NSB Logo Chris Barton Chris Barton

Chris Barton

Speaker Featured

San Francisco, CA, United States

Founder and Creator of Shazam, Disruptive Entrepreneur, Inventor, and Tech Investor

Chris Barton wanted a way to identify songs he was hearing everywhere around him. There wasn’t one – so he invented an app called Shazam. Chris’s creation is nothing short of pure magic. That was his goal. Chris seeks to delight people by using technology to make seemingly impossible ideas come to life. Shazam, which now has over two billion downloads, is just one of them. 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. Despite having dyslexia, incredibly, he didn’t let that get in his way. In fact, it gave him a different way of looking at problems. Chris’s newest venture, Guard, aims to use AI to detect drowning in swimming pools. 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.

 

Business & Workplace Media & Entertainment Innovation & Change Management Technology & Trends Youth & Campus Leadership

In the News

Chris Barton in the media January 1, 2023

Keynote Speeches

Virtual Keynotes & Webinars
Contact us for more information about this speaker & their virtual presentations. Click here for some of the most popular formats for virtual events.
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.

The format can be a presentation or moderated conversation. Chris can tailor an inspiring message 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

Audience reviews:

  • “Chris’s keynote completely captivated our audience of 1700+ SAP customers, partners, and employees. His talk was truly entertaining and inspiring. Our audience’s perception of entrepreneurial innovation was completely transformed.” - Managing Director, Switzerland, SAP
  • “Chris customized a powerful keynote that delivered significant value for Coca-Cola. His messages sparked action among our executives and inspired our bottler partners toward our goals. Chris’s energy and enthusiasm really stands out. He is an inspiration with truly eye-opening insights and stories.” - VP Customer & Commercial Leadership, Coca-Cola
  • “We recently had Chris Barton speak at our 40th anniversary celebration. He delivered what was by far the best one hour keynote that our clients and staff had ever seen. Chris was insightful, energetic, and entertaining speaker with thought-provoking ideas.” - CEO, Costa Rica, Porter Novelli
 

Speaker Biography

Chris Barton wanted a way to identify songs he was hearing everywhere around him. There wasn’t one – so he invented an app called Shazam. Chris’s creation is nothing short of pure magic. That was his goal. Chris seeks to delight people by using technology to make seemingly impossible ideas come to life. Shazam, which now has over two billion downloads, is just one of
them. 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. Despite having dyslexia, incredibly, he didn’t let that get in his way. In fact, it gave him a different way of looking at problems. Chris’s newest venture, Guard, aims to use AI to detect drowning in swimming pools. 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. However, academics were a struggle for Chris. Chris would come to learn he had undiagnosed dyslexia. Over the years, Chris learned to embrace what he now calls his superpower. Chris believes that dyslexia has allowed him to overcome barriers to achieve his many
accomplishments.

Shazam is a great example. When Chris had the idea to identify music using a mobile phone, no technology existed to achieve his goal. In addition, he was told by Professors at MIT and Stanford that this application of pattern recognition was impossible. Besides 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 maybe the experts were right? “No,” he says.

When Shazam was founded in 2000, it was far ahead of its time. It was three years before iTunes, seven years before the iPhone, and eight years before the App Store. The nascent Shazam struggled in the early days, teetering near bankruptcy for six years waiting for key digital advancements to arrive, allowing Shazam to unleash its full potential on the world.

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