Algorhythm and Blues

Schadler thinks Pandora has potential--if it can "match sonic snippets in a way that allows them to make stronger recommendations, that's the holy grail"--but worries about its ability to monetize the service. The subscription fee may be a hurdle, he says, especially since you have to pay extra to buy music. And the company will probably have to strike deals with a bunch of destination sites--buying ads on Google, hooking up with a cell-phone provider, or licensing the technology to Yahoo--if it really wants to grow.

Yahoo, of course, has its own matching service and although Kennedy dismisses Yahoo's technology as the "warehouse of choice" approach, he concedes that it could be a formidable competitor.

For his part, Kennedy is beyond coy with his company's numbers (he learned his lesson after boasting about traffic on eLoan, his alma mater, then being forced to try to match it quarter after quarter). But he insists that "everything is exceeding the high end of our expectations for the launch." He anticipates rolling out a free, ad-supported version of the service in the near future, and suggests that Pandora may soon go after another round of funding to fuel expansion plans.

Which may explain why there's still something Conradian about Westergren. "An experience like this transforms you," he says quietly, late one October night, of the entrepreneurial darkness he has traversed. "I don't take anything for granted anymore. It toughened me up and made me appreciate when things are going well."

Despite the pain, he maintains he'd do it all again--faster than you can say diatonic harmony. "The joy I feel when I discover a piece of music I love is magic," he says. "It's my religion."

Linda Tischler (ltischler@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior writer. Pandora introduced her to the band Saucy Monky.