Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner
Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner or, in Icelandic, Jón (born 29 August 1967 in Reykjavík, Iceland) is an Icelandic programmer and businessman. He founded the company Vivaldi Technologies and launched a community site called Vivaldi.net. Tetzchner is also a co-founder and the former CEO of Opera Software.
Early life
Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner is the son of the Icelander Elsa Jónsdóttir and the Norwegian Stephen von Tetzchner, a professor of psychology. Tetzchner grew up around Skólabraut in the Reykjavík suburb of Seltjarnarnes with his grandparents, the doctor Jón Gunnlaugsson and Selma Kaldalón, the daughter of the doctor and composer Sigvaldi Kaldalón. Tetzchner went to secondary school at the Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík before continuing his studies in Norway, where he made his career.
Tetzchner holds a master's degree in computer science from the University of Oslo.
Opera Software
Tetzchner worked at the Norwegian state phone company (now known as Telenor) from 1991 to 1995. There, he and Geir Ivarsøy developed browsing software called MultiTorg Opera. The project was abandoned by Telenor, but Ivarsøy and von Tetzchner obtained the rights to the software, formed a company named Opera Software in 1995 and continued working on the Opera browser.