Jon Von tetzchner

Cofounder, Opera

Search every verified Jon Von tetzchner interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Jon von Tetzchner, co-founder of Opera and founder and CEO of Vivaldi Technologies, has continued to speak publicly about browser development, privacy, and the state of the web. He has stated that he left Opera due to a disagreement with investors over the company's direction, and that he later founded Vivaldi after Opera's new owners "threw away 19 years of work" and adopted a different design philosophy. Von Tetzchner has described Vivaldi as a browser built for users who want customization and control, and has said the company does not collect user data or telemetry. He has also discussed the company's decision to base Vivaldi on the Chromium engine, noting that building a browser engine from scratch is no longer feasible. Von Tetzchner has been critical of data collection and profiling by large technology companies, describing it as a societal problem. He has called for regulation of data practices and has expressed support for the European Union's Digital Markets Act. He has described blockchain and web3 as having "nothing to do with the web" and called them "basically just a scam." Regarding Vivaldi's source code, von Tetzchner has said that while the Chromium-based C++ code is shared and auditable, the company's web-based user interface code is not under an open license, though he noted that discussions about changing this are ongoing within the company.