Eric Klinker

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Eric Klinker is an American technology executive and is best known as the former CEO of BitTorrent. Along with Bram Cohen and three other venture capitalists, he is also on the board of governors of BitTorrent. He was instrumental in formulating BitTorrent's position on network neutrality, testifying before the FCC[1] as well as other worldwide telecom regulators.[2]

As CEO, he is credited with guiding BitTorrent through the 2008 financial crisis and growing the user base to over 170m users.[3] In 2012, BitTorrent expanded its mission under Klinker and broadened the product portfolio, introducing additional distributed applications like BitTorrent Sync, BitTorrent Bundles, Bleep,[4] and BitTorrent Live,[5] a linear broadcasting P2P protocol also invented by Bram Cohen. In 2014, BitTorrent announced Project Maelstrom,[6] a distributed web browser designed to power a new way for web content to be published, accessed and consumed.

In April 2016, Klinker left BitTorrent to co-found Resilio Inc.[7] with a focus on applying BitTorrent technology to enterprise and IoT markets.

Early life[edit]

Raised in Ramsey, Illinois, he is an alumnus of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and the Naval Postgraduate School.[8]

Career[edit]

Before joining BitTorrent, he worked at a number of other companies which included @Home Network, netVmg and Internap Network Services.[9]

References[edit]

  1. ^ FCC. "FCC ANNOUNCES AGENDA AND WITNESSES FOR PUBLIC EN BANC HEARING IN CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS ON BROADBAND NETWORK MANAGEMENT PRACTICES" (PDF). FCC. Retrieved 20 February 2008.
  2. ^ Klinker, Eric. "Telecom Public Notice CRTC 2008-19 – Reply Comments" (PDF). Retrieved 28 July 2009.
  3. ^ "BitTorrent talks Thom Yorke: 'Major labels have given up on selling music'". TheGuardian.com. 26 September 2014.
  4. ^ "BitTorrent's Chat Client Unveiled: BitTorrent Bleep Now in Invite Only Pre-Alpha".
  5. ^ "Coming Soon: Smartphone Streaming, Powered by BitTorrent Live".
  6. ^ "Project Maelstrom: The Internet We Build Next".
  7. ^ "Why I Started Resilio". 16 June 2016.
  8. ^ "ece.illinois.edu/alumni/awards". Archived from the original on 2016-12-20. Retrieved 2015-07-29.
  9. ^ "ece.illinois.edu/alumni/awards". Archived from the original on 2016-12-20. Retrieved 2015-07-29.

External links[edit]