Life at Skype

This is my first post on the Skype blog, so I figured I’d introduce myself. I’m Rodrigo Madanes and I work at Skype as the Chief Product Strategist. Basically, I look at where we’re taking the products.

A few months ago, I was interviewed by Bradley Jones for a book he was putting together, titled “Web 2.0 Heroes”. The book consists of interviews with many figures in Web 2.0, each made into a chapter (mine was one of them). I wanted to share with you some of the things we discussed.

Continue reading "Skype's Product Strategist Rodrigo Madanes, one of 20 "Web 2.0 Heroes"" »

For a young 26-year-old London-based copywriter, today was the start of a 33-day round-the-world exercise. An exercise to remain in perpetual motion, to soak up experiences in 15 countries, from hot-air-ballooning in the Austrian Alps to dog-sledding in Alaska, and to see if Skype can help her stay in touch. While supporting a charity in the process.

To find out more about what this — and the person behind the Skype Nomad pseudonym — is about, take a look at her blog, as well as the post by our U.S. blogger who talked to the Nomad as she was preparing to embark on her trek.

This week will mark the first month on the job for Skype CEO Josh Silverman. It may not be as round an anniversary as 100 days, but if you want to find out what’s brewing in the mind of the man at the top, Almost Thirty Days On the Job looks like a pretty workable milestone. And it didn’t even require an international logistics operation to do this interview — being able to reel in the CEO to benefit the readers of this blog is one of the perks of an open-plan office here in Tallinn. Enjoy.

Continue reading "Interview with Skype CEO Josh Silverman" »

Those of us at Skype and the broader internet communications industry are mourning the loss of a very strong voice in our community today. Word reached us this weekend that Russell Shaw, a blogger over at ZDNet’s IP Telephony blog who has been a follower of Skype since our beginning, passed away.

At the young age of 60, Russell left us while he was doing what he enjoyed most, covering the industry in San Jose, CA for eComm2008 and VON.x.

Continue reading "Farewell, Russell Shaw" »

Before you read on, let me remind you that it’s Friday. The fifth day of the week. The day some people like to thank God or goodness for. In other words, Friday.

One of Skype’s enduring values has been the ability to not take ourselves too seriously. The method today: mutilation by anagramming. The victims: three Skype slogans/taglines. Two of them are officially retired while one keeps showing up for work.

So, without further obfuscation, let’s see if you can return these to their original form:

• Just throw freak in potent ethylene, rest
• Ear of well-clothed freak thrown
• The bat-eared peak

Perhaps anagramming them will be easier if you’re a fan of bad horror films. Just a thought. Good luck!

For quite some time, we’ve had bloggers sharing the Skype story in a number of countries — if you’re fluent in Portuguese or, say, Japanese, make your choice among the links on the right-side column on this page. But there’s been a certain gap in our otherwise toothsome blogging smile.

Today, we’re plugging it.

Please join me in welcoming Howard Wolinsky, who made his Oprah-themed debut on our oven-fresh U.S. blog today. Howard is a Pulitzer-nominated 27-year veteran of the Chicago Sun-Times who recently left the paper and now covers high tech, medicine, nanotech and business as a freelancer.

Not only is he a great writer with a keen nose for a good story, but has spun a darn good yarn about his own early moments at the Sun-Times. If you think you know what happened in the States on March 30, 1981, you’re off to a good start. If this date doesn’t ring a bell, get up to speed by reading about it in Howard’s own words at GapersBlock. Trust me, it’s worth your time.

So let’s welcome Howard, his quirky sense of humor and the unique prism that this life-long reporter brings, to the Skype blogging fraternity!

Hi, I’m Josh. The new guy. On March 24, I’ll step aboard as CEO to lead the next stage of Skype’s exciting journey.

To say that I’m looking forward to leading this company is an understatement. Skype is one of the defining internet technologies of our era. It’s helping people all over the planet connect with each other like never before. It’s changing the world. You don’t look forward to something like that. You drop what you’re doing and jump aboard.

I’m well aware that it is more than just an ingenious feat of engineering, which has made Skype one of the most rapidly-adopted technologies in human history. It’s a passionate community of users who believe in the power of human connection, in bold innovation and in striving for product excellence which has put us on our path to changing the world. I share your passion, and take very seriously the responsibility of all of us at Skype to be good stewards of the product and the brand.

So what can you expect from me? That I’m serious about wanting to build the greatest products — and the greatest company — on Earth. That doing so means listening well, being willing to think different and take risks. And in everything we do, one thing is certain: we’ll always have the best interests of the Skype community at heart.

I’m the new guy, and have a lot to learn. To really understand Skype’s cultural and technological DNA, my number one priority is to do a lot of listening and learning. With my wife and kids about to begin their adventure in Estonia as well, I have all the support I could ever need. I want to know everything about the technology, the team and the community. And I hope to share some of my observations on this very blog and see what you think, too.

As chief executive, I’m stepping into a flight deck first captained by co-founder Niklas Zennström and latterly interim CEO Michael van Swaaij. Both of whom have done great, meaningful things with this company. I don’t yet have the right to expect your enthusiastic two thumbs up. But as we go further on this journey together, I plan to earn it.

In the meantime, I look forward to meeting and talking with as many of you as possible over the months and years to come.

Animals are a big part of office life at Skype. More often than not, a golden retriever or Dachshund will check in on you during a particularly long conference call. Today, we got a minuscule — if temporary — addition to the crew here in Tallinn.

This little kitten, probably no more than a month old, had snuck into the engine compartment of a colleague’s car this morning, just outside the office. Weather in this part of the world hovers around the freezing point in late November, so we applaud her smarts and resourcefulness.

So what’s the point of all this? If you really need one, it’s that a little ball of purring fur in a fast-paced engineering office brings out smiles in a way that few other things can compete with.

May good things come to you, Karter.

Four years ago today, the first public beta version of a little piece of software was released upon an unsuspecting world. The screenshots above help beam us back to the late summer of 2003. (The same day the Inuit of Labrador signed a deal with the Canadian government to self-govern Nunatsiavut. Good to know Skype isn’t alone in the Department of Nice Things to Happen That Day.) Skype today looks quite a bit different from what you see above. But don’t be fooled. Inside, its soul is still the same.

This afternoon, Skype employees around the globe will raise a glass to the four-year-old. But here are a few oven-fresh words penned by the man without whom there would be little to celebrate, Skype’s co-founder and CEO Niklas Zennström:

Today, Skype turned four. I can hardly believe it’s been that long. It only seems like yesterday when Janus and I were talking about people being able to use the computer like a phone. But without a phone. And without a phone bill.

Niklas

Hardware is temporal. Software is forever. You cannot kill software, for it’s like Casper the Friendly Ghost. No matter how sharp your spear or cutting blades, the attempt will be futile. I run Skype 2.6 for Mac that came to me as a 30MB file. I can download it a million times and it’ll still be there, pretty as ever. It will not burn, drown or develop blemishes.

Sadly, this cannot be said about the Apple iPhone. A lovely device. But one that, mind you, doesn’t run Skype. Well, umm.. ok.

When I lived in Utah, a Mormon friend claimed that temple garments can shield and protect their wearer from evil and bullets. Kevlar for the mind, body and spirit. Utah is also home to Blendtec, a company that’s been running hilarious online promotional videos for its commercial blenders. Just add iPhone. Watch:

Weep. Would the result have been different if the iPhone could run Skype? Would our software have acted as its temple garment? With said device reduced to black powder, we may never know.

As you ponder the meaning of all this, feel free to bid for the blended iPhone on eBay, for another two days. Also, if you know someone at Blendtec, drop me a line. There are many fine devices out there with built-in Skype software. I’d love to see one of them — together with my half-baked theory — meet its blender.

So, here I was, in my previous post, being all jetsetty and stupid about sitting on a flight to Prague and flipping through magazines in search of a Eureka moment. (You’ve got to admit, though, it was nowhere as bad as Tyler Brule’s endless columns that appeal to people who need their dose of rare elitist cool that only radiates from articles written by a rich guy who spends his life in transoceanic levitation.)

“Business travel accounts for 65 percent of all flights within the United States,” reports Katharine Mieszkowski in Salon, quoting figures from travel-research company PhoCusWright. Read the article here, it’s packed with useful information about emissions related to air travel.

I’m here to state the obvious: if you can skip a flight, do it. And use Skype instead for that oh-so-important meeting. Yes, the chain of events that led to the manufacture and distribution of your PC, webcam, headset, or WiFi phone did create a negative environmental footprint. So the physical stuff that Skype needs is far from squeaky clean when you’ve got your green-colored glasses on. But using Skype sure beats the hell out of binge flying. Oh yessireebob.

Every once in a while, you stumble across an article that expands your horizons. (Reminds me of Stephen Wright, the comedian, who said, “Some people are afraid of heights. Not me, I’m afraid of widths.” But that’s an unnecessary digression, really.)

On a recent flight, I picked up the July-August issue of Utne Reader and read an amazing article, The Big Throwdown, that they had lifted from the Believer. Apparently, Rock, Paper, Scissors is huge these days, and not just among kindergarten kids. There are league championships, serious strategic gambits, corporate sponsors and pretty girls involved.

Which then reminded me of a really cool game invented by a friend of mine who writes the Virtualities blog. He posted the instructions back in February, but it’s worth introducing it here as well. Basically, it’s Rock, Paper, Scissors twisted and contorted to fit the Skype age. Instead of hand gestures, you use Skype emoticons. Here are his instructions. Try it, not only is the game refreshing, but it gives a whole new purpose to Skype emoticons.

You’ve surely noticed that Jaanus, our Revered Staple O’ Skype Blogs, has dropped off the radar screen. Was he captured alongside Finnish fishermen in Iranian waters? Cryogenically frozen in a doomsday vault to tell the Skype story to 32nd-century earthlings? Yes to all of the above, probably. But the official version is this: after three years at Skype, he’s taking a summer off and will then plunge into the Human Computer Interaction Master’s program at Carnegie Mellon. If this sounds like Chuvash to you, here’s an explainer: Besides hydrogen chloride, HCI really stands for “usability”. Anyway, let’s give a big hand to Jaanus for what he’s done for us. We’ll miss ‘im.

To add to your pain, here’s a few words about me. The New Guy.

Continue reading "So who's this new guy anyway?" »

2006 was the year where we moved offices at pretty much all Skype locations. Now that we’ve settled in to our new offices a bit more, it’s time to bring you the updated video tours of them. Here is a tour of our Tallinn office as it was seen in late 2006 and early 2007. You will see our resident entertainer Toby, and Marvin the office kitten who is playing with a mouse, and many people and things we do.

A story has been going around internally and externally about the emoticon version of the popular Rock, Paper, Scissors game. (Did you know they now have something like the World Cup for this game? )

Instead of hands and real life, the emoticon version is played in Skype chat with — what else — emoticons. You can create as many this-emoticon-is-stronger-than-that-emoticon relationships as you like. It’s like a wiki-game, everyone can create and edit their own power hierarchies within the emoticon roster.

Here is an example ruleset:

• a is beaten by a
• a is beaten by a or a
• a is beaten by a
• a is beaten by a

For extra gaming pleasure, you may use hidden Skype emoticons to whack your opponents in one swift move.

A real-life story from one of Skypers about the effects of Skype video.

Heh, my brother’s kid is 1.9 old or such and she’s quite a brat when trying to put her to bed. Million reasons to get out, walk about, read a book etc.
Yesterday we did first-ever video call with her in the evening and I finished up by telling her that let’s go to sleep now. Today brother tells me that she got up and ran to her bed without wishing good night to her dad and fell asleep almost immediately.

We all know that internet technology has changed the way we interact, keep in touch and even meet brand new friends. With Valentine’s Day on the not-so-distant horizon, we’re eager to hear how Skype has helped old romances to grow while allowing new ones to blossom. Now that video calling has become the norm, couples who find themselves separated from each other are keeping the love going strong with a little help from Skype. Click here to share your own tale of Skype romance in advance of February 14th!

We just put out a piece of news about our management changes.

Such changes are a disruptive thing. I, of all people, should know. I’ve been working for three different managers throughout this year, having a lot of re-orgs, re-makes, re-everything. I can certainly think of another group of people who are somewhat put off by the change — our lovely HR team who barely finished the new organization charts from the previous changes we had these nice new charts, and the moment the charts got finished, the team learned of the news of going back and having to start over.

But this is just pebbles. The big news here is that Niklas will continue to run the company according to his vision with the rest of his original core team that started Skype more than three years ago. eBay brought some people over for a while and some senior eBayers like Henry continue to be in key positions, although acting more as advisors now instead of daily execution. I’ve had the privilege to work with many of Skype’s friends from eBay and I can say they are very fine people who understand and love Skype and want to help us succeed. But now Niklas and his team decided that they have their own ideas about how to deliver the results, building upon the past heritage and the pretty stellar track record of Skype. And eBay lets them do just that.

I haven’t really commented on this whole eBay-Skype thing myself too much, as you can have a lot of speculation around it without very little substance. I prefer to let the facts speak for themselves and today’s news is a response to the sceptics who figured that eBay will come in and do a hostile takeover and trash Skype.

There will surely be changes in 2007 about what Skype does and does not do. We have said at various times that we will do a lot of different things. Some of those will not happen, while others will happen that we haven’t yet spoken of. One thing is for sure — we will remain true to our original commitment of letting the whole world talk for free, while adding further value with our paid products.

Oh, the times, the times they were... we found this image just lurking around in one of our servers. Or more like "sewers" due to its age :) it's been more than two years.

Sten, who was portrayed earlier in the Economist, now talks with Naked Conversations about Skype as naked conversationers Rick and Shel proceed on their world tour. (They’re not really naked. That’s just the title of their book.)

See also what they say about laptops in old town and sleeping in the same room as Queen Elizabeth did. She was in town last week.

We’ve heard about dogs at the office. How about a cute little kitten for a change? This guy, called Marvin, was spotted roaming our Tallinn office. Quiet and well-behaved, he ran about in the noiseless manner as kittens do, just poking around and looking at things.

Continue reading "Marvin the office kitten" »

Yesterday, we inaugurated the new office of Skype Tallinn, by far the largest facility of Skype worldwide. This has been a year of moving and relocation, with Skype moving in London, Luxembourg, San Jose and now Tallinn. (We lost the chicken race to others.) I hear this is not the last offices-related news this year, so as always, watch this space for updates.

We’re still moving in and unpacking. No pictures of the interior yet, as there’s painters and ladders and installers and wires and cables around still, but here are some artifacts from last night’s opening party and the surroundings.

We’re in a building that’s pretty nondescript from the outside, perhaps only differentiated by the logo. This is probably one of the few buildings in the world where you actually see this logo on a house. While pretty subtle at daytime, at night it has a blue glow and is a piece of art on its own.

Inside, though, it’s a different story. You can get a feeling of the vibe here if you look at the videos from our previous offices and multiply the coolness factor at least five, if not ten times. It’s not too “fancy” or “posh”, though, as we don’t think much of those things. Rather, I’d say it’s smart and functional, being as Skype always was — to the point and getting things done.

Toby the Skype Tallinn mascot dog was there with us at the opening. Not itself, as it got nervous with all the people around, but on the meat dish and the cake. Someone told me:

Can we please stop evangelizing Tobi? Jaanus, don’t post several pictures of fake Tobi on cakes and stuff.

Interestingly enough, while Tobi is not even a human, it provides an interesting introspective and an original viewpoint (around the knee-height of most humans) into various aspects of our life here, and thus will continue to be a regular contributor to our sites and blogs.

Continuing the tradition of free office goodies, here’s our typical ice cream selection. The ice cream fridges are at various places throughout the office floors, this one is about five meters from my desk.

Here’s a view from my window. It’s towards forest where you can go running or biking at summertime, and skiing in the winter. … Ok, I cheated a bit. Between the office and the forest, there’s a car park. But still.

It’s shaping up to be a pretty good place to work and have fun. Last night’s opening party was spectacular as expected. And after having been separated across many temporary locations and homes (some folks stayed at home simply because there was no space for their desk, or not enough chairs… can you imagine?), we’re finally all together at the same place.

These days, the old stigma regarding online dating has all but disappeared. A lot of people are starting to realize that All You Can Drink Margarita Night at the tiki bar might not be the best place to meet your eternal soulmate—and that maybe Match.com might yield better results (although we’re still not buying Dr. Phil’s advice).

I’m eager to hear from Skypers who have met their special someone online—either via Skype itself or through a 3rd party dating service—and who then bolstered their “virtual” relationship over Skype before meeting in person. If that’s you, click here to give me (most of) the juicy details.

Do you want to know how we make Skype? Like… really? really really?

Due to the distributed nature of the teams, we use chat a lot. Now, the good thing about the chats is of course that everything you “say” gets recorded. And we’ve been collecting the “best of” from these chats. Sort of our own little mini-version of bash.org, one of the best Internet sites for geek jokes.

Here’s a mini-policy for these. For obvious reasons, you won’t find references to any “sensitive” stuff, ongoing products or projects. I’ve anonymized the quotes to protect the innocent. However, what you see here is 100% genuine, with perhaps only typos corrected and some four-letter words “asterisked”, and comes straight from the Guts Of The Organism That Is Making Skype.

It may be disturbing at times. Unexpected. Maybe funny. Maybe at times not so intelligent as the stuff in 37signals’ chats. (As said, some of the good stuff also has to be left out.) Sometimes black humor. As Jaan, one of Skype’s founding engineers has said…

I like the Monty Python-esque atmosphere in Skype — everything and everybody can be laughed at and being serious is considered a crime (I think you’ve noticed the attitude if you’ve browsed this far on our website)! So, if you don’t have a sense of humor, please don’t apply for a job at Skype, thank you!

If one of Skype’s masterminds says it, this is how it must be :) So… here are some quotes.

A: B would like to have a speech :P
B: I have a dream
C: (clap)

the problem with massive chats is that you boys always turn serious scientific effort into 5th grade class trip to zoo

Continue reading "How we actually make Skype" »

So… today is the real birthday of Skype. Please keep sending us cards and win a prize (competition open until end of this week). We already got quite a few.

Here’s a historic shot from that August night three years ago. (The info date on the photo actually shows the 28th of August, not 29th… close enough.) You can see Niklas on the left, with some other original project members. Nothing fancy, just some Chinese place with sticks and soy sauce and unknown drinks on the table. And a little program that lets the whole world talk for free.

Priidu, the mastermind behind Skype’s graphic icons, spotted some similarities between the My pictures of the people at Skype. We are indeed similar in different ways. For example sports like snowboarding, mountain biking and kiteboarding are much more popular at Skype than curling or table tennis. And none of us has a phone on the desk:)

A few weeks ago, Yahoo! launched their Yodel Anecdotal blog. Welcome.

Now when I saw this, I immediately made a strange connection. I’m not sure if it’s funny or ironic or what. Just that a few lightyears and web versions ago, we had exactly the following words at the SkypeOut web site. (The red wobbly line wasn’t part of the original design. It’s my own skillful use of the wonderful Paint program to indicate an important part of text.)

If this was a perfect world, there’d be no yodelling, we wouldn’t be ashamed of our love handles and everyone would be using Skype to talk for free.

But alas. The world isn’t perfect, that text got nuked, we still need to pay for calls to phones and there’s the Yodel Anecdotal blog now. Go figure. And read the blog, it’s good.

A great story in The Economist about Sten and how we live and work here at Skype.

Asked for his job title, he looks apologetic. “I think I am director of operations,” he says. “We’re not that big on titles.” Most people in his shoes would be boasting. Mr Tamkivi runs Skype, one of the software world’s most subversive and fastest-growing businesses.

Continue reading "This week's Economist about life and work at Skype" »

I knew there were the Hulger phones, but I didn’t know that there are actually “shoulder phone rests” for such handsets. Must have been quite a sales hit when this kind of handset was the only one available, not “retro” as it is these days.

Tallinn, Estonia is a true Skype town if you judge by the bumper stickers. Every once in a while, you spot a Skype-related one. Here’s what a visiting colleague had to say… the photos are also his, snapped from a taxi.

I was in Tallinn on business last week – great city by the way – and was taking a taxi to the Skype offices when I noticed the car in front had a jobs.skype.ee sticker on the back. Now, that to me shows the coolness of working at Skype when someone would stick that on their car!

Would you buy a Skype bumper sticker?

Skype icons have been on display before but never in such large numbers, nor squar