CE-Oh no he didn't! Part XLVI: Skype's former CEO admits eBay paid too much

Apparently former Skype CEO and co-founder Niklas Zennstrom isn't just one to take the money and run. No, he found time in his busy schedule to confess that eBay paid too much for Skype, which is something that's become increasingly evident to eBay in the past months: the company is cutting up to $1.2 billion off the $4.3 billion potential price it agreed to with Skype two years ago. "We had to chart the trajectory of growth and how fast that would run, (but) we found out that was a bit front-loaded," said Zennstrom. "We overshot in terms of monetization ... Our position in the market has strengthened ... you need to look at the long-term value of companies." Seems a little odd for Niklas to be preaching it to eBay in this scenario, but perhaps he just wanted to clear his name now that Joost has gone public and is potentially looking of suitors. He wouldn't predict if Skype could've made its original goals if he had stuck around until 2009, but somehow we doubt it.

[Dean @ Oct 9th 2007 12:47PM]

I think you mean "paid"

[Johnathon Zirkle @ Oct 9th 2007 12:52PM]

lawl at engadget...

[luidabruin @ Oct 9th 2007 12:55PM]

ouch!

[Johnathon Zirkle @ Oct 9th 2007 1:12PM]

it seems they have fixed it :)

[Bill Gordon @ Oct 9th 2007 1:10PM]

"Paid" is spelled... well, uh, "paid."

Payed? Woof.

[Bill Gordon @ Oct 9th 2007 1:11PM]

Oops. My bad. Didn't see that another reader had already pointed this out. Guess I'm as bad as engadget. I'm sorrie.

[Stephen Brown @ Oct 9th 2007 1:16PM]

Has anyone figured out the synergy that existed between Skype and eBay that caused eBay to consider purchasing the company in the first place? Read a good post on an idea that eBay should sell Skype to News Corp and allow Murdoch to fold the service into MySpace.

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2007/10/09/ebay-should-sell-skype-to-news-corp

Stephen
http://www.networkinstruments.wordpress.com

[randy @ Oct 9th 2007 1:55PM]

Jajah will probably be a better fit for myspace users, since it's easily embeddable and users call collect, which is the only way VoIP use currently succeeds (because there is a >97% chance at least one user is only available on either cellular or POTS).

[QFU @ Oct 10th 2007 10:46AM]

More Info about JaJah ...

Some of their investors are Sequoia Capital, Intel, T-Venture (Deutsche Telekom) and last but not least Qino Flagship AG
http://www.boerse-berlin.de/stocks/snapshot.html?CHART_TYPE=HISTORICAL&TIME_SPAN=6M&ID_OSI=6588926&LANG=en

[LJKelley @ Oct 9th 2007 1:21PM]

Well I quit using Skype after eBay bought them as I generally don't like eBay/Paypal. So I'm just gonna guess and say others that have had negative experiences with eBay in the past might have ditched and thus obviously hurt the value of the company though eBay (which is way to haughty) would never admit this.

[randy @ Oct 9th 2007 1:27PM]

I thank Skype for the contribution they made competitively to push the price of other voice services and long distance rates, and also for inspiring a pretty little surge in triple-play telecom infrastructure investment.

However, Skype is dead. Nobody is ever online (at any given moment, less than 3% of your friends and family are likely to be online). Nobody owns a USB handset. Nobody owns a skype WiFi phone. Municipal wifi is a ruse. Rural wifi will NEVER happen. WiFi/Cell hybrid phones that work anywhere are laughable (pay for BOTH? LOL, why not just drop the wifi part?)

OMG, it's MSN Netmeeting 1996 all over again!

[Chris Coleman @ Oct 9th 2007 1:48PM]

Wow, I didn't realize John Hodgman was the former CEO of Skype.

[ipo junkie @ Oct 9th 2007 2:39PM]

"just wanted to clear his name now that Joost has gone public"

hmm, how about 'has been brought out of beta and opened up to the public' here instead?

[Lego @ Oct 9th 2007 4:48PM]

Skype is far from dead, very much alive. I live in Canada and for paltry $15 a year enjoy unlimited outgoing call to all phones in Canada and US. Besides, I've been using Skype for about 3 years and saved definitely more than $1K on international phone calls. I think Skype is one of the best software program ever made.

[Global Grind @ Oct 10th 2007 3:28PM]

Zennstrom now probably sleeps with visions of Enron dancing in his head.

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