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Greene’s meteoric rise from Salem’s Lot to Silicon Valley was achieved through extraordinary hustle and deathless determination, irresistible salesmanship and a team he hired of mad geniuses who work and live out of the “PingTank mansion” in Hollywood (not Silicon Valley)—where the team’s latest marketing stunt involved Greene getting “arrested,” a helicopter and an impromptu performance by Tyga.
His speed, unconventionality and boldness make him dangerous to competitors and have brought in millions in venture capital for the young company. His latest move? He made 12-year-old Sammy Parsley PingTank’s VP of youth marketing. It’s just one example of how Greene acts instantly on things you’ll see everyone else hesitate at.
“Jeremy is a force of nature who creates value out of thin air and runs through brick walls that stop others in their tracks. And that’s exactly the kind of person investors like me like to back,” says Rafe Furst, co-founder of Crowdfunder and a PingTank investor.
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The school of hard knocks
Jeremy’s hustle, salesmanship and knack for leveraging star talent came from some lessons learned in the school of hard knocks. When he was 15, his mother relinquished her possession of him to the state. He tried to run away and the state put him in juvenile prison.
“You’re in your boxers in a room with no windows that’s freezing cold and smells like piss,” says Greene.
When he got out of juvie, a series of positive role models helped him get an education (he’s the first in his family to graduate high school) and move into his own place. He started working on his lifelong dream: music. “I realized music was my only way out, and I started using technology to get there,” Greene says.
His timing was perfect. Before the days of 10-second messages and live-streaming video, MySpace was king, especially among musicians and their fans. So Greene started creating music and uploading it to the social-networking site. His popularity grew fast -- a little too fast. People started distributing his music illegally instead of paying for it. One day, he confronted a hacker who was giving his tracks away.
“The hacker said, ‘Look, I’m actually helping you. I’m putting your music out into the world,’” Greene says.
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Most people would thrash back. But Greene was hustling to survive; he wanted the most exposure possible.
“I asked him, ‘If you can hack my page, can you also hack MySpace?’” The answer was yes. Greene convinced the hacker to promote his already popular music further by gaming the MySpace algorithm. In one of those anecdotes that seems less strange the more you get to know Greene, MySpace didn’t shut him down; they offered him a record deal.
“MySpace said, ‘We know you’re hacking us, but we don’t know how, and we can't prove it. But your music is so good, we’d like to sign you,’” Greene says. He met with the head of MySpace’s record label, and walked out with a deal.
What followed was massive popularity on the social-networking site and a record deal with mega-producer Diddy, who found Greene through the site. Greene soon was collaborating with will.i.am, Pitbull, Chris Brown and LMFAO.
But the success didn’t last. He parted ways with his record label and, eventually, went broke. His friends stopped calling. And prospective record deals dried up. He couldn’t afford his own place, so a friend bankrolled his rent at a trailer park while he worked on revitalizing his music career.
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“I just knew there was something bigger for me,” Greene says, when asked why he didn’t just quit. “I knew something would eventually happen if I kept going.”
He was right. Something did happen. Greene saw a movie about the world’s youngest billionaire.
His speed, unconventionality and boldness make him dangerous to competitors and have brought in millions in venture capital for the young company. His latest move? He made 12-year-old Sammy Parsley PingTank’s VP of youth marketing. It’s just one example of how Greene acts instantly on things you’ll see everyone else hesitate at.
“Jeremy is a force of nature who creates value out of thin air and runs through brick walls that stop others in their tracks. And that’s exactly the kind of person investors like me like to back,” says Rafe Furst, co-founder of Crowdfunder and a PingTank investor.
Advertisement
The school of hard knocks
Jeremy’s hustle, salesmanship and knack for leveraging star talent came from some lessons learned in the school of hard knocks. When he was 15, his mother relinquished her possession of him to the state. He tried to run away and the state put him in juvenile prison.
“You’re in your boxers in a room with no windows that’s freezing cold and smells like piss,” says Greene.
When he got out of juvie, a series of positive role models helped him get an education (he’s the first in his family to graduate high school) and move into his own place. He started working on his lifelong dream: music. “I realized music was my only way out, and I started using technology to get there,” Greene says.
His timing was perfect. Before the days of 10-second messages and live-streaming video, MySpace was king, especially among musicians and their fans. So Greene started creating music and uploading it to the social-networking site. His popularity grew fast -- a little too fast. People started distributing his music illegally instead of paying for it. One day, he confronted a hacker who was giving his tracks away.
“The hacker said, ‘Look, I’m actually helping you. I’m putting your music out into the world,’” Greene says.
Advertisement
Most people would thrash back. But Greene was hustling to survive; he wanted the most exposure possible.
“I asked him, ‘If you can hack my page, can you also hack MySpace?’” The answer was yes. Greene convinced the hacker to promote his already popular music further by gaming the MySpace algorithm. In one of those anecdotes that seems less strange the more you get to know Greene, MySpace didn’t shut him down; they offered him a record deal.
“MySpace said, ‘We know you’re hacking us, but we don’t know how, and we can't prove it. But your music is so good, we’d like to sign you,’” Greene says. He met with the head of MySpace’s record label, and walked out with a deal.
What followed was massive popularity on the social-networking site and a record deal with mega-producer Diddy, who found Greene through the site. Greene soon was collaborating with will.i.am, Pitbull, Chris Brown and LMFAO.
But the success didn’t last. He parted ways with his record label and, eventually, went broke. His friends stopped calling. And prospective record deals dried up. He couldn’t afford his own place, so a friend bankrolled his rent at a trailer park while he worked on revitalizing his music career.
Advertisement
“I just knew there was something bigger for me,” Greene says, when asked why he didn’t just quit. “I knew something would eventually happen if I kept going.”
He was right. Something did happen. Greene saw a movie about the world’s youngest billionaire.
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