I have been thinking a lot about how AI is quietly transforming the way we work, not replacing jobs entirely, but definitely reshaping them.
At a recent Fortune summit, the CEO of Indeed said AI can now handle over half the tasks in most roles. But no single job can be fully automated. OpenAI s Chief People Officer even called it a reimagination of work.
Hey, I ve been a software engineer (backend) for over nine years and have been wanting to build something on my own for a while now. I have ideas, good planning skills, and the discipline to execute, but unfortunately, I lack the experience as an entrepreneur, which I believe is an important aspect. This has led me to consider finding partners to help me bring my ideas to life or collaborate on new projects. However, it s been challenging to find people who are committed, structured, have a long-term mindset, and maintain positive energy. Many people get excited about a project initially, but then they disappear or lose interest when results don t come quickly. And unfortunately, I m not in a position to hire people at the moment. Has anyone else been through this? How have you found people who are truly committed to the long haul?
For the past 10 years, whenever I needed to call an international number, I used Skype. It had my back when I had to clear things up with the US university admissions from Austria, arrange a hotel pickup in Bali, or call my EU bank to see why my card was blocked while I was trekking through Argentina. I could call anywhere in the world for cents, and it was delightful.
In February 2025, Microsoft announced it was closing Skype down, and on May 5 it officially stopped operations. I was really sad when I heard the news with Skype, a huge chunk of my life disappeared. It felt the same way as if, one day, nobody would be playing on Call of Duty 2 servers anymore (that hasn t happened yet, right?).
Anyway, here I ve compiled a list of the top 6 alternatives to Skype for international calling. I used the following criteria to select them:
I graduated 4 years ago, and I had the opportunity to go on to a PhD, but I gave up on that option.
Instead, I chose the "real world".
Many public universities in my country offer free tuition, while in the US tuition is very high, and people take out student loans that take decades to pay off.