There is no man quite like Sean Parker. At still under 40 years old, he has a net worth of around $2.5 billion, according to Forbes, and is one of the most influential entrepreneurs and philanthropists of the 21st century. His story is the classic American story of hope, opportunity, and success. According to his Wikipedia page, the 36-year-old Parker was born in Virginia to a television advertising broker and a federal oceanographer. When Parker was seven, his father taught him how to code on an Atari 800. An avid learner, he pursued programing and hacking. One time, 16-year-old Sean hacked into the network of a Fortune 500 company. The FBI tracked him down; he was sentenced to community service. During high school, Parker interned at Mark Pincus's startup FreeLoader, won a state computer science fair for developing a web crawler, and was recruited by the CIA. Making around $80,000 annually through miscellaneous projects by his senior year, he convinced his parents to let him forgo attending college.

Parker has been involved in many business and technology ventures since his teenage years. When he was 15, he met his friend Shawn Fanning over the Internet, and the two proceeded to cofound Napster in a few years. Napster was a revolutionary technological service that let users share music files for free! Unfortunately, due to a high-profile court case in which the Recording Industry Association of America sued Napster, the company settled by paying $26 million to music creators and copyright owners. Later, Best Buy (BBY  ) bought Napster and merged it with Rhapsody. Although Napster is not considered a conventional success, it garnered massive media attention throughout the lawsuit. It also contributed to the rise of the online music marketplace, the creation of iTunes, and the end of the Album Era in music.

Besides Napster, Parker has founded or invested in ventures including Plaxo, Spotify, Airtime, WillCall, Brigade Media, and The People's Operator. Parker was also an early participant in Facebook (FB  ). He was an advisor to founders Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin and later became the company's first president. He helped secure Facebook's first round of funding from investors such as Peter Thiel. In short, Parker helped Facebook transition from just another college project into the beginnings of the multinational company it is now. Even after he stepped down as president, Parker has met often with Zuckerberg to discuss Facebook's future. His involvement with Facebook was portrayed and dramatized in the film The Social Network.

Parker seems to be a gifted man with many good ideas and a canny eye for opportunistic investment. As a philanthropist, his foundation donates to cancer research, and he has pledged nearly $650 million to public health, civic engagement, and water projects. As a political activist, he favors common-sense Democratic causes such as public investment, cannabis legalization, campaign finance reform a more progressive tax system. Today Sean Parker remains an important player in Silicon Valley and American philanthropy.

The author does not hold any positions in any of the stocks above.