As the hokage of our beloved community, who not only obtained true love from Azeroth, but also achieved a very limited degree of financial success while doing so, there are not too many players I would consider my equal when it comes to WOW success.  Yet when I had the honor to speak to Shawn Fanning-sama, I finally realized the limitation of my container.  I probably improved my jutsus more from an hour's worth of conversation with him than training for a whole year in the mountains.


Less than a decade ago, at the tender age of 19, Shawn Fanning already appeared on the cover of Time, Fortune, Business Week, Forbes and The Industry Standard.  He created the now-legendary computer program called "Napster" that allows users to exchange mp3 music files which I am sure most readers of this blog have used at one time or another.  Napster would end up facing a barrage of lawsuits before it was sold for 8 million.  He did it Bill Gates style, dropped out of the Northwesten University after just one semester.


Then World of Warcraft came out.  Like millions of other players around the world, Shawn found himself deeply immersed in the land of Azeroth.  If CNN had its way, we would be hearing about how a genius's young and successful life was destroyed by the digital crack known as WOW.

"Stay nimble and forgo many luxuries that eventually become burdens.  I acquired a lot of things toward the end of Napster and maintenance would eat up half my day.  Toys, distractions, I purged all of them."  - Shawn

But not WOW. 

Shawn did not succumb to his WOW addiction, he embraced it.  He launched a social gaming network start-up called Rupture.  The company's very first product was, you guessed it, based on World of Warcraft.  Before we knew it, EA bought the technology still in beta (the site had a lower Alexa score than the original WOM) for a whopping 30 million dollars.  By comparison, wowhead.com sold for just 1 million.  Let's just say Shawn didn't put all of his eggs in one basket, and he has a few tricks up his sleeves that the public knows nothing about yet.  Even when I activated my sharingan, I only got a very blurry picture, his seal formations were just too fast to be seen.

The best looking WOW player?

A young man under 30, with a self-made net worth of eight figures, even Jared "Noktyn" Fogle can get a ton of actions with that.  Running a multi-million dollar company during the day, cutting down endless scrubs with his warglaive rogue (a character he leveled and geared himself) at night, getting multiple characters gladiator titles on his own, you think he would be the definitive couch potato.  Sorry, but we are talking about the Bruce Wayne of WOW here.

"I am having more fun at jiu jitsu than wow these days, its like wow pvp without the RNG." - Shawn


A proud member of Fairtex, a traditional Muay Thai Camp with notable trainers like former Thai National Champion and World Champion, Jongsanan, Shawn is skilled in both Muay Thai and Jiu Jitsu.  It is only a matter of time before he puts on a cape and beats up criminals with bare hands.