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Comment by redthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

"Until now, no digital musicservice has met, let alone exceeded the bar set by Napster."

Did he ever use Napster? It was slow, search was terrible, most files were bad copies, there were viruses everywhere...

Napster was great because it was the first widespread way to get digital music. It was terrible as a platform, and quickly surpassed by its successors in every meaningful way.

Parker's got his reality distortion field going full blast if he thinks napster was a better music delivery system than Kazaa/Limewire/etc, or torrents. With Grooveshark and the like out there, saying Napster has yet to be surpassed is like saying a PII is superior in every way to an i7.

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He came off as insecure in that email, to me. Constantly dropping how "great" Napster was and how nothing but Spotify could match its brilliance.

Again with this. Every time someone from the Silicon Valley pantheon does something interesting and it reaches HN, people feel the need to voice if they 'like' it or resist 'liking' it.

I think it's immensely interesting Parker and Zuck think in terms of experiences, not just UX, but the experiential realities of using a piece of technology. Every tech visionary I've met looks at products and services this way. This is an inside look into the way Parker thinks about technology, and the comments are just a bunch of people mashing the mythical 'dislike' button.

Emotions change thinking, I get it. Optimism and Pessimism are the two emotional reactions to an opportunity. Optimists imagine a positive reason for the event happening- superstition- (I need a hacker to help me with my startup, he's perfect), pessimists focus on the risks- paranoia- (I don't want to give equity to this guy). Understand how emotion directs thought and then see things as they are.

That being said, I think it's weird that the actions of successful people provoke emotional responses on this forum.

My response wasn't emotional, it was incredulous. Parker's a smart guy; I was surprised he made such a statement.

It would be as if Henry Ford, at 100 and whatever, claimed that no car had ever matched the Model T until the 2012 Lamborghini Aventador. It's just a clearly false statement, and something that inspires incredulity on the part of those hearing it, especially from a guy like Ford/Parker.

Amen! It would seem that Parker thinks he can ingratiate himself with promising companies simply by patting himself on the back. The sad part is, it appears to work

He is the ultimate "ideas guy". I believe his net worth is somewhere near $800 million. His value after Napster was his connections to venture capital companies.

Even in high school, he got in trouble for "hacking", which was nothing more than being a script kiddie (he used pre-built exploits to attack military and other computers).

>I believe his net worth is somewhere near $800 million.

With 7% of facebook, his net worth is quite a bit higher. Given a facebook valuation creeping up on $100B, his net worth is probably in the $4-7B range.

Does he still own 7%, or has he been diluted?

I'm sure it's been diluted, but he would have also had options. That's why I gave such a broad guesstimate. i also recall reading an interview with him a while back where they asked, "now that you're a billionaire, is a billion dollars cool?" or some such.

I'd be very surprised if he wasn't worth at least a couple billion.

Isn't that really valuable?

In fact, isn't it worth $800 million+ in this case?

sp - not impressed.

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