I spent a lot of time thinking about it, playing around with the technology. In 1999 I sent out an invitation to my thirtieth birthday party—it was a mixed custom CD I’d burned with full Red Book audio as well as MP3s—“Gimme Some Lovin’,” “Instant Karma,” “Private Idaho.” Even though almost nobody owned an MP3 player back then. But I could see the potential for a new kind of device: one designed purely for audio. I talked about it for three hours one day with the CEO of RealNetworks, an incredibly popular technology at the time, the first to create internet streaming audio and video. I’d set
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