Downgrading Skype and Silver Lake to ‘Evil’

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/skype-silver-lake-evil/

by gatsby • 15 years ago

71 23 15 years ago

brudgers2• 15 years ago

>"Silicon Valley companies attract employees by giving them options which vest over time."

Just another of example of how this story is being spun in the tech media. Skype is not a Silicon Valley company in any meaningful sense. Most of their development team is in Estonia and their headquarters is in Luxemburg.

[http://jobs.skype.com/lifeatskype.html]

CamperBob• 15 years ago

Is that in any way material?

sp332• 15 years ago

It's about context, which changes the way the "material" (facts) is interpreted.

zaidf• 15 years ago

Neither is San Francisco or Mountain View technically Silicon Valley. I always thought that SV is used more as a metaphor for the tech startup scene than the specific location.

rdl• 15 years ago

Mountain View is pretty solidly in Silicon Valley (as is Palo Alto and Stanford); a lot of people draw the line at the Santa Clara/San Mateo county line (so Menlo Park isn't in), although one might consider San Mateo, Foster City, Redwood City, and Menlo Park in, too.

true_religion2• 15 years ago

Mountain View is directly adjacent to Silicon Valley. Like Silicon Valley it is a suburb of San Francisco.

I'm not sure how you can say developing in a county adjacent to silicon valley is the same thing as developing in a country more than 3000 miles away.

If Silicon Valley is a metaphor then the term is meaningless. New York is Silicon Valley. So is Chicago. So is Vancover, and London.

If it isn't---because of the unique legal structure, cultural consciousness, and developer concentration in and around Silicon Valley---then its unfair to say that a Luxumburg company operating under EU rules is a silicon valley company.

brudgers2• 15 years ago

Skype isn't part of the tech startup scene either. They have not been since 2005 when ebay acquired them for two billion dollars - and now they have been resold twice. The erroneous Silicon Valley references just facilitates the misinterpretation of Skype as a startup to support the linkbait article title.

Frankly it would seem that analysis of the stock vesting expectations of hackers in Tallinn is more relevant to the story and the structure of the Silverlake partner agreement than the expectations of Silicon Valley programmers when it comes to attracting and retaining technical talent at Skype and among the people mentioned in the techpress, it has been difficult to find any in key technical roles.

Aloisius• 15 years ago

Why would you think it was a metaphor? It is a physical place and when you see in it mentioned in the press, they quite literally mean this particular location. Also, having grown up in Silicon Valley, I can tell you that Mountain View is in SV.

When I was a kid, San Jose was the "gateway to Silicon Valley" which basically was anywhere in Santa Clara county (at that time, mostly the 415 area code).

alexwestholm• 15 years ago

"Consequently, this means that you will receive no value in respect of any of the shares underlying your Options."

I don't really see how that's ambiguous... I mean, I think Skype and their investors have behaved like total assholes, but the guy did sign a contract which explicitly told him what would happen.

gojomo2• 15 years ago

That quote is from a letter from Skype's lawyer sent after the fact — that is not the contract language Lee agreed to.

Timothee• 15 years ago

Discussed yesterday here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2692985. Granted the first post was for the same article on Reuters, while this one is on Wired.

What's odd though is that:

1. The repost on Wired makes no mention that it's not a new article by the author. I find it typical to see "This was previously seen in Blabla".

2. The title went from "Upgrading" to "Downgrading", which made me think it was in response to the first post.

neologik• 15 years ago

More like downgraded to "Microsoft".

Shamiq• 15 years ago

RTFA first?

slowcpu2• 15 years ago

"If, in connection with the termination of a Participant’s Employment, the Ordinary Shares issued to such Participant pursuant to the exercise of the Option or issuable to such Participant pursuant to any portion of the Option that is then vested are to be repurchased, the Participant shall be required to exercise his or her vested Option and any Ordinary Shares issued in connection with such exercise shall be subject to the repurchase and other provisions in the Management Partnership agreement."

This is actually pretty clear even to me ( and I merely have an interest in law as opposed to having legal training ) and should be manifestly obvious to a real lawyer. He should have had a lawyer read his employment contract and then should have discussed it again before he decided to leave Skype.

slowcpu2• 15 years ago

http://framethink.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/stock-option-g...

gojomo2• 15 years ago

What if Lee wasn't shown and hadn't independently agreed to the 'Management Partnership Agreement'? [1] What if that Agreement – whose text as far as I know hasn't yet been publicly released – isn't itself clear and enforceable on the repurchase rights?

Even the part you quote is unclear; the clause which makes the Ordinary Shares 'subject to repurchase' is conditioned on the leading "If... the Ordinary Shares... are to be repurchased" clause. That may imply some other trigger or prior notification is necessary first, before the Management Partnership Agreement repurchase-at-cost (which would be contrary to the usual meaning of 'vesting') comes into play.

At this point any definitive interpretation – without the text of all agreements between Lee and Skype, and professional familiarity with the terms and precedents involved – is premature judgement.

[1] edit addition: I see in a BusinessWeek article that Lee did sign but did not carefully review the 'Management Partnership Agreement'. That's a screwup, but the interplay between the exact language of all the agreements could still give him daylight.

jbjohns• 15 years ago

You think a person should have to consult a lawyer before changing jobs? That's insane. It's bad enough with health care concerns.

daimyoyo• 15 years ago

This brings to mind an interesting question. What is the cost to have a lawyer go over and negotiate an employment contract? Are there any firms offering that service?

Downgrading Skype and Silver Lake to ‘Evil’

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