How, “two letters and a number,” disrupted the music industry.
“So, I told my wife, I bought this new domain and she said, ‘what did you pay?’”
I told her, ’a thousand dollars’.
She was dumbfounded, ’That’s just two letters and a number!”
So, I said, ‘no no no… trust me… it’s going to be big!’”
Michael Robertson, Founder, mp3.com
Today’s episode isn’t so much about the music industry as it is about the life of an entrepreneur. It isn’t so much about being lucky, as it is about making your own luck.
Lets go back to the early days of the internet when even with a, “Blazing fast,” 96k modem, it took more than 45 minutes to download one song – 45 minutes that is, if you could even find any music to download.
Fresh out of college, newly minted, “computer consultant”, Michael Robertson was looking for his edge. As the founder of “FILEZ.com” an early software search engine, Michael began noticing odd search trends. Sure, people were searching for files with the terms, “spreadsheet” or “word processor,” but they were also looking for files with terms like, “sex” or “game”, and they were looking for music, music files with the strange extension – “.MP3”.
After some detective work, and a little research, Michael took a leap of faith: For the – at that time astronomical – sum of $1,000 he bought – “mp3.com”.
Today’s episode is about Michael Robertson, and how, “two letters and a number,” ignited the internet music revolution.
