10/12-13   -   Press releases

New ebook: Billionaire on Skype

This is the inside story on how a fugitive became a billionaire overnight:

For years Janus Friis lived like a wanted man on the run. For many years, the Danish co-founder of Skype had to hide behind a veil of secrecy. Only a handful of close friends knew his whereabouts. All over the world detectives were on the lookout for the young man named as ´Enemy No. One´ by the big music corporations.

Janus´ close friend and partner, Niklas Zennström, even had to run for dear life, bloodied and bruised in the streets of the British capital, London, while his wife had to fend off detectives on motorbikes. One Christmas detectives laid in wait outside the apartment of Janus Friis´ mother to catch him off his guard. Like a vendetta this dramatic chase went on for years. And they were unable to set foot on American ground for years for fear of the recording industry and its scores of lawyers and detectives.

This is the first and only inside story about the struggle of the young entrepreneur Janus Friis. In the end he successfully fought off all competitors, detectives, lawyers and record executives and out of small loans from friends and family they created Skype, the Internet phone company today used by millions of people every day. And in the end they even managed to become billionaires by selling Skype – twice! The two entrepreneurs sold Skype first to the giant eBay for $ 2.6 billion in 2005 and later to Microsoft for $ 8.5 billion in 2011.

Read how Janus Friis made a dream come true by becoming insanely rich in a very young age. This became his ticket into the highlife of movie stars and headlines in tabloid newspapers.

Follow the young middle class kid, Janus Friis, from his humble beginnings as a service assistant, where he along with his friend Niklas Zennström discarded the safety of a monthly paycheck for the adventure as a start-up company. This was the start of a journey that took him all over the world and on a mental rollercoaster ride with millions of customers and scores of enemies. In an attempt to protect their markets from electronic sharing, the recording industry and the movie picture industry made a common effort to squash the entrepreneurs.

The story of Skype serves as an inspiration for every entrepreneur and will be exiting reading for everybody who wants to know what is going on behind the scenes in big business. The e-book is based on interviews with Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis as well as a large number of people close to the two entrepreneurs – family, friends, business partners, lawyers etc. and draws on court documents from the USA.

Available through Amazon

Authors:
Peder Bjerge: peder.bjerge@gmail.com or +45 208 777 16
Lars Ole Loecke: lloecke@gmail.com or +45 406 292 32