Chris Barton
- Founder and creator of Shazam
- Shazam is Apple’s 6th largest acquisition – over 2 billion downloadsDS
- Three-time startup founder and advisor/investor to startups
- First employee at Google responsible for mobile
- Early employee at Dropbox (First 100)
- Inventor of 12 patents (one used within Google algorithm)
- Teaches innovation and entrepreneurship in 4 online universities
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Chris Barton's 2025 biography
About Chris Barton
Chris Barton wanted a way to identify songs anywhere he heard them. There wasn’t one – so he invented an app called Shazam. Chris’s creation is nothing short of pure magic. Chris seeks to delight people by using technology to make seemingly impossible ideas come to life. Shazam is just one of them. It changed the way the world discovers music and laid the groundwork for the consumer AI industry we know today. 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.
When he has time, Chris enjoys speaking at events and sharing lessons learned from his experiences overcoming the impossible. He inspires people with firsthand stories that highlight key take-aways across technology innovation, persistence, removing friction, and entrepreneurship. Chris gives audiences a new framework for making big things happen. His truly inspirational story motivates 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.
Chris Barton's 2025 talks & topics
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.
[Audiences are inspired to embrace a mindset to create the next great companies]
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 show how innovation comes from not just an idea, but from a series of insights to overcome obstacles along the way.
[Audiences learn a new framework of thinking to create change through technology]
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.
[Audiences learn new mindsets to break past barriers]
Eliminate Effort to Unlock Explosive Growth
We all know simple is great, so why don’t all organizations create amazing things just like Apple? The reality is that friction permeates almost everything we do. This “extra effort” frustrates our customers, partners, and colleagues. In creating Shazam, Chris moved mountains to make one thing very easy – identifying any song. Shazam changed the way the world discovers music. Chris combines stories from creating Shazam with his twelve years at Android (Google) and Dropbox to provide concrete examples of how we can all push boundaries to eliminate friction.
[Audiences learn to identify and eliminate friction to drive growth].
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