Disclosure certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Zennström: Kazaa Sold for Under $1M While Retaining Its Core Tech

Niklas Zennström · Skype and Kazaa: Niklas Zennström · Mar 17, 2025 · at 31:29

Skype and Kazaa co-founder Niklas Zennström discusses selling Kazaa to Sharman Networks in 2002 amid severe legal pressure from the music industry.

0:00 / 0:08exact quote · 8.5s
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“No, no, no, nothing really. I mean, you know, less than a million. But we did retain the technology.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

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