Kristen Kuhns of Brentwood endures her hourlong commute by listening to country music from Pandora.com via her iPod and car radio. Maureen Nelson of Pleasant Hill screens out coworker chatter by plugging into classical music on Pandora. And Morgan Smith of San Francisco uses rock music from the online radio site to help him kick out projects on time.
All three may lose their beloved station, along with Pandora's 16 million other registered users, thanks to a decision by a government board obligating Oakland-based Pandora to pay royalties equal to 70 percent of its income, its founder says. If the decision puts the lid on Pandora, it will end the saga of one of the country's most popular online music sites, known for its accuracy in finding music suggestions matched to its listeners' tastes. The $13 million company, founded in 2000 as Savage Beast Technologies, gets about 1 million visits a day and is one of the 10 most popular iPhone applications.
Paintings of musicians in vivid purples, reds and greens, CDs overflowing from white post office buckets, a massed arsenal of eight black computers for uploads (the Rippers) and an industrial-strength stage grace the company's downtown office.
But this doesn't mean that Pandora's 130 staffers are laid-back slackers rocking out to the approximately 13,000 songs that pour in every month. Years of deferred salaries and 14-hour days carried the company through
