Back يانوس فريس Arabic يانوس فريس ARZ Janus Friis Danish Janus Friis German Janus Friis Spanish Janus Friis ET Janus Friis Finnish Janus Friis French Janus Friis GL Janus Friis Italian
Janus Friis | |
|---|---|
| Born | 26 June 1976 Copenhagen, Denmark |
| 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]
- ^ tvweek.com Archived 2009-11-22 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "About Skype: What is Skype?". Archived from the original on 11 May 2011. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
- ^ "Skype: The inside story of the boffo $8.5 billion deal". Fortune. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
- ^ Wauters, Robin. "Joost Is Now Officially Dead – Assets Acquired By Adconion Media Group". TechCrunch. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
- ^ "Gigaom | The industry leader in emerging technology research". gigaom.com. Archived from the original on 3 November 2011. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
- ^ Curtis, Sophie. "Skype founders invent self-driving robot that can deliver groceries for £1". telegraph.co.uk. Archived from the original on 3 November 2015. Retrieved 25 October 2017.