Founder & Creator of Shazam, Entrepreneur, Inventor, and Tech Investor
Chris Barton: Biography at a Glance
- Chris Barton is an entrepreneur, inventor, and tech investor best known for founding and creating Shazam, the first mass-consumer AI product in history.
- Throughout his career, Chris has sought to delight people by using technology to make seemingly impossible ideas come to life.
- In addition to creating Shazam, which Apple acquired for $400 million, Chris holds 12 patents and played key roles in the early days of Google and Dropbox.
- After being diagnosed with dyslexia, Chris learned to embrace what he now calls his superpower and believes that dyslexia has allowed him to overcome barriers to achieve his many accomplishments.
- Chris developed Start From Zero Thinking, a five-step framework for overcoming obstacles to innovation. The method can be applied to any challenge and is rooted in his unique thinking style.
- Chris believes the biggest limitation to creating the future is our own imagination. He blends music, video, images, and great storytelling to show audiences how to summon creative persistence and bring bold ideas to life.
Videos
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 takeaways 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.
Topics
Pioneering the Future: Using AI to Create Something Completely New
In this inspiring and forward-thinking speech, Chris Barton, founder of Shazam, shares his insights on leveraging AI not just to improve what already exists, but to envision and create entirely new possibilities. Drawing from his experience inventing Shazam—six years before iTunes and eight years before the iPhone—Chris takes audiences on a journey through the groundbreaking development of the world’s first mass use of AI (machine learning).
Through compelling stories and actionable insights, Chris challenges audiences to think beyond the status quo and consider how AI can unlock untapped opportunities and solve problems in ways that were once unimaginable. This talk is perfect for innovators, leaders, and organizations looking to harness AI to break boundaries, disrupt industries, and pioneer the future.
Create Your Own Shazam Magic: Disrupt Your Thinking. Defy Barriers. Inspire Delight.
From the moment Chris Barton dreamt up Shazam, he was told identifying songs out of thin air was impossible. His path from a dream to a $400 million acquisition by Apple is a story out of a Hollywood movie. Meanwhile, Shazam has racked up over two billion downloads! Chris’s story and insights give people the inspiration and tools to accomplish big things within their own organizations. Chris customizes the emphasis of this presentation for each individual audience. He introduces lessons learned from founding Shazam, as well as his pioneering involvement with Android at Google and mobile partnerships at Dropbox. Concepts like “creative persistence” and his Start from Zero methodology are new ways of thinking and overcoming barriers. Startups use these concepts to tackle insurmountable obstacles, and you should too. Make big things happen and create Shazam-like magic in defiance of all odds.
Chris shares an inspiring message that touches on creativity, innovation, leadership, resilience, collaboration, and more. Audiences learn how to make big things happen by:
• Questioning the familiar to distill to the basic truths
• Overcoming barriers with creative persistence
• Remaining focused on core insights despite resistance
• Making things simple and friction-free
• Replacing “uninspiring” with “delightful” by connecting to emotions
Bring Impossible Ideas to Life
Technology & AI are dramatically changing what’s possible in our world. Our challenge as we create new things is to dislodge from the comfort of what we already know. Chris created Shazam after being told by every “expert” that his outlandish idea was impossible. It was an idea far ahead of its time – eight years before iPhone apps even existed. In this presentation, Chris helps audiences imagine and then create new visions for the future. He inspires with jaw-dropping stories about creating Shazam and shows how innovation comes from not just an idea but from a series of insights to overcome obstacles along the way. Chris leaves audiences with a new framework of thinking to create change through technology.
Build the Vision You See (But Others Don’t)
Entrepreneurs have passion, ideas, and desire but can get stuck on the difficult journey to achieving their dreams. They want to bring something truly new to the world but need to learn how to overcome big obstacles, choose their priorities, and convince others of their vision. Chris inspires and teaches entrepreneurs using the story of Shazam’s creation including the scrappy and creative hacks that transformed an idea into a product with two billion customers. Chris leaves audiences inspired to embrace a mindset to create the next great companies.
Overcome Obstacles with Imagination
A great idea gets you nowhere without tenacity. True disruption requires both persistence and creative solutions. In creating Shazam, Chris faced obstacles many thought were insurmountable. Most would have given up, but he refused. Instead, Chris challenged every assumption about the obstacles he faced. He shares stories and actionable lessons that inspire audiences to pursue their dreams. Chris urges audiences to question the status quo and to sweat the details on the path to redefining the future. He leaves them with a new mindset to help break past barriers.
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