Mark Evans

Niklas Zennstrom's U.S. Aversion; Skype's Plans

Skype was the star of Tony Perkins' AlwaysOn summit earlier this week at Stanford but CEO Niklas Zennstrom wasn't there in person. Instead, he appeared via SkypeVideo from Estonia where Skype was holding a board meeting. If you look at Zennstrom's public appearance schedule, he has talked around the world but not in the U.S. This is a good thing for me because Zennstrom has been in Canada on a regular basis so I've had several opportunities to interview him. I wonder whether Zennstrom has a legal problem that discourages him from coming into the U.S. It could be related to the music industry's legal fight against Kazaa and Zennstrom's fear of being served with a lawsuit. At the AlwaysOn conference, Draper Fisher Jurvetson partner Tim Draper said his firm has invested $10 million in Skype. When asked if he would like to put more money, he said: “I'd love to put more money into Skype but Skype is doing very well on its own. They don't need my money”. Draper and Zennstrom declined to comment on suggestions the company had rejected a $100 million offer from Yahoo. For my take on Skype's potential value, check out this posting.