A View on View :: Skype Poaches Microsoft Exec

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Skype Poaches Microsoft Exec

by Mark Evans on Tue 19 Apr 2005 06:40 PM EDT | Permanent Link

You'd think Skype's Niklas Zennstrom would have wanted to crow today at VON Canada about poachin Microsoft executive Lenn Pryor, who headed up Channel 9 and was Microsoft's director of platform evangelism. Om Malik has this wicked quote from Pryor's blog on why he left: “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.”
Perhaps Zennstrom is waiting until we have dinner with him tonight to talk about his big employment coup. Earlier today, he told me Skype has modest hiring plans - preferring to hire the best and brightest rather than a lot of people. (Sounds like Hiring 101 to me but I digress.)

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Re: Skype Poaches Microsoft Exec

by Anonymous on Tue 19 Apr 2005 09:57 PM EDT | Permanent Link

Isn't calling Lenn Pryor a Microsoft Exec a stretch?

Skype Poaches toiling Microsoft middle manager...which seems to be one of the reasons why he was poachable.

Re: Re: Skype Poaches Microsoft Exec

by Rick Segal on Sat 23 Apr 2005 04:43 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Mark is correct if you accept the director title as an 'exec' title. It's not that much of a leap and Lenn, for sure, likes it! :-)

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