Eric Klinker is an American technology executive and is best known as the former CEO of BitTorrent. Along with

Bram Cohen Bram Cohen is an American computer programmer, best known as the author of the peer-to-peer (P2P) BitTorrent protocol in 2001, as well as the first file sharing program to use the protocol, also known as BitTorrent. He is also the co-founder of ...

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 Network neutrality, often referred to as net neutrality, is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all Internet communications equally, offering users and online content providers consistent rates irrespective of co ...

, testifying before the FCC as well as other worldwide telecom regulators. As CEO, he is credited with guiding BitTorrent through the 2008 financial crisis and growing the user base to over 170m users. In 2012, BitTorrent expanded its mission under Klinker and broadened the product portfolio, introducing additional distributed applications like

BitTorrent Sync Resilio Sync (formerly BitTorrent Sync) by Resilio, Inc. is a proprietary peer-to-peer file synchronization tool available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Amazon Kindle Fire and BSD. It can sync files between devices on a ...

, BitTorrent Bundles, Bleep, and BitTorrent Live, a linear broadcasting P2P protocol also invented by Bram Cohen. In 2014, BitTorrent announced Project Maelstrom, 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. with a focus on applying BitTorrent technology to enterprise and IoT markets.

Early life

Raised in

Ramsey, Illinois Ramsey is a village in Fayette County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,063 in 2018. Between 2017 and 2018 the population of Ramsey, IL declined from 1,225 to 1,063, a -13.2% decrease. The village was named after Alexander Ramsey (181 ...

, he is an alumnus of the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...

and the

Naval Postgraduate School The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is a public graduate school operated by the United States Navy and located in Monterey, California. It offers master’s and doctoral degrees in more than 70 fields of study to the U.S. Armed Forces, DOD ci ...

Career

Before joining BitTorrent, he worked at a number of other companies which included

@Home Network @Home Network was a high-speed cable Internet service provider from 1996 to 2002. It was founded by Milo Medin, cable companies Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), Comcast, and Cox Communications, and William Randolph Hearst III, who was their fir ...

, netVmg and Internap Network Services.ece.illinois.edu/alumni/awards
/ref>

References

External links

Agenda FCC en banc hearing on Network Management
{{DEFAULTSORT:Klinker, Eric Living people American technology chief executives BitTorrent Naval Postgraduate School alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni People from Ramsey, Illinois Year of birth missing (living people)