Sean Parker (born December 3, 1979) is an American entrepreneur and philanthropist, most notable for co-founding the file-sharing computer service Napster, and was the first president of the social networking website Facebook.

[2][3][4][5][6][7] He is the founder and chairman of the Parker Foundation, which focuses on life sciences, global public health, and civic engagement.

[3] One night, while hacking into the network of a Fortune 500 company, Parker was unable to log out after his father confiscated his computer keyboard.

[12] While there, Parker wrote a letter to the school administration and persuaded them to count the time he spent coding in the computer lab as a foreign language class.

[20] When Parker was 15, he met 14-year-old Shawn Fanning over the Internet, where the pair bonded over topics such as programming, theoretical physics, and hacking.

[3][21] A few years later, Parker and Fanning, a student at Northeastern University, cofounded Napster, a free file-sharing service for music.

[23][24] Napster has been called the fastest-growing business of all time, is credited with revolutionizing the music industry, and is considered by some to be a precursor to iTunes.

[25][26][27][28][29] In November 2002, Parker launched Plaxo, an online address book and social networking service that integrated with Microsoft Outlook.

[32][33] Two years after founding Plaxo, Parker was ousted by the company's financiers, Sequoia Capital and Ram Shriram, in an acrimonious exit that reportedly involved the investors hiring private investigators to follow him.

[3] Parker had experience in the social networking industry as an early advisor to Friendster and its founder, Jonathan Abrams, for which he was given a small amount of stock in 2003.

[42] In 2017, during an interview with Axios, Parker expressed concerns about the role of Facebook in society, saying that it "exploit[s] a vulnerability in human psychology" as it creates a "social-validation feedback loop".

[47] Parker has also hosted The TechFellow Awards, a partnership between TechCrunch and Founders Fund that annually gives 20 entrepreneurs $100,000 each to invest in startups.

[72][73] It takes an interdisciplinary approach to large-scale challenges, combining insight, capital, science and technology, organization building, and public policy.

[74] Starting in 2016, the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy scientists funded a clinical trial to test the next wave of cancer-fighting T-cells engineered using the CRISPR gene-editing technology.

[77] Based on this work, the Parker Institute is collaborating with MD Anderson and industry partner Seres Therapeutics to launch a microbiome-cancer immunotherapy clinical trial for advanced melanoma patients.

[83] In August 2018, Parker was nominated as a Wired "Icon" along with Alex Marson for his research in DNA programming and genome editing in the fight against cancer.

[87] Parker has made substantial donations to both sides of U.S. party politics; his allegedly "nonpartisan" approach favors contributions to "elected officials who have shown themselves willing to work across the aisle".

[91][92] He has also supported cannabis law reform[93] and in 2010, following the example of donations by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz (totaling $70,000) donated $100,000 to the 2010 California Proposition 19 campaign to legalize marijuana in that state[94] and $400,000 to the Democratic Party backed 2016 California Proposition 63 campaign to require background checks for all ammunition purchases.

[95] Parker will donate $250 million to launch a new institute aimed at developing more effective cancer treatments by fostering collaboration among leading researchers in the field.

[97] Parker was also a driving force behind the Opportunity Zones provision in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which are designed to incentivize investments in struggling American communities.

[2] Parker called the character a "morally reprehensible human being", although he noted, "it's hard to complain about being played by a sex symbol".

[2] In 2011, Parker was a guest on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, featured on the cover of the Forbes 400 issue, and was profiled in Vanity Fair.

[110][111] On June 1, 2013, Parker married Alexandra Lenas in Big Sur, California, in a wedding at which every guest was given a The Lord of the Rings–style costume.