Niklas Zennström, co-founder of Skype and founding partner of Atomico, discusses the acquisition of Skype by Microsoft in 2011 after investors bought it back from eBay.
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“Microsoft came along and makes an offer that, you know, the investors took on for eight and a half billion.”
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More from Niklas Zennström
Opinion
Zennström: Microsoft Missed a Huge Opportunity to Make Skype 'Really Big'
“They could have done, if you ask me, they could have done so much more with it. You know, they kind of, I think they missed an opportunity to make it really, really big.”
Niklas ZennströmMar 17, 2025▶ 1:06:36Skype and Kazaa: Niklas Zennström
Disclosure
Zennström: Kazaa Survived Early On Through Controversial User-Tracking Ads
“Well, our business model was advertisement so we put in ads, we had banners, you know in, in Casa, in the software, and it was something, and that was something that was, like, controversial at the time, you know, because a lot, some of those things were also …”
Niklas ZennströmMar 17, 2025▶ 21:01Skype and Kazaa: Niklas Zennström
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Zennström: Early 2000s European VCs Primarily Funded US Internet Copycats
“The model for European VCs at the time was to invest in a copycat of a U.S. Internet company, and use the language barrier as a moat. So you kind of was really smart to invest in say a German copycat of eBay because eBay would probably buy them or a Nordic ver…”
Niklas ZennströmMar 17, 2025▶ 40:32Skype and Kazaa: Niklas Zennström
AssertionSupported
Zennström: Skype Was the Largest Post-Dot-Com Internet Acquisition Globally
“The largest Internet M&A before us was PayPal to eBay, right? One point by a billion. And So this was like two X. And then you had. This is amazing. YouTube. YouTube was also 1.6 billion or something like that. Yeah. Also the same year with Google. So this was…”
Niklas ZennströmMar 17, 2025▶ 56:18Skype and Kazaa: Niklas Zennström
“I think it was, I really think that was part of the reason why you look at why Sweden is punching above its weights in terms of kind of unicorn companies is part of that is because a lot of those founders, if you look at”
Niklas ZennströmMar 17, 2025▶ 7:24Skype and Kazaa: Niklas Zennström
Opinion
Zennström: The Internet Fundamentally Should Operate on Peer-to-Peer Networks
“And this is what the internet should be. It should be peer-to-peer. And we thought it's a huge opportunity to take this to the next level, to build basically a peer-to-peer network for anyone to search for any type of rich media content, whether that is digita…”
Niklas ZennströmMar 17, 2025▶ 17:09Skype and Kazaa: Niklas Zennström
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