In Skype's London office, tucked away in a featureless Soho side street near Piccadilly Circus, Zennstrom laughs at the notion and explains that operating a telephone switchboard does not fit the business model.

"We have more than 80 million users and we're getting 250,000 new users a day," he says. "We provide a service for free. If we had full customer service for everyone, we'd have so many people calling us that it would be too costly."

Zennstrom says the office does have "a few" landlines, including one for faxes, but inquiries are dealt with most quickly by filling in a form on the website. In my experience, trying to contact companies this way is ineffective. Then again, Skype is not like most companies.

Zennstrom's admirers in the venture capital community say he is a potential Michael Dell, Jeff Bezos or even Bill Gates, to whom he bears a physical resemblance. If you did not know what he looks like, however, it would be hard to spot the boss in the open-plan office.

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