I wish Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis all the luck in the world with Joost, really. If they can create the platform of Web TV, good for them. I have my doubts, frankly. But that’s not the point here.
My point has more to do with how media businesses seem to have no qualms about working with two guys who ripped them off for years and laughed their way to the bank. I wrote something earlier about how media companies would not want to get in bed with Joost. I was wrong.
This article from NYT talks about how the founders went out of their way to do things right because of their reputation. I am speechless, I understand money seems to bridge gaps etc., but these two guys could not set foot in the US (out of fear of getting arrested) and they are now hailed as liberators of TV content. That is just unbelievable!
What’s that saying from Once Upon a Time in America, every fortune starts with a crime. Indeed, the Skype boys parlayed their Kazaa heist into Skype, and then flipped Skype for $4.1B to eBay, while at eBay, they schemed Joost.
Subscribe: