Tom Conrad, CTO at Pandora, shares seven lessons he has learned during his 20 year career in technology.
Tom has had an amazing career working at a large variety of technology companies, including Apple, the infamous Pets.com, and Pandora. In the video he shares fantastic stories to illustrate the following lessons:
- Be passionate
- Be great
- Be focused
- Be agile
- Be decisive
- Be genuine
- Be humble
Most talks are given by founders and CEOs, so hearing his insights as an early employee was refreshing. I’m also an avid Pandora listener (40+ hours a week) and subscriber, so I was interested to hear more about the company. Pandora has such a great ethos, and I’ve felt it as one of their customers. They stick to their mission — helping people discover new music they like — despite drawing some flak for various aspects of the service (like not letting you play specific songs). I’m the type of person who listens only to music I know that I like, and without a service to find music similar to that I would never bother listening to new bands. Pandora has been responsible for almost all of the new bands and songs that I have discovered over the past few years, and I often feel like $36 a year is a bargain for everything I get in return.
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