Chris Barton
Founder and Creator of Shazam, Entrepreneur, Inventor & Tech Investor
Chris Barton
Founder and Creator of Shazam, Entrepreneur, Inventor & Tech Investor
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Biography
Chris Barton is the renowned tech pioneer who invented the Shazam music app. His creation, the first mass-consumer AI product in history, changed the way the world discovers music and is pure and absolute magic. Chris has a history of delighting people by using technology to make seemingly impossible ideas come to life. Shazam is just one of them. In addition to creating Shazam, Chris holds twelve patents and played key roles in the early days of Google and Dropbox. Chris’s newest venture, Guard, aims to use AI to detect drowning in swimming pools – a never-before accomplished effort. In his speeches, Chris’s story and storytelling completely captivate audiences. He inspires people to make big things happen in their organizations – to create magic in defiance of the obstacles.
Chris grew up with a French mother and British father – both of whom were university professors. Academics were a struggle for him, and Chris would come to realize he had undiagnosed dyslexia. Chris flipped this challenge on its head and learned to embrace what he now calls his superpower. Chris believes that dyslexia has allowed him to overcome barriers to achieve his many accomplishments.
When Chris had the idea to identify music using a mobile phone, no technology existed to achieve his goal. He was told by Professors at MIT and Stanford that the necessary pattern recognition algorithm was impossible. Even after inventing a new technology that didn’t yet exist, he had to build a search engine supercomputer from scratch, create the world’s largest music database, and create a user experience on very basic mobile phones. Did Chris ever think the experts were right? “No way,” he says.
When Chris came up with the idea for Shazam in 2000, it was three years before iTunes and eight years before the App Store. Shazam launched as a phone number that you dialed, and the service struggled, teetering near bankruptcy for six years until the App Store launched in 2008, allowing Shazam to unleash its full potential on the world.
In 2018, Shazam was acquired by Apple for a reported $400 million, making it Apple's 6th largest acquisition of all-time. Shazam has been downloaded over 2 billion times and is used each month by over 300 million people, making it one of the world's most popular apps. It has become an integral part of our everyday lives, with its ability to instantly identify songs and provide a range of music features such as lyrics. Shazam has become a verb, and it has changed the way the world discovers music.
Chris has also played a key role in tech history as a founding member of Google’s Android Partnerships team where he created Android's mobile operator partnership framework. He also spent four years at Dropbox where he led carrier partnerships and was one of the first 100 people at the company.
Holding 12 patents, including one found within the Google search algorithm, Chris has made significant contributions to the tech industry. He also invests in a wide range of start-ups, including artificial intelligence for heart health and inflammatory disease therapeutics.
Today, Chris spends much of his time building his third startup company, Guard, an artificial intelligence system that detects drowning in swimming pools.
Chris has spoken at events all over the world, sharing lessons learned from his experience creating a new technology by overcoming what were thought to be impossible obstacles. He inspires audiences with firsthand stories that highlight key take-aways across technology innovation, persistence, removing friction, and entrepreneurship. Chris gives audiences a new framework for making big things happen and inspires them to take action.
Prior to his technology career, Chris was a strategy consultant and earned two master’s degrees from UC Berkeley and Cambridge University.
When he isn’t working or speaking, you can find Chris enjoying the outdoors and spending time with his son, Jude.
Speaker Videos
Achieving The Impossible
Creative Persistence
Connecting to Emotions to Produce Great Results
Speech Topics
CREATE YOUR OWN SHAZAM MAGIC: Disrupt Your Thinking. Defy Barriers. Inspire Delight.
Chris Barton knows a thing or two about bringing bold ideas to life. When he dreamt up Shazam, Chris was told using a phone to identify songs out of thin air was impossible. The rocky path from that audacious idea to becoming Apple’s sixth-largest acquisition is an inspiring story worthy of a Hollywood movie. With over two billion downloads, Shazam delivers pure magic and has changed the way the world discovers music. In this presentation, Chris unpacks lessons learned from creating Shazam using the earliest forms of AI as well as his pioneering involvement with Android at Google and mobile partnerships at Dropbox. Doing something new – disrupting the status quo – tests our resilience and requires an ability to overcome obstacles with fresh eyes. A holder of twelve patents, Chris’s storytelling and insights inspire people to accomplish big things within their own organizations using “creative persistence” and his Start from Zero methodology – new ways of thinking and overcoming barriers. Startups use these concepts to tackle insurmountable obstacles, and you should too – to create Shazam-like magic in defiance of all odds.
Chris customizes the emphasis of this presentation for each audience. Sample takeaways:
- Questioning the familiar to distill to the “basic truths”
- Reimagining what’s possible with AI
- Overcoming barriers with “creative persistence”
- Remaining focused on core insights despite resistance
- Making things simple and friction-free
- Delighting people by connecting to emotions
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