Skype

Skype.

In the summer of 2005, I had two job opportunities on the table. Swedbank had just invited me to the third and final interview, and I understood that if I wanted to work for a bank, I could do it anytime. So I joined Skype.

In the four years that followed, I had 6 de jure and 8 de facto bosses. I laughed that the biggest boss of the company should probably have worn the title of Chief Reorg Officer.

On one of my regular trips to our London office, I happened to sit in Estonian Air B737 next to Estonian then prime minister Andrus Ansip. He saw my Skype T-shirt or sweater, and inquired about how the Most Famous Estonian Company (tm) was doing. After a bit of chit-chat we both opened our laptops and got to work. Later that day, some of my British colleagues couldn’t quite believe that I had actually spoken to the Prime Minister, and that I took it as something pretty much ordinary.

Most of my time in Skype was during the eBay era, with the Murican management culture trying hard to seep into the company, including the rule that every manager had to promote or reward his/her top performers, and to fire or otherwise punish the bottom x percent. Somehow (who knows whether because of my low performance or of my low ability to take bullshit from above) I ended up on the kill-list of one of my bosses. But just before he got to letting me go, I got a call from his boss, asking if I would assume an interim role of my boss who had just been told to pack his stuff into a carton box and go.

A few reorgs later, I learned that my team had served its purpose. I managed to “marry” my entire crew to different roles throughout the company, but failed to secure one for myself. A good colleague of mine (whom I still respect madly not only for his courage but primarily for his ultra-sharp mind) gave me a temporary role in his team; a day later he said he had got a call about that it wasn’t the smartest move he’d made. I never learned who made the call, but I had apparently failed to treat someone in the upper management with the respect s/he thought s/he deserved. Knowing myself, not a surprise.

Meg Whitman’s management team at eBay was so Thrilled and Excited (tm) about Skype that they apparently failed to do proper due diligence when they bought the company. And so, a little but crucial bit of intellectual property remained with some of the founders, who were later able to leverage it when buying (most of) Skype back and selling it to Microsoft, with a decent upside.

Pool Party (tm) in Pärnu.

Tons of work, loads of fun, and amaaazing people.

And doing something that mattered. Literally changing the world.

I’m glad I didn’t choose Swedbank.

And… as I still remember the wonderful UX of the original Skype, I do miss the (headbang) emoticon whenever I have to use Teams.