallica #Spotify #LadyGaga