The Story of Skype (Stanford 2009)

The Story of Skype Sten Tamkivi, Chief Evangelist European Entrepreneurship and Innovation Thought Leaders , Stanford University, March 9th , 2009

Skype – The European Innovation Success Story

Enabling the world’s conversations Voice Video Data IM SMS Identity

Over 25% of call minutes carry video 28 Languages Available in nearly every country on E arth 8% of world’s calling minutes* *Source: Telegeography 08 30% of users use Skype for business purposes 100 Billion Skype-to-Skype Minutes as of Feb ‘08 405 Million Global Users

How it all started
Founded in 2003
Founders: Niklas Zennström (Sweden), Janus Friis (Denmark)
Founding engineers: Jaan Tallinn, Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, Toivo Annus (Estonia)
Headquartered in Luxembourg, the largest office has always been in Estonia.
Financing
DraperCo seed round before product launch
Launch and initial pickup attracted top VC names: DFJ, Mangrove, Bessemer, Index
2005 acquisition by eBay Inc
US$ ~.5B revenues and 2 years of profitability in 2008

Global VS Local
Global mindset from day 1
First 6 employees from 4 nationalities
First 600 employees from ~40 nationalities
Leveraging local qualities
Estonia – small and efficienct
Europe – cultural diversity

Impact to Estonia and Europe
Proof of potential and role model
European entrepreneurship elevated in last few years through Skype, Last.fm, MySQL...
Direct spillover effects
Experienced, networked and funded talent
Giving back to the society, governments: “What do we need to do to have 10 more Skypes?”
Education
Economic environment and regulation

Thank you Skype:sten

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The Story of Skype (Stanford 2009)

by Sten Tamkivi on Mar 20, 2009

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