Tim Westergren, Co-founder, and former Pandora CEO commented on CNBC’s Fortt Knox show:
Part of what makes Pandora so valuable as an entity is the amount of data that it collects. There’s no service as engaging as Pandora that elicits so much feedback from listeners and the information you are gleaning right now is being leveraged to build an efficient advertising business.
I think that Apple, Amazon, Google is going to rue the day they let Pandora get away from them. I think that this company can be the cornerstone of a global play in music unlike any other. Pandora grew to almost 100 million registered listeners in the US also with barely a dime of marketing. It was an utterly viral phenomenon. I witnessed first hand the passion of that connection with Pandora and it’s listeners. I used to do town halls across the country meeting people in person and I saw what was going on with listeners and Pandora.
I think anybody who witnessed that would understand how vast the potential is. I hope that this combination (SiriusXM Acquisition) can realize it, but this company could do an awful lot in the hands of a global partner the likes of Apple, Google, etc…