[quote=VoIPWatch]Martin muses insightfully that Skype may be having a midlife crisis, as well as pointing out many of the some other underlying issues that over the past few weeks seem to coming to the surface.

Maybe that's why eBay's Med Whitman is taking a trip next week to Estonia around the first post acquisition board meeting. Her Chief of Staff, um, Skype USA GM, Henry Gomez has been reportedly shuttling between London and Tallin the last two weeks organizing things and likely trying to bring some structure to the multiple country operations.

Maybe one of their joint objectives is to continue to keep the impact that the departure in early November of Toivo Annus, the Director of Engineering, and one quarter of a company that was named Ambiant Sound, has on Skype's technology development. You see Annus, along with three engineers who made up Bluemoon Consulting. They were the actual team that did the technological engineering on Skype. Reports are that these guys also got founders stock despite the Skype board on a few occasions trying to possibly buy it back.

Here's a reportedly official leaked copy of the email from Niklas to his Skype team back in November passed on to me from a century club member of the readers society:[/quote]

Source

[quote=Mr Zennstrom]he has also built the dream engineering team in Estonia, by far the best technology team in Europe, possible also in the world.[/quote]

No hubris there... :lol: :lol: :lol:

[quote=Tovio]“I owe it to my family...They haven’t seen me much during the past three years and I need to make it up to them. Besides, I need some time off myself. It is with a heavy heart that I’ve decided to leave Skype, but this is the best time in the company’s history to pass the torch.”[/quote]

That earnout through 2009 looks less and less enticing...

[quote=VoIPWatch]They have enough money now. That's more than the other 200 or so Skype employees who got to share a whopping 7% of the total shares. Usually companies in start up mode that are venture backed end up distributing somewhere between 20 and 30 percent.[/quote]

The last statement matches with my personal experience...

"usually companies in start up mode" do not end up with 2+ billion valuation, so feeling sorry for the people who got options in skype just shows a lack of basic math skills.

- jaan

[quote=jaan]"usually companies in start up mode" do not end up with 2+ billion valuation, so feeling sorry for the people who got options in skype just shows a lack of basic math skills.

- jaan[/quote]

Ah, but there are two points here:

- Did everyone get a reasonable portion of the pie, or was it skewed to a few?
- How about the 'less consideration' up front for those who stayed on?

Seems a lot of staff have high hopes for the US$1.6 Billion payoff.

http://forum.skype.com/viewtopic.php?p=165...ghlight=#165009

- jaan

[quote=jaan]http://forum.skype.com/viewtopic.php?p=165009&highlight=#165009

- jaan[/quote]

:lol:

[quote=muppetmaster][quote=jaan]http://forum.skype.com/viewtopic.php?p=165009&highlight=#165009

- jaan[/quote]

:lol:[/quote]


:wink:

Merry Christmas!