Click here for part one of this story, chronicling Pandora’s rise.

When Oakland-based music service Pandora marked its tenth anniversary in September 2015, it had plenty to celebrate. The company was on track to surpass $1 billion in annual revenue for the first time and was drawing 81 million monthly listeners. In its first decade, Pandora users had created eight billion stations, logged 74 billion hours of listening, and rated 55 billion songs with its signature thumbs up and down buttons.

But the momentum was already fading. Pandora’s audience had peaked the year before, and growth had stalled as listeners shifted to Spotify. Apple Music, launched that June, only heightened the competition. Pandora scrambled to adapt, acquiring a data company, a ticketing business, and a bankrupt Spot

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