The story
Founded by Jon Kraft and Tim Westergren on Jan 2000.1
Early history
In 2000, Will Glaser, Jon Kraft, and Tim Westergren founded the company as Savage Beast Technologies. Will Glaser had conceptualized the concept of classifying music by various traits and attributes—an effort that he would later name the "Music Genome Project". The company was originally pitched as an e-commerce service that would use Glaser's associated algorithm as a recommendation engine, but this idea was scrapped after the dot-com bubble hit its peak in March 2000. Afterwards, the company pursued licensing the technology to other retailers, such as AOL Music and Best Buy (who used it for in-store kiosks as a trial).
The company faced increasing debt, and ran through its initial $2 million in funding by 2001. Glaser, Kraft, and Westergren then convinced Savage Beast's 50 employees to work for two years without pay, prompting a lawsuit by former employees in 2003 due to deferred salaries being illegal under California law. After settling the suit, just a few employees were laid off. In 2004, based on the success of the Best Buy pilot, Walden Venture Capital led an $8 million round of funding, and hired Joe Kennedy—formerly of automaker Saturn—as its new CEO. After agreements with Best Buy and Borders lapsed, the company began to shift its attention to the consumer market, resulting in the development of Pandora as an internet radio service using the Music Genome Project as a personalization system.
After a beta period, Pandora officially launched in August 2005. Upon its launch, it was a subscription-based service, but added a free, ad-supported version in November after Westergren realized users were abusing its 10-hour free trial by making new e-mail addresses. Advertising could also be targeted based on the current song.
Growth
In 2011, Pandora went public via an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. At the time, Pandora had 800,000 tracks from 80,000 artists in its library and 80 million users. As of end of mid-year 2018, Pandora had 71.4 million active users.
On March 7, 2013, Pandora chairman and chief executive officer Joseph J. Kennedy announced that he would leave the company after nine years.
In April 2013, Pandora announced that its radio streaming service had 200 million users, including 70 million monthly active users. By December 2013, Pandora accounted for 70% of all internet radio listening in the United States.
On September 1, 2013, Pandora removed a 40-hour-per-month limitation for free mobile listening. As of October 2014, less than 5 percent of active listeners were paying subscribers.
By November 2014, Pandora had approximately doubled its library size, topping 1.5 million songs.
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On September 15, 2016, Pandora launched "Pandora Plus", a new $4.99 subscription service to compete with other streaming services.
In early 2017, Pandora revealed that 56 million of its 81 million active users subscribed to the Today's Country station and that country music had accounted for more than 1.7 billion listening hours on the platform in 2016.
On July 31, 2017, Pandora discontinued services in Australia and New Zealand, citing a need to focus solely on the U.S. market.
In September 2017, Roger Lynch became CEO and stated that he wanted to expand the service's focus on podcasts, with similar discovery features to those for music as well as new monetization options. In January 2019, Lynch's departure was announced following the approval of Sirius XM's acquisition of Pandora. Lynch will be replaced by Sirius XM CEO Jim Meyer.
On February 26, 2019, Pandora announced the launch of Pandora Stories, a marketing tool for artists. The feature allows artists to build music playlists combined with voice tracks, where they can add a narrative and deeper insights.
In October 2019, Pandora's parent company, Sirius XM, signed a multiyear deal with Marvel to launch a series of superhero-based podcasts in 2020.
Acquisitions
On June 11, 2013, Pandora announced it would purchase FM radio station KXMZ in Rapid City, South Dakota. On October 7, 2015, Pandora announced it had acquired independent ticketing agency Ticketfly for $450 million, which it subsequently sold to Eventbrite for $200 million on June 9, 2017.
In November 2015, streaming music service Rdio, founded by Skype co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, declared bankruptcy and sold its assets to Pandora for $75 million. Pandora retained 100 Rdio employees, including Iain Morris and Rich Masio, who joined a growing licensing department in pursuit of direct licenses with labels and publishers.
In March 2018, Pandora announced it would acquire digital audio ad technology firm AdsWizz for $145 million.
In February 2019, SiriusXM acquired Pandora for $3.5 billion in stock. In June 2020, Sirius XM acquired podcast service provider Simplecast, pairing it with AdsWizz within its Pandora portfolio.
In July 2020, Sirius XM acquired Stitcher for $325 million. Following the acquisition, Sirius XM integrated Stitcher's exclusive podcasts into its additional music and podcast listening service, Pandora. At the peak of its popularity, Stitcher was reported to have nearly 14.5 million weekly users.
In 2022, Sirius XM acquired Cloud Cover Media, Inc, which handles music for businesses, and merged it with Pandora to form Pandora Cloudcover.
From Wikipedia’s article on Pandora (service), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4