
“How can they be so good?” the strange story of Skype (2013) - chermanowicz
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/09/skypes-secrets/
======
T-A
The article makes an attempt to answer the question in the title (cheap
computers forced Eastern European programmers to be really efficient) but I am
reminded of Paul Graham's "Beating the Averages" essay [1]:

> It must have seemed to our competitors that we had some kind of secret
> weapon-- that we were decoding their Enigma traffic or something. In fact we
> did have a secret weapon, but it was simpler than they realized. No one was
> leaking news of their features to us. We were just able to develop software
> faster than anyone thought possible.

PG and Robert Morris could do that because they had a "secret weapon" (LISP).
The Skype developers had one too [2]:

> Delphi was chosen because our first senior UI developer was very skilled at
> Delphi (besides dozen other languages-environments) and we saw D as most
> productive, fastest, efficient way to build our app given our team/lead
> developer skills and also getting very good UX on MSWin platform.

[1] [http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html)

[2] [https://www.quora.com/What-programming-language-was-Skype-
or...](https://www.quora.com/What-programming-language-was-Skype-originally-
written-in?s=1)

~~~
expertentipp
> Estonia

> Eastern European

You just made a little Estonian girl cry.

~~~
unixhero
Well Baltic European state, ... is that better?

------
yuhong
My favorite is how Skype did things like making calls using SYSENTER and
reading the BIOS using NTVDM before MS bought them. Of course, you won't see
MS employees talk much about it.

------
expertentipp
Particular how fates of post-Communist countries like
Poland/Czechia/Slovakia/Lithuania vs Estonia dispersed. The former chose a way
of low-cost, outsourcing and offshoring for global hegemons, many emigrated to
developed countries like UK or Germany - cutting off their chance of success.
One from post-Communist country will always be an underdog there trying to
navigate the complex realities, business connections, regulations.

Meanwhile Estonia - extraordinary luck, lots of talent. Perhaps because it's a
small country, cosy environment, one is less likely to emigrate? Proximity to
and cultural similarities with Finland? Sad that both - Kazaa and Skype had
become its own blown egg with only the brands surviving, Americans killed
both.

~~~
rasz
How did Estonia handle transition period? Polish transformation was dominated
by giving away national property, and mostly involved bribes. Deals like 1991
30 year _free_ lease for two huge factory buildings gifted to Levi Strauss in
exchange for couple hundred $100/month jobs (1/2 average pay in Poland, 1/20
average US), buildings the city had to first borrow $700K to buy and renovate.
Or PepsiCo paying $25 mil for privatized chocolate manufacturer(no debt), just
to turn around and resell _one_ of their factories for $75mil. Etc etc, almost
anything of value was sold for nothing.

~~~
expertentipp
The whole country on a backyard sale while population was chocked down ("shock
therapy" \- thanks, Balcerowicz and Jeffrey Sachs!). The largest innovation
these reforms farted out in the IT domain was a PHP clone of Classmates.

> Or PepsiCo paying $25 mil for privatized chocolate manufacturer(no debt),
> just to turn around and resell _one_ of their factories for $75mil

The story of Wedel is a classic example of predatory business sucking out all
the money from formely legit business while offering deteriorating quality
("ptasie mleczko" tastes like and has a quality of a turd, sorry).

