COMPUTER SCIENTIST

Shawn Fanning

1980 - Today

Photo of Shawn Fanning

Icon of person Shawn Fanning

Shawn Fanning (born November 22, 1980) 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 of copyrighted material. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in 23 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 22 in 2024). Shawn Fanning is the 230th most popular computer scientist (down from 224th in 2024), the 16,526th most popular biography from United States (down from 15,788th in 2019) and the 120th most popular American Computer Scientist.

Memorability Metrics

Loading...

Page views of Shawn Fanning by language

Loading...

Among COMPUTER SCIENTISTS

Among computer scientists, Shawn Fanning ranks 230 out of 245Before him are Gottfrid Svartholm, Vincent Rijmen, John Ousterhout, Tron, David Jones, and Daniel Domscheit-Berg. After him are Mihalis Yannakakis, Mark Overmars, Dariusz Jemielniak, Jenova Chen, Greg Kroah-Hartman, and Larry Ewing.

Most Popular Computer Scientists in Wikipedia

Go to all Rankings

Contemporaries

Among people born in 1980, Shawn Fanning ranks 728Before him are José Roberto de Oliveira, Dani Rovira, Kate Micucci, Sergey Kirdyapkin, Piotr Giza, and Mauricio Molina. After him are Maya Diab, Lucie Vondráčková, Carlos Bueno, Kandyse McClure, Elena Lyadova, and Yuta Tabuse.

Others Born in 1980

Go to all Rankings

In United States

Among people born in United States, Shawn Fanning ranks 16,533 out of 20,380Before him are Nipsey Russell (1918), Bev Perdue (1947), Barbara Mandrell (1948), Ryan Lochte (1984), Madison Lintz (1999), and Jeremy Camp (1978). After him are Jeffrey Pierce (1971), Anne Wojcicki (1973), Mitchel Musso (1991), Mia Tyler (1978), Fred Couples (1959), and Brad Guzan (1984).

Among COMPUTER SCIENTISTS In United States

Among computer scientists born in United States, Shawn Fanning ranks 120Before him are Terry A. Davis (1969), Eric Allman (1955), Nancy Lynch (1948), Douglas Crockford (1955), Steve Wilhite (1948), and John Ousterhout (1954). After him are Greg Kroah-Hartman (null), Theodore Ts'o (1968), Jeff Dean (1968), Rosalind Picard (1962), Rich Skrenta (1967), and Eric Bina (1964).