The eBay/Skype deal has justifiably generated a tremendous amount of excitement in the technology community. To me it is emblematic of the fact that we are still at the beginning of the Internet revolution - not the end as many post-bubble doomsayers would have one believe. There are many, many, many more new innovations, combinations, and business models still to be brought forth in the coming years.
In terms of seeing the future, I would like to give a small nod to my illustrious teammates on the selection committee for the 2005 AlwaysOn-KPMG Top 100 Private Companies. In particular Packy Kelly of KPMG, Tony Perkins and Will Quist of AO, Ed Lambert of Bridge Bank, and Susan Ayers Walker of the Stanford/MIT Venture Lab. Our team had the enviable/unenviable job of sifting through something like 700 nominated private companies. Working with limited information (these companies are private and more often than not quite secretive), we had to determine not only the top 100 - but had to select the #1 private company of them all.
The selection criteria we used were rankings in the following areas:
- Innovation
- Market Potential
- Customer Adoption
- Buzz/Media Coverage
- Investor Value Creation
Already since announcing the list a couple months ago several of our selections have been acquired including Arbortext (by PTC) and FrontBridge (by Microsoft).
As for our pick for the #1 hottest private company of them all (from our over 700 nominations)...that was...Skype.
Nice work team!