Goodbye Microsoft, Hello Skype

I have been quiet for the past month, I had a new baby in mid-March who is doing wonderfully incidentally .... new picture coming. Fatherhood has been an amazing experience to date, just as everyone said it would be. I guess I must have decided that a new baby was not nearly hard enough for us because we added a few other big changes to life during March and April. I wasn't kidding when I said 2005 was going to be the year of change. Ready for this ...

I recently accepted a new job and have resigned my post as Director, Platform Evangelism at Microsoft after almost 8 years with the company. I am joining Skype and the family and I will be moving to the UK. I have taken a position on the product and services team at Skype. I have decided that Microsoft and I need to go our separate ways and it is time to move to new pastures.

I have a lot to say about both companies right now. Microsoft lost me for many reasons, Skype gained me for many reasons. I will let you draw your own conclusions rather than disparage my Microsoft colleagues or over hype my new colleagues and company. I don't believe in writing diatribes and manifestos when moving on from a job so I will spare you the soapboxing. Microsoft has its challenges, we all know what they are, they are more than apparent these days. Skype has its opportunties we all know what they are, who wouldn't like to see the communication and collaboration technologies in their lives get much much smarter and cheaper?

I decided to swap problem sets from one that I am not passionate about any more to one that I AM deeply passionate about. I just couldn't go on being an evangelist for a gospel that I don't believe I can sing. I am returning to focus on what I enjoy most, building amazing things that make people happy, change lives, and make money. In this case Skype was a better place for me to do this and one that shares my core values and beliefs in how the future of both software and business will unfold.

My life as a senior Microsoft employee is nearly over and I will be an ISV like the thousands of those I have worked with over the years and Microsoft will be a part of our success as a company as long as Windows remains a popular client platform. I am now also part of a Linux and Mac ISV and am very excited to be in a cross platform company. The internet is and has been the new platform since 1997 when it became aparent that the most exciting things in software that were changing how we used computers were all cross platform, simple, elegant, fast, and complimented our basic human need to communicate and collaborate with others. Skype is the evolution of a new generation of distributed network computing technologies that will use the internet as the platform for new scenarios across new topologies, and leave the client to being an abstraction layer for UI and crunching MIPs. The new platform is not only building new apps in new ways, it is enabling new ways of buidling businesses, and in places that no one expects in the world. Skype is made up largely of Estonians, how many people in Silicon Valley even can find Estonia on a map?

I leave Microsoft more with regret to leave some of the smartest and most creative people I have worked with behind. Many thanks to Vic, Jeff, Charles, Robert, Bryn, Ivan, David, and Eric for a great year and for your dedication and passion to want to change Microsoft back into a company that listens, learns, and leads. Many thanks to all of you who have shared a part of your experience at Microsoft on Channel 9. Many thanks to my friends who have helped me navigate this sometimes alien corporate culture over the years. Many thanks to the people who listened to me when I was telling them something they should listen to and for giving me a chance to do something about it.

Niklas, Toivo, Taavet, Ahti, Jaan, Erik, Nils, Stefan, Janus and the rest of the amazing team at Skype ... I can't wait to get started, you guys have something truly special and I am so grateful and excited to be a part of it. We are just beginning to change how the world communicates.

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[Nontsikelelo Mgayiya]

I am a very passionate and free spirited individual. I am looking for friends to chat to and make friends with.

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[Gerard]

Skype is great - the move sounds like a good one to me.
Can you push the skype for business I keep hearing about?

[DivineContrast]

Hello Lenn :) Greetings from Bulgaria.I want to show my unknown total upport for your dessision.I have recently discovered Skype and in one night i came to know people all over the world with different backgrounds and proffesions.I was amazed by the fact that with just 4 clicks I am able to get to know and speak to people with high awarenes and intelect.I was happy as a child playing with a new toy dicovering all the simple smart and not limiting feutures of Skype.
I hope you will give alot to that product as I think that this is the near future of communication in multiple levels and areas.I wish best of for you and your family! And please make it possible for more then 4 people to have a simultanius phone conversations ;) the world has more then 4 countrys to speak with :P
God Bless

With respect: DivineContrast
P.S. sorry for my bad english :)

[LuisB]

Hi Lenn welcome in Europe and best wishes to you and Family in this new step in your Life. Keep in touch,

LuisB

[Rodrigo A. Sepúlveda Schulz]

Congrats! Lenn, I posted recently why I like Skype so much here, among many regular posts about them ;)
http://rodrigo.typepad.com/english/2005/04/skype_has_more_.html

I'd love that chat in Paris when you drop by !

[Brad Abrams]

Best of luck to you Lenn...

[Tony]

Good move. I look forward to the future of Skype, and I know that means MUCH more than just voip. I'm talkin' data, multimedia, podcasts, digital entertainment. In other words "Skypecasting" in all forms.

[Dan]

Congratulations on the new job - and with the new baby. : )

Blessings on you and your family in the passing of your sister and all her family.

Enjoy the sleep deprivation while you can. Halucinating with a wide-awake and playful baby at 3 am might seem tough now. But, it won't be long before you have some of the fondest memories of it.

We have a three year old and a three month old... trust me. : )

[Symon Chalk]

Welcome to the UK!

This must be a daunting move on so many levels, but when the time comes to make such a move you have to go with it. As much as we all like to think that work is just work, with it taking so much of our time it *has* to be considered as more than just that. I've worked at places in the past and didn't feel happy and the result was a general apathy toward everything in my life - a change of job and suddenly life means so much more again...

Good luck with the new job and moving the family (I really don't envy you that!) I'm sure you'll enjoy living over here.

P.S. If you ever need insider info. on London, drop me a line...

[Rick]

Congrats on birth of Son and move to Skype and UK.

I am a very very satisfied skype user - quality of chat is extremely good - I, my Dad and my Brother get into Skype conference and really enjoy - though both of them are on Dial-up. I am sure that you will enjoy there!

I have two small gripes - and eve though it does not look appropriate to use your Blog to complain but I thought, I will use your Blog to express them and I am sure they will get fixed soon!

1. When I start computer, Skype pops-up Uninvited - I have checked starup folder and it is not there and it does not ask me to set any preference for auto-start! I do not want to start it everytime I start my computer - Skype should provide a preference setting for that.

2. Skype repeatedly mutes the mic - both for me and my old Dad (Skype passes my Dad's Test!) - not sure why it does that and is there a way to make sure it doesn't do it!).

Thanks and Congrats once again.

[markl]

Good luck Len. Life on the outside is very exciting.