Chris Barton on Defying the Impossible—And Building Shazam
This story is the third and final recap of our series on keynote talks at NeoCon 2025
At the BIFMA NeoCon Keynote, Chris Barton stepped onto the stage (after a sizzle reel that made the Bulls’ walk-on routine seem reserved) with a story that most of the audience already knew, at least in part. After all, nearly everyone has “Shazamed” a song. But few knew how close the app came to never existing at all.
Barton’s keynote, Bring Impossible Ideas to Life, was a lesson in what it takes to innovate: a mindset of defiance, a commitment to creative persistence, and a deep emotional connection to one’s work.
Chris Barton offers lessons in how entrepreneurs—and designers—can innovate. Photo: Leah Ray
First Principles, Not Assumptions
Barton began with a question: What if you could identify any song just by holding up your phone? At the time—1999—there were no iPhones, no apps, and no precedent. Every expert he consulted told him it couldn’t be done.
Yet Barton persisted. Rather than rely on existing frameworks, he turned to first principles thinking: boiling an idea down to its most basic truths. Phones had microphones. Music is sound. Could he build a system from scratch using just that? This reframing became the cornerstone of Shazam, and it is a powerful reminder that innovation often begins with unlearning.
Creative Persistence vs. Simple Stubbornness
Barton made a compelling case that what innovators need is not simply persistence, but creative persistence—the ability to generate fresh solutions to new obstacles one after another.
That’s what it took to develop Shazam. His team had to invent technology that could recognize a song with background noise, variable tempo, and poor audio quality—and do it across a massive database of tracks. The result? One of the first mass-market AI applications in consumer tech.
Eliminate Friction, Move Mountains
One of the most actionable themes of Barton’s talk was about friction, and how entrepreneurs may inadvertently underestimate its risk. Friction may disguise itself as a minor inconvenience (“just one more click”) when in reality it can become a deal-breaker, or as Barton put it, “a boulder dressed as a pebble.”
This insight carried Barton through his time not only at Shazam but also at Dropbox, where simplifying the user experience from one-click to zero-click (by turning a folder into the interface itself) created a competitive edge that reshaped cloud storage.
Emotion Is the Ultimate Edge
Despite the sophisticated tech behind it, Shazam’s success came down to something simple: care. Barton and his co-founders were emotionally invested in every detail of the app, from its name and user flow to the ambient experience of song discovery.
That emotional connection gave them the drive to endure six long years of failure. Eventually, it helped Shazam become a household name, even as Google, Sony, and others tried to copy their model.
In one of the talk’s most moving moments, Barton recalled watching two strangers in a grocery store use Shazam together, instinctively and effortlessly. That, he said, was the reward. Not the $400M acquisition by Apple. Not the app store accolades. But that unspoken moment of connection, technology fulfilling a quiet human wish.
Barton’s advice on how to search & destroy friction, which can become a mighty obstacle to success. Photo: Leah Ray
Takeaways for Designers & Leaders
Barton closed with a challenge to all creatives and innovators:
Defy your assumptions by returning to fundamental truths.
Defy barriers through creative workarounds.
Defy friction by identifying it and eliminating is for your clients, even if it creates more for you.
Make it Personal by connecting to your emotions—and your clients’—to deliver the extraordinary.
Barton reminded us: the best ideas aren’t just brilliant. They’re impossible… until someone makes them real.