It was very early, and we were still like beta or alpha stage, and so we started receiving a ton of download. The server became overloaded, and that's when I realized that this had a huge market.

However their partners and the public did not respond well. Customer support was poor and technical issues were numerous. Soon after he uploaded the beta program of Napster Shawn moved his company from his headquarters in Hull Massachusetts to a more spacious location in San Mateo California and hired additional workers to improve on the Napster Program.

Shawn Fanning (born November 22 1980) is an American computer programmer serial entrepreneur and angel investor. Following his involvement with Napster he joined and invested in a number of early-stage technology startup companies. The popularity of Napster was widespread and Fanning was featured on the cover of Time magazine.