The sharing economy has become a day-to-day reality for all of us. We rent bikes for short journeys using a mobile phone app, order pizza with a couple of clicks and track its journey from oven to our homes, share a coworking space with other professionals and launch crowdfunding campaigns to raise cash for a project. Initially, before the current business models were set up, it was all about the peer-to-peer exchange of resources. And one of the first big technological revolutions in this field was Skype, the brainchild of Niklas Mårten Zennström, who destroyed the idea that you needed a handset to make and receive phone calls, thus creating a new way of communicating and sharing.

A businessman obsessed with sharing

With two degrees, in Business Administration and Engineering Physics, from the University of Upsala, Sweden, Zennström has always combined his talent for technology with a nose for business.

After an early career speaking working in the telecommunications industry for Tele2, Zennström became the CEO of everyday.com, where he was responsible for the commercial development of the brand, among other duties. In 2001, he teamed up with friend and business partner Janus Friis to launch Kazaa, a peer-to-peer application which was eventually bought by Sharman Networks – though not before a number of lawsuits filed in the USA by companies in the music and advertising industries.

Zennström subsequently set up and ran both Joltid and Altnet, two more peer-to-peer companies. Yet these were all dress rehearsals for his most widely celebrated invention: Skype. For those not familiar, the programme allows users to make phone calls for free (or for a very small charge), without having to go through the traditional landline or mobile phone operators.

The original name pencilled in for Skype was Skyper, a combination of Sky and per (an abbreviated version of peer-to-peer). However, Skyper was already taken, so the shorter Skype became the chosen name.

The number of Skype users is testament to the success achieved by the app. There are 300 million people that use Skype around the world, with at least 8 million people in Italy using the programme as of 2017. Further evidence is provided by the sums of money forked out to buy the company over the years, with Ebay first spending $2.6 billion in 2005 and then Microsoft shelling out $8.5 billion in 2011.

The father of flying taxis?

After selling Skype, Zennström again teamed up with Friis to launch Joost, an online video sharing service, before deciding to turn his attentions to the venture capital sector, offering his expertise in understanding and optimising business models to innovative new players.

To this end, Zennström set up Atomico, a London-based company that invests in high-growth companies using the most innovative technology around. The group has already invested in over 30 companies, including MadBid, Last.fm, FON, Xobni, Technorati, Heysan, RDIO and WooMe.

One of the most recent and futuristic projects that Atomico has raised capital for is a mini-jet created by the start-up Lilium, with backing from the European Space Agency.

In the near future, these small aircraft could even replace conventional taxis. They’ll be capable of flying at speeds of 300 kilometres per hour for a maximum of sixty minutes, off just one electrical charge. It’s a large-scale project (€85 million has already been invested), with support being provided by Chinese tech giant Tencent and Obvious Ventures, a company run by former Twitter CEO Evan Williams.

From technology to philanthropy

Much like Bill Gates, millionaire Zennström has decided to move into the world of philanthropy. With the help of his wife Caterina, he has founded Zennström Philanthropies to support projects in a range of fields, including climate change in the Baltic Sea, human rights and social enterprise.

« We’re in an extremely critical situation in which we’re using too many of the planet’s resources, »  he told Business Insider. « We have all sorts of problems, but we continue to act without making any changes. Meanwhile, our politicians continue to show no leadership whatsoever. »

Yet Zennström’s experience shows that hope can be supplied by technology – the sector which has brought him so much success throughout his career. « I think that the real change is occurring through innovation and through the entrepreneurs that see and look for things before anyone else, » he said. « They say: ‘This is the way we should act. I’m a blank piece of paper but I have an idea to guide me and I’m going to try to make it a reality.’ That’s the type of visionaries I want to support. »