Sean Parker: Poser, “douchebarge,” take your pick
A few choice quotes from a recently published Financial Times interview with Napster founder and ex-president of Facebook Sean Parker:
Since he disputes his portrayal in the film, I ask him about what drives him and how he defines his job. “Solving specific problems is what drives me. I am not interested in having a career. I never have been,” he says. “This in no way resembles a career. I think a career is something your father brings home in a briefcase every night, looking kind of tired.”
It is an arresting image and I ask him if he is thinking of his own father, who was until recently chief scientist of the US National Ocean Service. “Yes, I think that’s accurate,” he says soberly. “He wanted to be entrepreneurial but he had a family and he didn’t feel able to take the risk of putting everything aside. He actually told me, ‘If you are going to take risks, take them early before you have a family.’ ”
And this:
We skip pudding. I have coffee while he takes an English breakfast tea and discusses the meteoric change in his fortunes. “You have got to be willing to be poor [as an entrepreneur],” he says. “There was a time when I was living out of a single suitcase. I had a rule that I wouldn’t stay on one person’s couch for more than two weeks because I didn’t want to become a bother.”
So is a billion dollars cool? He ponders the question carefully. “No, it’s not,” he says. “It’s not cool. I think being a wealthy member of the establishment is the antithesis of cool. Being a countercultural revolutionary is cool. So to the extent that you’ve made a billion dollars, you’ve probably become uncool.” He laughs at his retort to Aaron Sorkin.
Sean Parker, a countercultural revolutionary? I think not. A “douchebarge,” as one of my friends calls him? Closer to the mark. But then, the ease at which something of the sort rolls off his tongue—and many other rich tongues these days—is indeed something to ponder, especially in light of protesters charging for freedom in the Mideast, as well as what’s going on at home with rallying teachers and other public sector employees in Wisconsin and around the country. Without a doubt, these are the real revolutionaries, lest we—or Parker—forget.
