首席执行官梦圆Skype

    每年，托尼•贝茨与妻子都会列一张未来目标的清单。2007年，贝茨在思科公司（Cisco）担任高管，当时他的目标是在45岁前成为一名首席执行官。尽管出身企业世家，他仍然列出了四家目标公司，而且四家全都是面向消费者的企业。

    Skype即位居四家目标公司之列。上周四，在阿斯彭举行的《财富》科技头脑风暴（Fortune Brainstorm Tech）大会上，贝茨透露了这一往事。因此，去年10月，当拥有Skype的私募机构打来电话时，他未加思索，欣然赴任。

    “这种机会千载难逢，”贝茨称：“每月有上千万个用户、而且每名用户每月的使用量超过100分钟，这样的公司能有几家？屈指可数。”

    最近，微软公司（Microsoft）愿意出价85亿美元收购Skype。采访中，谈到自己未来在微软的种种机遇，贝茨兴奋之情溢于言表。他表示，他希望收购交易能于10月结束。届时，Skype将成为首家被微软收至麾下，同时又被当作公司内的一个部门进行管理的公司。贝茨将直接向微软首席执行官史蒂夫•鲍尔默汇报，但他拒绝透露自己会在微软留任多久。

    译者：大海

    Every year, Tony Bates and his wife make a list of future goals. In 2007, Bates was a 40-year-old Cisco (CSCO) executive who wrote down that he wanted to become a CEO by the age of 45. He then listed four companies -- all consumer-focused, despite his enterprise pedigree -- that he hoped would offer him the job.

    One of them was Skype, Bates said today during Fortune Brainstorm Tech in Aspen. So when Skype's private equity owners came calling last October, it was a "no-brainer."

    "There are very few of these opportunities," Bates said. "How many companies are there that really have over 100 million users per month and over 100 minutes of per user engagement per month? You can count them on one hand."

    Bates also expressed excitement about his upcoming opportunities within Microsoft (MSFT), which recently agreed to buy Skype for $8.5 billion. Bates said he expects the deal to close in October, at which point Skype will become the first company ever acquired by Microsoft to be treated as its own division within the company. Bates will report directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, although he declined to say how long he was legally committed to remaining with the software giant.