In our October 8 post on the state of the Skype sale and litigation, we ended with a prediction: “The likely outcome of all of this remains the same – Joltid will get a stake of some size in Skype. But given the players involved, anything could still happen.” If GigaOm and the NYTimes are right, that’s exactly what’s happening. Even the “anything could still happen” part.
The old Skype founders will now have a stake in Skype according to unnamed sources. That makes sense. It was what eBay was negotiating with Skype long before the current buyout offer, and the team has to get something in exchange for dropping the intellectual property litigation.
But Index Ventures, the architect of the deal, is apparently out. For Silverlake Partners and Andreeseen Horowitz to agree to that either means there’s too much money involved for anyone to be worried about business loyalties, or there’s enough of a smoking gun that Index had no choice but to get away from the deal and all that liability.
Whatever the truth, everyone is in for a wild ride. Nobody who does business with the Skype founders ever seems to come out of it happy. Maybe Marc Andreessen has the patience to change all that this time around.
Just one problem, though. No one has ever described Marc Andreessen as a patient man.
Screw Skype, same with the GOP
Screw Skype, same goes for the GOP
Get real Techcrunch! Nobody who does business with the Skype founders comes out happy- what about all the dozens of Investors in Skype. They are very happy with them. Would you be happy having invested with them? Those of us that know them love them.
“what about all the dozens of Investors in Skype”?
You mean like Index Ventures and the Rimer brothers? (Sued by the founders?) Like Morten Lund (personally bankrupt) Like ebay? (Pierre Omidyar and Meg Whitman completely hates their guts)
Yeah Like the Index Brothers didn’t make out well- anyone ever heard of them before Skype? Like ever? and as for Morten Lund – he didn’t go bankrupt from the millions he made from Skype. Everyone who follows his blogs knows he had only great things to say about the founders. He bought a newspaper with his money and it failed. Years after he got his Skype money!
It was obviously a mistake for ebay to purchase Skype. And not to give the above poster credence regarding the GOP (this is not a politics forum) but it does make you wonder about Meg Whitman’s credentials. The Skype founders are greedy sociopaths. They took billions in the ebay deal, squandered a small portion of it on their stupid, lame attempt at internet tv that was so bad I can’t even remember the name of it, even though I downloaded an early beta of it, and now they’re still cruising the court system like psycho patent killers.
The internet TV thingie: http://www.joost.com/
I would not go as far as calling them sociopaths or psycho patent killers, the guys who made Skype and then sold it to eBay just really hit a jackpot with eBay’s legal department not paying attention when signing the contract. I’ll admit they have questionable ethics, but for the kind of money that was involved I can understand why.
Maybe it was not such a mistake for eBay to buy it, but it was certainly a mistake to not do their homework and due diligence prior to pulling the trigger on the deal. As for Skype founders, I’ve been saying this all along, those guys simply screwed eBay over and knew about it all along… no wonder people who do business with them, don’t come out happy, their way of doing business explains it all.
good for them…you choose and you lose…don’t blame them for it…blame the likes of the mba’s from ebay for it.
For those that have had the opportunity to work closely with Marc Andreessen, the overwhelming majority of us know that its not about his patience, but about the fact that he has no ethics whatsoever and is the biggest source of leaks in Silicon Valley.
He does, however, have great self promotional skills. Bravo!
I wonder if I should call up that guy I sold my car to… I’d like some cash when he resells it.
Maybe just call him up and tell him he can keep using the car, but he needs to give you back the engine and transmission. Then renegotiate your original deal.
“Nobody who does business with the Skype founders ever seems to come out of it happy” – and I don’t think that’s a coincidence…
Sour Grapes. Why do people always have a gripe when others make money. The Skype Duo are worth billions because they took risk, built a business and sold it (ok maybe twice). And while at it leave Andreessen out of it as well. This is America isn’t it – or Luxemborg as the case may be.
This is Get Real watching for lazy a%$ bloggers who have nothing better to do than slam people working hard and making money!
It would appear that the “partners” who will be the main beneficiaries of this transaction have thrown Index Ventures to the wolves. In the interim, Mike Volpi who structured the deal has become the whipping boy for his former employers. It seems that the parties involved will do whatever it takes to get a piece of the action. I cannot wait to see how the numerous partners, including ebay get along after the fact…
Does anyone remember “Joost”- flip over to flash and may have made a profit if it were not for the two golden boys. NeuLion seems to be able to make a go of it,
This whole thing reminds me of the early 80*s sitcom Dallas…. Where the large amounts of money floating around have long since eroded anyones sense of loyalty or ethics, so I think the smart people will walk away now and let the dogs have their day.
It comes down to original eBay negotiation- screw up for not getting source code- simple stupid. However, met with both teams- ebay decided after purchase to put their group onto retail skype team- they knew nothing and was abysmal when launching Wal-Mart.
There are so many workarounds with P2P VoIP skype- there are two specific talons existing within Skype app solutions but eBay for whatever reason is not listening.
So, there must be something else outside of tech that pushes this forward.
I’ve said it before – eBay, Meg Whitman,John Donahoe, and eBay’s Board of Directors all knew about Joltid owning the rights to the Global Index at the heart of Skype’s P2P code. And they did the deal anyway!
Why? Fear that eBay’s business was slowing and they needed a growth engine and that Google was also bidding for Skype.
The eBay execs aren’t technologists and didn’t really care about this one aspect of the deal. Skype was the next multicbillion dollar valuation company and they wanted in now before it was too late.
Imagine a similar situation today if a company was trying to buy Twitter or Facebook. What concerns would they put aside to get the deal done?
And whoever posted about the Skype founders taking and deserving the rewards – I guess you’ve never heard of VCs. Tons of companies get funded before any work has been done – just like Skype did. The founders took no risk other than potentially smaller annual salaries (and they were already multi millionaires from selling Kazaa).
I’m wondering why everyone bashes the Skype founders over these lawsuits. It seems that certain commenters are not seeing all of this for what it is: Business. Pure and simple.
One must really must ask, if this were two corporations – like Google and eBay – suing each other, rather than these individuals, would anyone:
a) be surprised
b) care
I think you have to answer that by saying – NO.
Therefore, why do people feel that the Skype guys are being greedy or petty? It seems to me that it is simply business. And no one ever said that business was fair, nice or polite.
Bizarre that you see this story as a reason to bash the Skype founders. They are amazing entrepreneurs who built a massively successful (and still growing) product.
The terms of sale to eBay were clear when they sold Skype. I think eBay has got enough lawyers to defend themselves from getting screwed over but they took the deal as offered.
If eBay then broke those terms (as alleged) then they are completely within their rights to sue them.
Bizarre that you see this story as a reason to bash the Skype founders. They are amazing entrepreneurs who built a massively successful (and still growing) product.
The terms of sale to eBay were clear when they sold Skype. I think eBay has got enough lawyers to defend themselves from getting screwed over but they took the deal as offered.
If eBay then broke those terms (as alleged) then they are completely within their rights to sue them.
Sorry… forgot to say great post – can’t wait to read your next one!
The fun will really begin now. Anyone who has worked with Andreessen knows. He wants it his way. He wants it now. And when he cannot get it he raves on about the genius he is.
MICHAEL: Volpi and Rimer were both on the board of Skype when it was sold to eBay!!! They have as much responsibility for keeping back the JoltID code as the founders do!
It’s like they’re battling with their own past.
It is amazing- elive2u came out with superior technology for p2p calls, video, communication, meebo type IM and embedded the video within email for you to instantly click or chat p2p. Was done in 2002!
They went down MLM path-wrong CEO and we told them 2 years before skype- Ooops- Skype founders chose the right path and have capitalized. Shame on eBay but market dictated bringing on new volume of users- so they settled with no tech and gained users.
As the Beastie Boys so eloquently put it…You gotta fight for your right to party.
Good luck to the Skype founders and thanks for building such an amazing product and brand.