EBay eats $1.5 billion on Skype

Steve Safran October 2nd, 2007

It turns out that it’s hard to make money giving away free phone calls. EBay, which paid $2.6 billion for Skype in 2005, admits it kinda overpaid. EBay is taking a $1.43 billion charge and is canning Skype co-founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis - but giving them and former Skype shareholders about $500 million in the process.