Skype's executive compensation conundrum
When word broke last week that Skype was firing senior executives, many assumed it was part of an effort to save payout costs ahead of its merger with Microsoft.
The Internet phone giant, which was recently purchased by Microsoft for $8.5 billion, characterized the firings as "management changes" that were part of "a recent internal shift."
However, Skype's executive compensation issues recaptured Silicon Valley's attention after an ex-Skype employee revealed this week that when he left the company, it terminated not only his unvested stock options, but his vested ones as well. Yee Lee wrote an essay last week describing how, after working at Skype for a little more than a year in product management, he resigned, only to learn that he didn't own the stock options he thought he owned.
