Joltid was also the backbone technology for Skype which followed a bit later.Ħ. In 2001, the duo who owned the FastTrack protocol started Joltid, a provider of traffic-optimization and network-management software and the holder of the pair’s networking patents, and Altnet, a P2P wholesale network. Janus has also invested “a bit” in Last.fm, the music streaming service.ĥ. Finally, it shut down in August 2012 with a declaration on their website “no longer offer a music service”.Ĥ. Lawsuits caused Sharman, Friis, and Zennström more than $100 million in settlements. Kazaa, his second venture with Mr.Zennstrom, started in March 2001, which was a peer-to-peer file sharing service, was sold to Sharman Networks following a copyright lawsuit in October 2001. Janus’ first venture along with Niklas was Get2Net, an ISP and, a web portal, started on December 1, 1999, in Sweden and now jointly owned by Modern Times Group MTG AB and NetCom AB.ģ. Friis, a high school dropout who taught himself computer skills on his first job, was hired by Mr.Zennstrom to head the customer service at Tele2, a Swedish telecommunications firm.
Some strangely interesting and probably less known facts about Janus Friis are:ġ. First sold to eBay and then to Microsoft, both times having a secure stake, Janus was still on the board of the new Skype, though owned by Microsoft.
Even, after that Janus has been active in investing, supporting and creating innovative products and product-based start-ups.Īpart from the niche, he carved for himself, Janus, with a net worth of $1.3 billion today, should also be credited as one of the very few entrepreneurs who sold his venture twice and yet was on its board. The duo, Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, always lived on the edge and seemed never tired of relentlessly creating revolutionary (even when legally translated, thanks to the so many lawsuits that were filed against them for different violations) products and IPs until a stealth break up, around November 2010, shortly after they raised a second fund of $165 million for Skype in 2010. And building an entire lifetime of achievements on it warrants a standing ovation and the title of a visionary. The foresight of having to self-sustain an environment, where every user shares the space and resource burden, and not depend on buying more server, is certainly a plausible thought to strike so early in life.
Apart from being one among the 100 most influential people in 2006 in Time Magazine’s list and being awarded the prestigious award “IT-prisen” (“The IT Prize”) in Denmark, presented by the Danish IT industry and IDG, for his work and innovation, Janus Friis has quite-a-few products using peer-to-peer technology, including Skype, now owned by Microsoft Corporation ( NASDAQ:MSFT), to his credit.
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