On the panel moderated by Wired contributor Charles Graeber, who visited Dotcom after an early-morning raid by the New Zealand government in January 2012, Dotcom spoke candidly about his predicament.

Currently banned from leaving New Zealand and awaiting extradition to the United States over criminal copyright infringement related to Megaupload, the German national sees himself as a target of U.S. political repression rather than an online racketeer, and vowed that regardless of what happens next, “I will never be in a prison in the U.S. I can guarantee you that.”

While it’s impossible to claim Megaupload wasn’t used to transfer copyrighted material from one user to the next, Dotcom said his popular service was much more than an online storage locker for pirates. He noted the company had 220 employees, a potential IPO valuation of over $2 billion, and users in nearly every facet of society from the thousands of accounts registered by the Brazilian government for sending attachments to the 15,000 soldiers he says used Megaupload to send photos and videos to loved ones.