Shawn Fanning

Shawn Fanning is an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and angel investor. He developed Napster, one of the first popular peer-to-peer (“P2P”) file sharing platforms, in 1999. The popularity of Napster was widespread and Fanning was featured on the cover of Time magazine.

The site in its initial free P2P incarnation was shut down in 2001 after the company’s unsuccessful appeal of court orders arising from its encouraging the illegal sharing and downloading of copyrighted material. A paid subscription version of the site followed, and was purchased by Rhapsody on December 1, 2011. Following his involvement with Napster, he joined, and invested in, a number of early-stage technology startup companies.