Jaan Tallinn

Jaan Tallinn (born 14 February 1972) is an Estonian computer programmer and investor best known as a founding engineer of Skype and the file-sharing application FastTrack/Kazaa. He earned a BSc in theoretical physics from the University of Tartu in 1996, with a thesis on interstellar travel using warps in spacetime. When eBay acquired Skype for $2.6 billion in September 2005, Tallinn sold his shares and redirected the proceeds into angel investing in technology startups. He is a partner at Ambient Sound Investments, the investment firm founded by early Skype/Kazaa engineers.

In 2011 he founded Metaplanet Holdings as his primary investment vehicle, backing founders working on transformative deep technologies. Metaplanet deliberately blends venture investment with philanthropy, funding projects that don't fit a traditional growth-company model and positioning itself as a "bridge between founders and the world's top minds in academia." By November 2020, Tallinn told CNBC he had personally committed more than $130 million across a portfolio that grew to 200+ companies, investing at a pace of roughly one new company per month.

Tallinn is one of the most prominent figures in the AI-safety and existential-risk movement. He co-founded the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) at the University of Cambridge in 2012 (with Huw Price and Martin Rees, seeded with an initial donation of ~$200,000) and the Future of Life Institute (FLI) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His main concerns center on risks from advanced artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology.

Beyond investing and grant-making, Tallinn holds numerous advisory roles: he has served on the United Nations' AI Advisory Body, on the board of the Center for AI Safety (safe.ai), on the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, on the board of the Future of Life Institute, and formerly on the European Commission's High-Level Expert Group on AI.

• Invests in "deep tech that benefits humanity in the long run," on a timeframe spanning "decades and centuries," prioritizing lasting positive societal and civilizational-scale impact (Metaplanet's stated philosophy).
• Targets existential risks from AI and advanced technologies that operate on extended timelines — risks that "may bide their time, but can escalate overnight."
• Early-stage checks: roughly $500K to several million, at seed-to-Series-A; historically ~one new company per month.
• Sector emphasis: AI and AI safety, synthetic biology, climate, robotics, and crypto.
• Uniquely pairs venture capital with philanthropy — willing to fund research and projects that don't fit conventional VC return models; acts as a bridge between founders and academic experts.
• A key motivation for AI investments is to "keep tabs on" and steer the trajectory of AI development toward safety, not purely financial returns.