Janus Friis | |
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Born | Copenhagen, Denmark | 26 June 1976
Occupation | Entrepreneur |
Known for | Co-founder of Skype, KaZaA, and Rdio |
Janus Friis (Danish: [ˈjɛːnus ˈfʁiˀs]; born 26 June 1976)[1] is a Danish entrepreneur best known for co-founding the file-sharing application Kazaa, and the peer-to-peer telephony application Skype. In September 2005, he and his business partner Niklas Zennström sold Skype to eBay for $2.6B. Friis has maintained ownership interest in Skype through Silver Lake Partners,[2] which sold Skype to Microsoft for $8.5 billion (~$11.4 billion in 2023), in May 2011.[3]
Friis and Zennström also developed Joost—an interactive software application for distributing TV shows and other forms of video content over the Web. The assets of this service were sold to Adconion Media Group in November 2009.[4] Independently, Friis founded video streaming startup Vdio in 2011.[5]
Friis and Ahti Heinla founded Starship Technologies in 2014, to develop small self-driving delivery robots.[6]