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The Inside Story of BitTorrent’s Bizarre Collapse
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The Inside Story of BitTorrent’s Bizarre Collapse

How a group of valley outsiders blew through the company’s cash and nearly left it for dead.

Jessi Hempel
Wired, 2017
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Overview
  • Background

Recommendation

What happens when a brilliant piece of technology can’t find a profitable business niche? Consider the case of the BitTorrent protocol – one of the most common protocols for file sharing on the Internet. Journalist Jessi Hempel digs into the strange history of BitTorrent, the company created to monetize Bram Cohen’s groundbreaking invention. In tracing the many attempts by an ever changing cast of executives and investors to transform the BitTorrent protocol into a successful company, Hempel constructs a kind of morality tale for tech entrepreneurs. getAbstract recommends this article to tech investors, executives and inventors.

Take-Aways

  • Bram Cohen’s invention of the open-source BitTorrent protocol transformed how the world shares big data files via the Internet.
  • Cohen founded the BitTorrent company in 2004 and raised $8.75 million to launch a digital marketplace. The firm failed because it couldn’t stop illegal use of its protocol by entertainment pirates.
  • After Eric Klinker replaced Cohen as CEO, the company launched a media distribution service and tried to create a sci-fi show. Neither idea turned a profit.

About the Author

Jessi Hempel is the head of editorial for Backchannel. She writes about the business and the culture of technology.

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