Janus Friis

Janus Friis (born 1976) 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 partner Niklas Zennström sold Skype to eBay for $2.6bn. They are currently working on Joost - an interactive software for distributing TV shows and other forms of video over the Web.

Before embarking on an entrepreneurial career with Zennström, Friis worked at the help desk of CyberCity, one of Denmark’s first Internet service providers. He has no formal higher education since dropping out of high-school before starting the job at CyberCity. He met Zennström in 1996. At that time, Zennström headed Tele2 in Denmark and Friis was hired to run its customer support [ [http://di.se/Avdelningar/Artikel.aspx?articleid=2008%5C03%5C18%5C275583 Zennström: "Jag behöver ingen lön"] . Dagens Industri. Retrieved on 2008-03-22.] .

Friis and Zennström worked together at Tele2 to launch get2net, another Danish ISP, and the portal everyday.com.

After this, the partners decided to leave Tele2. Friis moves in to Zennström's small apartment in Amsterdam in January 2000 where the duo starts developing Kazaa [ [http://di.se/Avdelningar/Artikel.aspx?ArticleId=2008