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Kazaa taught me distributed technology. Skype taught me how to use it legally. Both were necessary.
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Skype carried 40% of international phone calls at its peak. We turned a $0 product into a $8.5 billion company. Free can be very expensive for incumbents.
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Europe has the engineering talent. What it lacked was the venture ecosystem. Atomico exists to fix that.
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eBay paid $2.6 billion for Skype. Microsoft paid $8.5 billion. The lesson: great technology only gets more valuable.
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I sail competitively. Sailing teaches you to read conditions, adjust constantly, and commit to a direction. Investing is the same.