PonoPlayer: The $50 Million Dream That Died - Krazy Ken’s Tech Talk
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Neil Young was on a mission to bring high-res music to listeners with the PonoPlayer and Pono ecosystem. The PonoMusic company successfully raised over $13 million, and was valued at $50 million, but in less than four years… it was all gone.
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Lots of cool people helped make this episode possible!
Brainiac Brent: Assistant Editing
Savvy Sage: Research
Ian Schwabe (@ArtisIan_): Illustrations (Neil Young Bedroom, Horse)
Heidi: Illustrations (Neil Young Portrait, Snake Oil)
Thanks, Damian, for being in this episode!
Delicious Damian: / @differentdamian
Special thanks to everyone who was interviewed!
Jens Dietrich, Matthew Di Tullo, Ron Weekes/landlocked54, Michael O’Brien, Tom Veldran, Daniell Krawczyk (@dkrawc)
Thanks to @CinemaZeeVT for the cameo! ● / cinemazee
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0:00 Introduction & Neil Young’s History
2:02 PureTone Origins
5:35 PonoMusic Origins
8:52 Kickstarter
12:18 Experiment Setup
13:58 PonoPlayer Hardware
18:24 Digital Audio Explained
21:51 PonoMusic Store & PonoMusic World
23:24 Public Reception
25:13 Experiment Results & Ken’s Personal Test
28:09 Problems at PonoMusic
31:20 Why Did PonoMusic Fail?
35:16 What Happened Next?
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