There really was nothing like it at the time. We had good ideas for implementation, so we proceeded. I think it was an excellent solution to the reliability issues with existing search engines.

If you think about computer programming, it's as antisocial as it gets.

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.

Nobody has ever built a reliable peer-to-peer service, where people can really access all the music they want in one location,... Once I got it into my head, I couldn't imagine the media space without one.

Napster works because people who love music share and participate.

I think it's pretty obvious to most people that Napster is not media specific, but I could see a system like Napster evolving into something that allows users to locate and retrieve different types of data other than just MP3s or audio files.

That's why I ended up leaving school - because it required so much time, and it was such an excellent idea. I figured I would regret not going full force with this idea. It seemed we could make something of it.