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How Ripple Helped Chris Larsen Become the Richest Man in Cryptocurrency World?

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The total digital currency industry amounts to over $600 billion, helping in the making of several new millionaires. One of the newest billionaires to benefit is Ripple’s former CEO, Chris Larsen. With a fortune amounting to a whopping $20 billion, Larsen’s revenue comes from XRP, which serves as the token of Ripple.

Ripple which he co-founded in 2012 with Jed McCaleb is a cryptocurrency based system that allows international payments. So how did this company that uses blockchain technology make Larsen a billionaire? Here’s the story of how Larsen made millions through Ripple and what the future holds for cryptocurrency.

About the Founder

Chris Larsen co-founded E-Loan in 1996, which worked as an online lender is the first company to provide free FICO credit scores. Within 4 years, Larsen grew the company and made it worth $1 billion. He then went on to sell it to Banco Popular in 2005. The next year he co-founded Prosper which he left in 2012, to co-found Ripple Labs Inc., which later developed Ripple. He stepped down in 2016, taking up the post of Executive Chairman. His stake in Ripple is estimated to be worth $37.3 billion, making him the 15th richest American.

Chris Larsen
Image Source: Google Images

Chris Larsen was born to a freelance illustrator mother and aircraft mechanic father in San Francisco. He obtained a BS in International Business from the San Francisco State University in 1984. Shortly after graduating, he started working for Chevron and then went on to do his M.B.A. from Stanford.

He and his colleague Janina Pawlowski, quit their jobs to found a mortgage company in 1992. By 1996, they raised $450,000 from friends and family and set up an office in Dublin. They made their E-Loan website public in 1997, and instantly tasted success.

By 1998, E-Loan was making $6.8 million annually and the company went public a year later. E-Loan was worth $1 billion by 2000, and in 2005 Larsen stepped down as CEO selling E-Loan to Banco Popular.

Larsen and John Witchel co-founded Prosper, which worked as an online auction marketplace like a Dutch auction system. He resigned as CEO in 2012 but stayed on as a Chairman. He then co-founded OpenCoin, which later became Ripple Labs, Inc. in 2013. Ripple Labs developed Ripple and by 2014, XPR was becoming a roaring success.

Making a Ripple in the Industry

San-Francisco based Ripple facilitates secure international transactions and has grown 30,000% between 2017 and 2018. Hence, it has now passed Ethereum and has become the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world. By 2017, XRP’s market share amounted to US$73 billion. The explosive growth of Ripple is due to the launch of futures trading on Cboe and rising investor interest in digital currency.

XRP started out 2017 with a price of $0.006 and ended it by growing over 38000% to become valued at $2.30. In Ripple, the currency is a part of the payment system, unlike other systems wherein the currency is King. Hence, as the payment system is as important as the currency, it makes the entire process a lot safer and very flexible.

Bringing in the Big Bucks

Larsen’s company holds over 61 billion of the total 100 billion XRP in circulation, making him one of the richest people in the world. His 17% stake in Ripple led to him being a part of Forbes’s list of richest people. The company is worth more than $410 million and has over 100 esteemed customers including the likes of Mitsubishi Financial and Bank of America.

The current CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, holds 6.3% stake in Ripple, making him worth nearly $10 billion. Jed McCaleb also served as a co-founder of Ripple but left in 2013 with 5.3 billion XRP.

Feedburner

FeedBurner – Product of The Brilliant Idea of Four Tech Geeks

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At the beginning of the 21st century, dot com boom in the world and massive websites were launched for the first time. In that scenario, a group of four people grab the opportunity and set up FeedBurner. It was a powerful idea to enhance the operationality of the website. 

Feedburner was their second company to hit in the tech world. At that time, RSS was just started to gain some real momentum. In such a situation, they launched the Feedburner at an impeccable timing. After that, the company achieved success in a very short period. 

Backstory of FeedBurner

It is a web feed management provider based in Chicago. In 2004, a group of four people launched the service. Soon it became popular among publishers and bloggers. It is the product of a brilliant idea of the four brilliant minds, who were working at Andersen consulting. 

They noticed that the web is the future of networking. They proposed the idea of feed management services to the firm they were working with. But their idea was uninterested in Andersen consulting. Therefore, they launched own successful services in the website tracking. FeedBurner was one of their popular services. It is launched back in 2004 by Dick Costolo, Steve Olechowski, Eric Lunt, and Matt Shobe.

Dick Costolo

Dick Costolo was the co-founder and CEO of FeedBurner till 2007. After Google acquired the Feedburner, he served as Group Product Manager on the Ads up to 2009. From 2010 to 2015 he served as a CEO at twitter. 

Personal Life

He was born on September 10, 1963. In 1985, Costolo attended the University of Michigan for his graduation in communication & computer science. During his senior year, he did several plays as a theatre artist. He wanted to work in improvisational comedy. So, after graduation, he rejected many job offers in the technical field. 

However, he joined Andersen Consulting and severed for as long as 8 years. That time, he co-founded a web design company, known as Burning Door Networked Media. Just before the FeedBurner foundation, Costolo also co-founded SypOnIt. 

Later Achievements

He served at National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee in 2011. After that, in the year 2015, he was the consultant for HBO Tv series popular as Silicon Valley. In 2016, he joined as a partner at Index ventures. 

Costolo was in the list of Business Insiders’ Silicon Valley’s most impressive CEO. Also, he marked the name in the TIME magazine’s list of Top 10 influential U.S Tech CEO.

Eric Lunt

He was one of the office colleagues of Costolo at Andersen Consulting. Currently, he is CTO at Signal. Eric co-founded SpyOnIt and Feedburner with the Costolo and other two partners. In fact, after the foundation of Feedburner, he served as CTO till Google acquired the company. 

Lunt is a Princeton University graduate.

Steve Olechowski

Steve Olechowski also worked at Andersen Consulting. He contributed to the foundation of Feedburner in 2004. Where he served as COO till 2007. After that, he worked as a project manager with Google on social content syndication. 

As a brilliant tech person, he was always in search of new ideas. As a result, he founded on more companies in 2011 named as Blinkfire Analytics. Also, he is the director at Plug and Plays Chicago.

Matt Shobe

A tech geek, who is brilliant in designing is well familiar as Voice of Feedburner. He is the co-founder of Feedburner, who also worked as a chief designer officer. After Google acquired the FeedBurner, he worked with Google for three years. After that, he joined the BigDoor Media as a chief design officer in 2011.

In 2014, Shobe began his journey at AngelList. He oversees product and user experience. 

Apart from that, Shobe inspires students for entrepreneurship. He sponsors Shobe prize to encourage entrepreneurship. Also, helps to promote start-up businesses with connecting them to popular start-up communities.

Services offered by FeedBurner

The custom RSS feeds and management tools of FeedBurner helped numerous bloggers, podcasters, and other online content publishers. The company provided good control of the website to understand the audience. The basic services provided by Feedburner is traffic analysis. Also, it offers an optional advertising system for publishers. Also, with FeedBurner’s feed, data about subscribers could be easily found. 

We can call it as a typical Web 2.0 service. As it had provided web service APIs allowing much other software to interact with it. 

FeedBurner Acquisition by Google

In 2007, Google bought FeedBurner which was popular for its feed management service. However, rumors said that Google paid a big amount of $100 million. After a month later, Google made MyBrand and TotalStats, the two popular services of FeedBurner free to users.

On 26 May 2011, Google shut down the FeedBurner APIs. After a year, Google retired Adsense of feeds and shut it down shortly. Till 2007, FeedBurner hosted over a million feeds. Around 584,832 publishers used the FeedBurner for blogs as well as for about 142,534 podcast feeds.

Ganna.com

Gaana.Com – Success And Transformation of India’s Largest Music Streaming Service

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Listening to music is a major part of our daily lives especially when it comes to Gaana.com. We don’t specifically schedule a time for that but throughout the day we just keep the music on. From traveling to working late on a Monday evening, music is our constant companion.

Previously we use to share music videos through apps like Xender and Shareit. But, the unlimited source of data has made our lives easier. Nowadays, we prefer listening to music online and kudos to online music streaming platforms.

Gaana.com is India’s largest commercial music streaming service. It serves users worldwide with currently 150 million active users.

History of the Founding Team

Until 2013, Avinash Mudaliar was the head of Gaana.com and a part of the founding team as well. After he left the company in 2013, Pawan Agarwal became the new business head of Gaana.com. This year, hiring some senior-level positions took place which included the VP of marketing and ad tech as well.

Avinash Mudaliar
Image Source: Google Images

Satyan Gajwani served as the CEO of the company and the services escalated after the formation of a new team. Though the company started its platform since 2010, in 2013 the company released mobile apps for Android, iOS, BlackBerry and J2ME devices.

Journey since the beginning

In April 2010, the launch of Gaana.com took place as a music streaming platform. Gaana.com provided both Indian and international content from the beginning. In 2005, the registration of the domain name, Gaana.com took place. But, the company emerged under Times Internet since 2010.

The company gained huge momentum from the very beginning and the success of the company was jaw-dropping.

The New Era

The company made a new management team in 2013 and since then a lot has been changed. Gaana.com came into a partnership with the South Indian Music Companies Association in 2013. It gave the company rights and access to 79 different labels of music. This enriched the content of Gaana.com and undoubtedly attracted millions of customers.

In October 2015, Micromax acquired a stake at Gaana.com. And, in 2016, a serial entrepreneur, Prashan Agarwal became the CEO of the company. Before joining Gaana.com, Prashan founded PropTiger.com (2011) and 19miles.com (2015). He has a Bachelor’s degree from IIT Kanpur and an MBA from the Indian School of Business.

Under Prashan’s leadership, Gaana.com has transformed completely. After he joined the company, the company’s market grew seven times its size. He has truly given more meaning to India’s digital music platform.

Under Prashan’s leadership

Previously, the internet wasn’t available to every corner of India. But now with the appearance of the digital era and on top of that, the 4G network played ace for Gaana.com. Due to the high-speed internet, the rural population for the first time got to use a music platform like Gaana. This helped the company to reach every part of the country and gain users rapidly.

Currently, Gaana.com offers music from twenty-one different languages, but consumers prefer English and Punjabi songs mostly. Prashan predicts that within the next two years the monthly users might hit 400 million. The consumption of regional music has also grown twenty-five times in India.

It’s not only about Bollywood

Gaana.com is not only about promoting songs from Bollywood movies. Many independent artists are emerging these days and Gaana.com provides them a platform to nurture their talents. Not only has it helped the artists to gain recognition but also how to understand their fan-base.

Gaana has released a new feature called Artist Dashboard. Through this feature, artists can understand the kind of music their fans like to listen to.

And then there is Artificial Intelligence

I can think of no such fields where the application of AI is not possible. After Prashan joined the company in 2016 he has focused on AI.

To become a great musician you have to be a great music mixer as well. And, software based on AI and ML has made it a lot easier. So basically if one can master the art of programming he or she can just grab the best award for music composition. This is no joke.

The exact concept is what Gaana trying to implement in its platform. Through the tools based on AI, it is easy to understand the personal taste of music. And once that is achieved the platform can provide music recommendations accordingly. This is a boon for both the provider and the user as well.

So, this is the next big plan of Prashan thus driving a massive profit and success for the company.

MoneyGram

Pam Patsley – A Billion Dollar Company Chairman And An Inspiration for Every Women Entrepreneur

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The start-up culture has spread like a wildfire in recent years. With many potential entrepreneurs in the run, an American businesswoman is creating big news. Well, it is transparent to the world that female participation is comparatively lesser in the business world. Undoubtedly there are many women out there struggling hard to break the walls of patriarchy and emerge out. But, the world needs more such passionate women.

Pam Patsley famous as the Chairman or I would rather say Chairwoman of MoneyGram is a powerful American businesswoman. She is known as one of the highest-paid woman executives around the world.

Early Life

Born into a family of schoolteachers, Pam turned her ordinary life into something beyond challenging and thrilling. In 1957, Pam was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She went to the University of Missouri to complete her graduation. Pam was determined to contribute to the financial world and so she acquired a bachelor’s degree in accounting.

Early Career

Pam’s career officially started in 1979 in Dallas, Texas. This year, she joined KPMG as an accountant. Once she stepped into the financial world, she realized money wasn’t everything that pulled her into it. Money was a big factor but accepting the challenge and building a team became bigger.

After serving KMG for six long years, Pam started working as the chief financial officer of First USA Inc. Success started accelerating and she became the president and CEO of Paymentech. In 1999, First Data Corp acquired the company which led Pam to become the president of First Data International. She left the company in October 2007.

Something Bigger

After she left First Data in 2007 she wasn’t much engaged in the acreage of the financial domain. She fled to Paris and took a semi-leave from the corporate world. Pam was working on some of her own business when something way better landed right in front of her.

Thomas Lee Partners (investor of MoneyGram international) and Goldman Sachs offered Pam to take full control of the empire. In 2007, MoneyGram went through some serious financial crisis right after which THL and Goldman Sachs became the company’s investors. They found Pam well-fitted for the job and offered her the helm.

In January 2009, Pam joined MoneyGram as the chairman of the company. After a few months, she became the CEO of the company as well. MoneyGram is the world’s one of the largest non-banking money transfer company. After Pam joined the company, she rolled over its future completely.

Success of MoneyGram

After Pam started leading the company, the headquarters shifted to Dallas, Texas. Initially, the company’s future seemed bleak. But, it all changed with time. In the year 2010, the company’s annual revenue summed up to $1.17 billion. This helped it repay some of the debts.

After a couple of years, it lost a few partnerships; shares fell about 70% and had to close some call centers. So, the company finally decided to restructure itself to cut costs. In 2015, MoneyGram created a widespread agent network in Africa. MoneyGram reached 25,000 new locations. By this time, MoneyGram’s services reached to 191 countries.

Pam’s views on Indian Market

Pam Patsley
Image Source: Google Images

Since the day Pam started working for MoneyGram, she wanted to expand the network. According to her, a giant network can assure a more efficient transfer of money. Pam, in an interview, said that she has seen great potential in the market of Middle-East and Asian countries.

Pam said India provides one of the biggest markets for MoneyGram. She also said that in terms of recipients no other country has beaten India so far. India is a unique country and MoneyGram would focus more on building a strong agent base.

Why outside the US?

Well, according to Pam it is all about the senders and the recipients. So, why not expand to countries which have a potential of becoming the largest markets for MoneyGram. Pam saw Malaysia as a great start for the expansion business which eventually led her to the Asian market.

Saudi Arabia became the second largest sent market just within two years of doing business there. Apart from India and Malaysia in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka proved to be of great importance.

Personal Life

Pam married Gary who is a retired chief financial officer of First USA Bank, Texas. They have a son, Philip. Pam has no trouble balancing her personal and corporate life as her husband takes care of the family very well.

Peter L. Jensen

HOW PETER L. JENSEN TRANSFORMED THE WORLD OF AUDIO

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The young generation loves loud music. Especially Friday nights are all going to a club and dancing our hearts out. We have never realized that the speaker has become an integral part of our life. We never forget to carry earphones or headphones while traveling. And, we also cannot imagine a party without loud music. So, let’s take a moment and praise the inventor of the loudspeaker. Because without Peter L. Jensen our life would have been dull.

Peter L. Jensen

Peter L. Jensen was a famous Danish American engineer who invented loudspeakers in 1915. Previously, a scientist called Oliver Lodge invented a moving-coil loudspeaker in 1898. But, it was an experimental one. Peter was the first person to invent a practical moving-coil loudspeaker.

Early Life and Education

Born in 1886, Peter belonged to an island called Falster in Denmark. He went to a Danish high school and graduated in 1902. Peter attended Amherst College, Massachusetts and pursued liberal arts. He graduated in the year 1906.

Career

Peter’s career life began with a job in the laboratory of Valdemar Poulsen. This turned out to be a great opportunity for Peter as Valdemar was the inventor of magnetic recording. Peter got promoted as the assistant of Valdemar in 1905. In 1909, Peter fled to the U.S and assisted Valdemar to introduce the Poulsen Radio Arc System.

Peter was great at his job. After working for Valdemar, he started working as an engineer for the Federal Telegraph Company, California. The company also bought the Poulsen patent in November 1910.

First Business

After gaining experience in the professional world, Peter co-founded his first business. In 1911, Peter established Commercial Wireless and Development Co. with Edwin S. Pridham in Napa, California. Richard O’Conner provided financial support and Carl Albertus assisted in the department of engineering.

Magnavox

In 1917, Jensen and Edwin changed the name of the company to Magnavox. Jensen became the chief engineer of the company. Magnavox stands for “great voice”. The establishment of the company left the entire United Nations speechless.

It was for the first time in world history a person’s voice became audible across a huge area. Today, Magnavox is one of the famous companies in the U.S for its rich history. The main products of the company are Smart Televisions, Air Conditioners, Heaters, etc.

The Invention

With Edwin’s help, Peter invented the first-ever moving-coil loudspeakers in 1915. Peter used the electro-dynamic principle for designing the loudspeakers. The speakers were later termed as dynamic speakers. In 1916, Peter built the first complete electric reproducing phonograph and patented it.

In1915 Christmas Eve, Peter used the loudspeakers for the first time. A gathering of 75,000 people in San Francisco witnessed his magnificent invention. The entire crowd was able to hear every announcement and speech distinctively.

Under the name of Magnavox, it was used as a public address system. The product became famous overnight as no other companies in the world built something like this.

Other Inventions

In 1919, Peter designed a dynamic loudspeaker for the reception of radio broadcasting. Magnavox became the brand name leading the production. In 1917, Peter invented the world’s first anti-noise self-neutralizing microphone. Edwin played a big role.

The aviation industry used it for wireless communication between the aircraft and the receiver at ground level. During the first and the second world wars, the air force of the United Nations used it extensively.

Jensen Radio Manufacturing Company

Jensen stepped down from his position in Magnavox in 1925. After a couple of years, he founded Jensen Radio Manufacturing Company. Based in Chicago, the company gained huge popularity during the 1940s. When Fender Musical Instrument Corporation used Jensen speakers for their guitar amplifier, it earned a huge profit.

Fender, Ampeg and, Gibson became the topmost customers of Jensen Loudspeakers. The company also started producing Hi-Fi loudspeakers for home. In the late 1960s, Jensen Loudspeakers ceased production. Later, in 2008, SICA Altoparlanti started producing loudspeakers under the brand name of Jensen.

In the late 1990s, Jensen and SICA signed the legal agreement for designing and selling loudspeakers under their brand name.

Achievements

In 1955, Jensen became the honorary member of the Audio Engineering Society. He was also an Extraordinary member of the Danish Engineering Society. Peter was also knighted by the King of Denmark in the Order of the Dannebrog.

Peter passed away in 1961 at the age of 75.

JBL logo

James Bullough Lansing – Story of Innovative Radio Engineer to JBL’s founder

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Today, JBL is a very famous brand for speakers and headphones. It has a huge electronic audio market. Whether it is simple consumer speakers, headphones or studio speakers; JBL is one of the demanding brands. It is founded by an audio engineer and a loudspeaker designer, James Bullough Lansing. He is one of the innovative engineers of America, who did remarkable work in the technical field.

In the middle of the 20th century, the whole world was mad over innovations. Also, many scientists were busy discovering new technologies. In such a challenging period, this audio engineer formed the base of the leading electronics company of the present era. 

Today, the world knows him as a pioneer and innovator. He inspires many entrepreneurs to be passionate about work, regardless of difficult situations.

Early life

James Bullough Lansing was born on 14 January 1902, in Greenridge, Illinois. He was the ninth of fourteenth kids of the Martini family. His father, Henry Martini was a coal mining engineer. Due to his father’s changing worksites, the family has to change their location simultaneously. Therefore, James spent childhood days in many different places.

JBL Founder
Image Source – Google

At his young age, James lives with the Bullough family for a short duration. Thereafter, he changed the name from James martini to James Bullough Lansing in 1927.

Education

James Lansing brought up in Springfield, Illinois at his teenage. Where he completed his primary schooling at Lawrence school. He was a talented student at Springfield High School.

Also, he attained some training courses at a small business college in Springfield. He was famous amongst his friends, for playing pranks with his innovative ideas. Once, he built a Layden jar to trick his friends. 

He was an innovative child. James’ schoolmates get flatten over his powerful enough radio transmitter’s design.

Career

In early days of career, he worked as an automotive mechanic. While working, he attended an automotive school at one of the dealers’ Detroit courtesy. Afterward, he worked as an engineer at the radio station, Salt Lake City. 

James Lansing’s career took a new turn when he joined Baldwin Radio company. He got the opportunity to meet Ken Decker, who turned out as a business partner in upcoming years. 

Personal Life

At the age of 21, he left home after his mother’s death. Later, he settled in Salt Lake City for his job. It was the period, where he met a beautiful lady Glenna Peterson, who became his wife in the future.

New Business 

On 9 March 1927, James Lancing and decker founded Lansing Manufacturing company. It was the loudspeaker manufacturing unit. 

After the death of Decker, the company’s growth was declined enormously. At that time, Altec Service Corporation bought the company in 1941. Afterward, Lansing manufacturing company renamed Altec Lansing. In the end, James left the company after his 5-year contract as VP of the engineering section had terminated.

Establishment of JBL

In the year 1946, he established Lancing Sound, Incorporated. Due to some trademark issues with Altec lancing, the company renamed “James B. Lancing sound, Inc.” Furthermore, the company name shortened as JBL for product branding. In the future, JBL became the official name.

D101, a 15inch loudspeaker was the first product of the company. After that, the company launched D130, 15inch transducer in the market. In fact, the model’s several versions remain in the production for over 55 years.

Later Life

No doubt, James was a hardworking innovative engineer. But, the lack of business skills results in faltering business conditions. As a result, JBL started losing the market and the investors’ interest. For a few years, Marquardt corporation offered modest investment to the JBL. But after the acquisition of Marquardt by General Tire company, they broke ties with JBL.

The degrading financial conditions became out of the reach for the compassionate innovator. Also, several personal problems worsen the situation. Unfortunately, James Bullough died on 24 September 1949.

Bottom Line

James, with his innovative mind, constructed a strong base for JBL. In the present electronics market, JBL is trustworthy for its advanced Loudspeakers, headphones, and amplifiers.

JBL’s car audio system used in Ford’s top vehicle. Currently, it is one of the most loved headphone brands in all ranges of customers.