Michael Downing

Michael Downing is a Silicon Valley serial-entrepreneur and technology pioneer in the digital media sector who has co-founded and served as CEO of 6 different companies over the last 23 years. Downing has been instrumental in creating innovative technologies and successful companies during this time that have been at the forefront of some of the most profound technological shifts of this era. Michael’s focus has been specifically on developing technologies and platforms that are highly disruptive to the traditional media industry. Beginning in the 1990’s Downing played a key role in the birth of the digital music revolution as COO of Sonique, the first software application of it’s kind that enabled consumers to listen to Mp3 files on their computers. After selling Sonique to Lycos in 1999, Michael co-founded Musicbank Inc, the first legally licensed subscription service to music on the Internet in partnership with all the major music labels and publishers across the music industry. In 2003, Downing focused his efforts on the nascent online video industry and founded GoFish, an early consumer technology platform that delivered commercial and UGC video across the web. GoFish pioneered one of the first originally produced and sponsored web-video-series, deployed some of the first pre-roll video ad campaigns and ultimately went public in 2006. Downing advises and angel invests in young start-ups through Silicon Valley and abroad and serves as an advisory board member and entrepreneur-in-residence at SRI International (The Stanford Research Institute). Michael is a frequent speaker at industry events and on financial and business TV programs including CNBC and Bloomberg TV where he is called to discuss trends in technology and their impact on the traditional media industry.