The content chronicles the explosive growth and commercialization of the internet in the 1990s, highlighting key innovations like the World Wide Web and browsers, and the rise of pioneering companies that transformed it into a ubiquitous platform for information, communication, and commerce.
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[Music]
excite by March 1997 after 3 years
they've gone from hacking code in a
garage to become an internet Media
Company revenues from advertising were
into the millions and they've outgrown
move three years ago we visited with six
kids in a garage working on their dream
starting with $118,000 and a bag of
brown rice they built a site into a
company with 200 workers worth a quarter
of a billion dollars and this is just
the start it has to be because in the
world of internet business the rule is
grow or [Music]
[Music]
die see we move from the garage to the
dining room we moveed from the dining
room to an office about 5,000 fet we
moved from that office to this office
about 12,000 ft and now we're moving to
our final resting place I wouldn't have
even guessed that we would have moved
into the Garcia office that that we that
we were at the you know 2,000t office
with little dingy cubes so that was a
step up for us and then to move in here
and then to move into our very own
[Music] [Applause]
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excite is visible proof of the
internet's astonishing progress its
growth mirrors the expansion of the
wired World in 4 years the number of
Americans using the internet has risen
from 5 million to 62 million traffic on
the Internet is doubling every 100 days
and the funds only just begun we're only
two years into this huge Revolution
called the commercial use of the
internet we're only two years in I think
where other industries were just two
years into their lives I think where
cars were two years into automobiles oh
they were terrible I mean by icle Wheels
a tiller for the steering wheel a motor
that took you at 5 mph and died in about
a half a mile if you look back in
history past the scope of this program
past 1970 past
1900 back to when we were human beings
in small tribes hunting and Gathering
everybody you had to deal with was
somebody you saw every day and we're a
species that's based on communication
with our entire tribe and one thing that
mod communication does is make it
possible again for us to communicate
with anybody in the world unlike the PC
it levers the Top Line it helps us
entertain and inform and educate and
Inspire and sell and make Community uh
even make meaning out of life and out of
death and and and that's a far more
powerful Dynamic than cranking out memos
and doing Financial analyses with a
spreadsheet think of this as uh just a
few milliseconds after the big bang I
mean we only barely discern the
fundamental laws of physics the business
work what better place for a big bang
than CERN the European laboratory for
particle research you leave it or not
this is where the explosive growth of
the internet began here in Geneva
Switzerland the next great internet
breakthrough the worldwide web was
created by an English programmer named
there was always different sorts of
people from different countries who
brought different sorts of computing
equipment and so CERN was at the
Forefront of making gateways for file
transfer exchange so you could get files
from different of computer Email
exchange so that you could get email
from the proprietary systems to cross
borders and go into another proprietary
system and Al I wasn't involved with
that that was the spirit there was a lot
of networking despite all this network
there was no simple way for CERN
scientists to retrieve information from
each other's computers in fact it was
scale I'll be at this forever what I'm
trying to draw here is 160,000 computers
in 800 different networks all running
different operating systems different
programming languages it's a mess and
that was the situation faced by Tim
burner Lee he want wanted to find a way
to get information from this computer
over here to this user over here and the
question was how to get it in fact it
was basically technically trivial to go
and get it it just happened that you had
to be a gurer of the highest degree to
actually be able to navigate all the
networks and figure out all the programs
that you would come across on your way
and and know that uh what commands to
give them to actually get the data back
and the chances are when you got it back
you wouldn't be able to actually read it
anyway because of all the
incompatibilities started in October
writing a a program called which I call
worldwide web you're reading something
you could if it's interesting and you've
got right access to it you could just
highlight a phrase hit a hotkey control
shift in and it would bring up a another
window Tim burner Lee's greatest
achievement may have been giving an
address to every bit of information on
www.ring.com
that's my web page and this is the
address called called a universal
resource locator forget about that the
important thing is that you don't have
to know about names of files you don't
have to know where this is you just have
to remember cringely dcom and you're
there by inventing HTTP or hypertext
transfer protocol Tim figured out how to
embed an address under any word or
picture you like and then when you click
on that word or icon you automatically
jump through the internet to say the
cringely domain ah there's a website for Sore
Sore
Eyes the power of a hypex link is that
it can link to absolutely anything
that's the fundamental concept
fundamental idea was anything which was
out there somewhere sitting on a
computer disc where that computer was
attached to a network you ought to be
able to give it an address you ought to
be able to make a link to it the uh key
Insight that I think I credit Tim burner
Lee with is the URL the idea that
there's a uniform resource locator that
says I can point at any particular bit
of information on the internet if I mean
that you should go to this kind this
University look in their FTP archive
look in their file archives and download
this picture of a Corvette and put it up
on the screen I now have a way of doing [Music]
[Music]
Coca-Cola in fact Tim's idea wasn't new
20 years earlier computer Visionary Ted
Nelson author of the seminal hacker work
computer lib had proposed a Global
Network he called it zanadu a magic
place of literary memory after kid's poem
poem
kublan in zanadu did Kuan a stately
pleasure Dome decree where Alf the
sacred River ran through Caverns
measureless to man down to a sacred sea
zanadu was measureless too it involves
storing all the world's literature on
databases and accessing it through links
which Ted called hypertext
with an automatic system for paying
royalties to authors whose work was
used but like kid's Vision Nelson Xanadu
never saw the light of dayed down but
Tim's invention did and the worldwide
web turned a network for geeks into
something everyone could use though not everyone's
everyone's
pleased Tim burner Lee uh figured out
that the key was extreme
Simplicity and that's um
very painful to me because of course now
the Websters are trying to Grapple with
all the issues we were trying to solve
in a single design at the beginning and
the worldwide web uh is pretty awful I I
I I dearly love Tim berners Lee and I
think he's a great guy and a wonderful
idealist and has it just achieves wonderful
wonderful
things but the uh the unfortunate thing
about the worldwide web is just how how
messed up it is perhaps it's sour grapes
but at least Ted Nelson can claim the
creation of hypertext but does he
hypertext is obvious so I do not claim
to have invented hypertext I merely
discovered it and it's like the
telephone now the telephone at the time
seemed to be an in an invention to to us
now it was a discovery because it's
obvious okay so hypertext is like that
to me it was simply the obvious next
step of literature what is hypertext
hypertext is nonsequence
giving excuse me too Ted I must get back
to the worldwide
web Tim Sal solution for the world's
particle physicist turned out to be a
solution for everyone helping to network
incompatible computers CERN wasn't in
the internet business but in 1991 they
published the code and within 4 years
the worldwide web was sending more
packets than any other internet
service they took the bit bits and
pieces that existed and figured out a
way to put them together uh and make it
work uh it was a tour to force the
people who did the worldwide web were
really willing to take uh existing
pieces of things in God awful condition
in some cases and figure out a way to
make it work and the worldwide web
people deserve a lot of credit for what
difficult the web is Success precisely
because it is not a monolithic new
software product you don't get web 9.0
in the mail on cdrom the web is a
collection of a whole bunch of small
technologies that fit together cuz a
cple you know a couple dozen people all
thought about how they'd work together
cool and they're all being evolved
constantly in real time by thousands of
people around the world and there isn't
any Central release you can't go
web the fact that the worldwide web did
work I find it's not just exciting for
your but exciting for the whole idea
that you can have an idea you know some
idea and it can take off and it can
happen uh it means the of dreamers all
over the world should take heart and not
stop the web was a huge step toward
wiring the world but more changes were
to come one of these happened far from
CERN and far from Silicon Valley too it
happened here US government money made
possible the arpanet and the internet
but there was a catch there was no
Commerce allowed on the net when this
restriction was finally lifted it wasn't
Bill Gates or any of the other digital
Titans who turned the internet into a
commercial Marketplace no it was the
folks on the hill the custodians of
capitalism it was Uncle
Sam roll the drums and sound the
trumpets for the congressman from
Virginia's fighting 9th District The
Honorable Rick Boucher who in 1992
amended a law here are the historic
Words which made all the difference this
future ubiquitous Network for voice
video and data Communications of all
kinds will connect homes schools and
workplaces it will constitute an
essential ingredient for our future
economic competitiveness and will open
new worlds ofation
and services for all of the nation's
citizens this is Congress speak for you
may now buy and sell things on the net
what made it easy to do so was one more
software breakthrough time for another
word from the cringely glossery of geek
this word is browser it doesn't sound
like much kind of a laid-back word but
there's nothing relaxed about the
browser because it changed the face of
the internet here's how the internet
looked in the 1980s lists of texts
this is Stanford University but you'd
hardly know it from looking it's not
very user friendly it's actually hard to
find what you want and frankly it was
mainly a tool for nerds and then came
this an attractive easytouse shop window
a gateway to the riches of the internet
this is a browser and just as the Mac
made a PC into a computer my mother
could love the browser opened up the
internet to
everyone it was not at Stanford but on a
Midwestern campus that the Second Great
innovation of 90s internet technology
took place here a bright kid named Mark
Andre was earning minimum wage at nights
writing code in a supercomputer Center
at the University of Illinois his
prototype browser was a piece of
software called
Mosaic we ended up sort of in the middle
of the night starting this project that
we called Mosaic what we were trying to
do was just put sort of a human face on
the internet the internet at that point
was a tool for researchers and
scientists for years Bill Joy had been
telling me that someday we'd back a
21-year-old kid who would write software
that would change the world and lo and
behold sitting in my office is this
23-year-old not a kid I mean he's a very mature
mature
hulking young executive and uh Mark said
the software is going to change
everything for me this whole thing
started exploding with the invention of
the browser you know Mosaic because
suddenly the internet was accessible to
the average person through this Rich
graphical interface you didn't have to
know these Arcane protocols you didn't
have to be a nerded anymore to access
the internet Mosaic put a face to the
web and Mosaic plus the web then finally
gave us a way to express to the
non-technical person what all of us in
Computing knew was the tremendous value
of having networks interconnected and
now everyone's a Webhead and everyone's
excited about the web those ideas have
been present for 20 years but it took a
killer application clearly
Mosaic Mark Mosa browser spread across
the internet like wildfire it brought
him to the attention of an ex-stanford
Professor who had already made Millions
from one startup and felt like doing
another Jim Clark I said look if you can
if you can um recruit all of the guys
every single guy who helped you write that
that
program then I'll put my own money in it
and we'll just start a company and
figure out some way to make a business
out of it and that's that's exactly what
we did I put $3 million in we flew out
to University of Illinois
4 days later signed them all up after a
brief tussle with Illinois over the
Mosaic name Jim and Mark's new company
became Netscape their product was a
mosaic killer Navigator Jim's plan for
the company was well
minimalist but my attitude was if 20 25
million people are on the net today 1
million of them are using Mosaic this
was bur in mind April
94 um and we can displace Mosaic there's
2 four more million people who would
like a product like this presumably and
the market the the size of a net was
doubling roughly every year and a half
so I meant by the time we had our
products in the marketplace it would be
50 million people so you got to be able
to make money with 50 million people
using your product and that was that was
the sum total of the business plan at
that time it didn't take a rocket
science to figure out that there is a
big Market here and uh we had uh one
meeting with Jim and Mark after that
decided to invest and then set about on
a crash program of 120 days to hire four
vice presidents and a world-class CEO
and get the Netscape product shipped
wow well fortunately you had the money
uh fortunately I had the opportunity the
money was easy it was knowing the
opportunity and recruiting the people
well in about a year and a half's time
we had 65 million users most
rapidly uh assimilated product in
history in other words no one had ever
achieved an install base of 65 million
anything in fact I don't know if anyone
had ever a achieved that kind of install
base in anything except perhaps
Microsoft and beanie babies and Beanie Babies
okay in 1994 and 95 Netscape was known
as the fastest growing company in the
industry with all the requisite Valley
attributes shiny lowrise buildings
Generation X Workforce and a parking lot
reserved just for roller hockey today
they're famous for the fact that they're
going head-to-head with
Microsoft the folks in Illinois did some
clever work early on now that happened
to include andreon and you know Netscape
got formed but there was some clever
work done at Illinois there's always
going to be some clever work done
someplace that's not here hopefully
there's a lot of clever work done here
too but there's always going to be some
clever work done someplace else and
number two we had a big thing we had to
get done called Windows 95 and while we
managed to get a browser done and built
in because we weren't
asleep it didn't get the same kind of
passionate forward 100% Focus that we
love to give things because we had a lot
of that Focus already into doing the
basic job of Windows
95 and so a little bit of cleverness and
a little bit of sort of other priority
was all it took to create a window
that's how Dynamic and competitive this
industry is in which Netscape emerged we
also were making money on it you know
that was we our first full year of
business was $75 million in revenue and
the next year was 3375 million we were
until Microsoft kind of came in and
punched Us in the face we were the
fastest growing company in
history with his Navigator browser
dominating the internet these were sunny
days for Mark and Netscape the storm
would come
later thanks to the worldwide web and
the browser the internet was transformed
suddenly here was the recipe for
commercial opportunities in cyberspace a
giant Feast of digital Delights laid out
for anyone with a PC and a modem to
enjoy so how does it work the internet
is like a giant restaurant you're look
in a menu for something that appeals
order it the order goes off somewhere
and is served up by a waiter or waitress
well the internet's the same way the
individual PC that's ordering the
information is called a client and the
big computer at the end of the line that
provides what the client needs is called
the server these days it often takes so
long perhaps it should be called a
waiter the business of building these
servers is another of the opportunities
created by the internet and serving up
information turns out to be very
cakes the biggest of these information
providers is America Online a company
now worth $6
billion even in the real world of trains
planes and Automobiles many of us still
need a tour operator to package our
travel founder Steve case saw a similar
opportunity in the virtual world
offering beginners the internet
experience in an all-in-one
package now this may be a virtual world
but it still needs real
Hardware in all this talk of wiring the
world it's easy to forget that someone
actually has to do the job of wiring it
that's happening here at America
online's new data center in Virginia
where computers and routers and modems
are going in that are going to give 10
million people access to the internet
[Music]
Mail in 1982 bought my first computer
and wanted to hook it up and be part of
this this this online world and and went
to Great Lengths to make that happen
took many months hundreds of dollars to
get the modem to work with a software to
work with a cable to work with a
computer to actually connect to this
this this this uh world so it's was very
frustrating at the same time I found it
kind of exhilarating that I actually got
it to work and I was able to access
information and talk to people all
around the world from my little desktop
and witch talk Kansas which is where I
was living at the time so I thought the
whole thing was really quite magical and
the companies that are leaders in making
that happen and popularizing that
concept for a mainstream audience I
think going to be very very successful
and we'd like AOL to be in this new
interactive world what AT&T was in the
telephone business 100 years ago or
Microsoft has been more recently in the
in the software business there's a
there's a big opportunity
here oddly enough Microsoft wanted to be
the Microsoft of the online Market too
but for a change Microsoft didn't
succeed the Microsoft network was our uh
decision to get into the online service business
business
uh we thought that for people at home in
particular this would be explosive and
we we very much uh believe that to this
day uh electronic mail staying in touch
with your friends seeing what's going on
in local community getting upto-date
news uh and having that be nicely
packaged with chat sessions and neat new
that even I made a foray into this maret
Marketplace back in 1994 Apple computer
created an online consumer service
called eworld one of its notable
attractions was the columnist Robert X
cringley at the time I made this bold
statement so my job on eworld is to
create controversy and therefore get a
lot of people talking over the
electronic Back Fence impressive eworld
went belly up though Apple fights on and
me why do you think I'm shooing with the
guy who runs America online he has 10
million subscribers already but 80% of
Americans aren't wired that's what I'd
opportunity there are more users more
websites and more data sources joining
the internet every day plenty brings its
problems the more places you have to
look for information the harder it is to
find what you want we need help so
people have invented tools for the job
search engine another word invented for
the internet the worldwide web is an
enormous collection of database
libraries that hold information rather
than books the problem is how do you
find what you want to know in that
massive information well Librarians
cracked that problem years ago they
invented the
catalog rather than look individually
through all those books I can find what
I want by searching this card catalog on
the internet the same thing is
accomplished by a search engine it
continually Catal anog and indexes every
word in all those databases so if you
want to know about say the career of
Arnold Schwarzenegger go to the search
engine it searches its index and Presto
there's everything you ever wanted to
two things are constant in Silicon
soda and
change excite original product was just
a search engine now they built a
business around it they changed the
company name the offices changed from
grungy to glitzy and in 1995 they became
that web phenomenon an internet media
site across between and electronic
newspaper and a cable network funded by [Music]
[Music]
advertising we call ourselves publishing
on steroids so devoid of print paper ink
we do what a publisher does or a cable
provider does we aggregate consumers
around our programming and then we sell
that demographic back to
advertisers the different ways to make
money in the internet are just beginning
to emerge for excite the model is a
media channel with content to attract me
and advertising to catch my eye while
I'm there but there are other ways
pay-per-view mail order shopping of
every kind games auctions and services
with no earthly
parallel they're all putting their faith
in a new medium to deliver the big [Music]
[Music]
payoff every time a new visual medium is
invented one application drives the
market this was true for still
photography true for Motion Pictures it
was especially true for VCRs and it's
true for the worldwide web I'm talking about
about [Music]
[Music]
sex sex sells but there is a market for
it and it's true capitalism if there's a
market for it it will be filled and it's
legal and there's nothing wrong with it
in the beginning of this industry like
other Industries people are willing to
pay for adult content the home video
cassette industry is is a prime example
initially people were paying several
thousand dollars back in
the70s for machines uh to go home and
basically watch adult contown as part of
this job of course you have toe is there
is there a typing speed requirement no
you know you want to have your nails
manicured and everything and nails do
slip a lot on the keyboard sure but as
long as you just like simple things like
Hi how are you babe you know and you
could just put R you you don't have to
put the whole word down sure and then
most of the time you're saying oh yeah
baby so you go oh then you oh baby does
your mom know that the work you do yeah
actually she does yeah she's okay with
it you know it's a 60s thing she's all
in that 60s left oh you had a hippie mom
yeah so it's it's great now cool grandma
on the other hand would not understand
but then anything with computers oh
honey you're moving up in the world on
computers that computer thing that's
going far that's going far that's
Futures and computers so as long as I
tell about computers it's
fine it didn't take long for the
advertising industry to notice the
growing number of eyeballs staring at
websites or for website operators to
start selling those eyeballs to the
advertisers in 1999 online advertising
Revenue will reach 2 billion do and it's
been doubling each year how about
advertising well people say what a puny
number the software industry only had
$300 million in advertising for that
internet supported internet companies
that were supported by advertising I say
like yo a year before that we had zero
now we had 300 this March we had 57
million who thought we would own
advertising advertising is the most uh
frequent form of money-making for us and
we have enough people coming to our
various online sites that advertisers
are interested and so that's been uh for
the last two years uh the majority of
our Revenue but then uh merchandise as
well we have books we have primers email
well meet two wise fools Tom and Dave
Gardner they are dedicated to debunking
the gurus of Wall Street and sharing
Financial advice with other net users
the mly Fool's an archetypal web service
irreverent inclusive and informed and
growing like crazy in the internet
things change every three months you
just can't possibly prepare if we're if
a typical company grows about 10% a year
we're growing about 15% a month that
means each month feels like a year and
if you saw Dave he was about a foot and
a half taller about a year ago I was was
a fetching fella back then the Molly
fool today is a media company which is
whose mission is to teach people how to
invest their own
money we have 600,000 households coming
to the mle fool every month building
communities where people can aggregate
ideas let's say we have we put 100,000
people together in a block that are
going to buy insurance or they're going
to buy mutual funds if we can package
them together have everyone work
together we're going to be able to cut
prices significantly and that's the
beauty of of of going online of being
online you have a voice everyone has
their little publishing house right
there in their home everybody has ideas
to share what makes a good fool a fool
is someone who thinks for herself
somebody who uh is willing to roll up
his sleeves and make his own decisions
one size fits all actually yeah oh there
my reputation precedes me [Music]
[Music]
nothing foolish about saving money on
groceries a website called Planet you
sends your grocery coupons direct to the
checkout replacing bulk mail and saving
trees all at once the idea came from
hyper nerd Christine kford the key
concept is eating if you don't eat
you're dead Okay so how about taking the
most basic thing that we all have to do
right and bringing those packaged Goods
the people who promote this salsa
whatever Wheat Thins okay bringing those
people to advertise on the net cuz
you've got to buy paper towels
anyway so the thing is 325 billion
coupons are distributed in the USA
annually 2% are redeemed only 2% 2% yes
98% all right end up in the rubbish or
in the recycling it is totally
ineffective so once you grab your planet
U promotions either from a partner
website or from the planet U website you
can then say want my promotions mailed
to me or I want my promotions delivered
to the store that I shop at aha so you
can deliver them to the point of sale
system you walk in you identify Yourself
by swiping whatever card you set up as
your ID all right and then kaching the
register receipt has a [Music]
[Music]
deduction kaching is Right In 1995 there
were 27,000 commercial websites in 1998
3/4 of a million 30 times as many mail
order is becoming email order and you
don't have to dress up to go shopping in
fact you don't have to dress at all in
terms of infrastructure cost buying
underwear in your underwear is hard to
beat and if you buy the same underwear
you know exactly what the product is you
don't have to look at it you buy msing
wear 34s or what whatever you know
kangaroo pouch you know you know 12 pair
please mail it to my house there's this
very American temptation to use the
internet to sell things but what to sell
what everyone on the net can already
read and write so the first big
commercial success is using digital
technology to push that most analog of
products the printed word but this is
not Gutenberg being replaced by the
worldwide web it's Gutenberg enhanced
using modern technology to sell books
books in the spring of 1994 I came
across the statistic that web usage was
growing at 2300 a year and outside of a
petri dish I hadn't seen anything grow
that fast I made a list of 20 different
products that you might be able to sell
online and picked books as the first
best product primarily because there are
so many books there's no way to have a 2
and a half million title physical
bookstore the largest physical book
stores in the world only have about
175,000 titles and there's no way to
have a print catalog if you were to
print the amazon.com catalog it would be
the size of more than 40 New York City phone
phone [Applause]
books the basic technolog is fairly
simple problem was ubiquity of that
technology and this looked like because
of that growth rate the first time ever
that the basic technology needed to do
electronic Commerce in an acceptable way
would be ubiquitous so it actually turns
out that the ubiquity of the internet is
more important than the technology of
[Music] [Applause]
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the internet is creating the biggest
California job boom since the gold rush
and America is running out of homegrown
Engineers but the language of the
internet is English so wherever you come
from if you're a decent programmer and
speak English apply
here the sound of leather on Willow it's
a cricket game but we're not in England
we're in Santa Clara County the most
heavily wired and networked community in
the world the valley employs thousands
of Indian born Engineers who bring with
him not only their programming skills
and their engineering degrees but also
their Cricket balls and bats sunshine
and a field to play is all we ask for
since there's this big boom um in
America in Silicon Valley here um which
require a whole bunch of Engineers to
come all the way from India and know we
make the big you know U trip up to
America to work and then we come here
and find out that there's cricket being
played India is the second largest uh
country with the number of Engineers
after the United States in the whole
world so I think that is a factor and
the second thing is because uh it's an
english-based system it's a lot easier
for people to come from India and
integrate and uh do business in the
United States with the arrival of the
internet companies here can now fill
their job vacancies with skilled Indian
Engineers who don't have to leave India
could be bad news for the local Cricket scene
I work in an industry where there's zero
unemployment you can't get skilled labor
at any price so we're scouring the world
World Market to get programmers the
quality of the people is astonishing the
Loyalty of the people and the work ethic
the quality of their English I mean
everything just blew us away we just had
a fabulous have a fabulous experience uh
uh in Bangalore and we're expanding our
operations there very very rapidly [Music]
[Applause] [Music]
[Music] [Applause]
[Applause]
for all the outward differences India's
Silicon Valley has a lot in common with
my Silicon Valley starting with traffic
jams and construction everywhere the
street signs and billboards are all in
English Bangalore is busy and booming
because of the huge numbers of
programmers Western companies are
putting to work the internet has become
a worldwide digital communication
Network that rivals in size the
telephone system so here we are 12,000
Mi 12 time zones away from where I live
in Silicon Valley in California in
Bangalore the Silicon Valley of India
programmers here solve the problems of
users around the world companies founded
here serve customers in Europe and the
United States and it all happens because
internet so so what we have done is to
set up um company here the C of
investment which you which you see which
you made with a clear approach to do
work in India leverage those skills
develop those technology skills in India
so that we lever that for
Noel novel the netwar company from Utah
is constructing a new Indian
headquarters building here 21st century
labor we work with the G General
Electric almost all the units of GE uhuh
uh Allied signals uh sequin uhhuh
Xerox patnam investor services in Boston
uhhuh uh
Strom Sundar sankaran is a typical young
programmer in Bangalore Sundar offered
to take me to work with him on the back
of his motor scooter apparently every
one of his fellow programmers had
idea they say that in Bangalore every
second person writes code and everybody
honking is a major past time out here so
you tend to get bored you generally honk
for some time makes you feel
nice in India we have computers as part
of the curriculum now it starts from
class three grade three as you would
call it uhhuh so I've been doing some
kind of programming other since Class 8
when I was there it was Class 8 uhhuh so
once I finished my bachelors I got into
a non-formal Institute for Computer
Learning and then started programming
programmers in Bangalore are awake when
a America is asleep the internet has
perfected the 24-hour
workday you're working when your
customer is sleeping uhhuh okay to that
extent if he gives you a problem during
his working hours you solve it and send
it back to him by the time he starts
working so I mean it's it's a great
Advantage especially if you're doing things
things
offshore we get a call in the evening
through email saying there's a problem
next day morning when people come to the
US problem is solved while the customer
gets surprised saying well I just told
you at 5:00 in the evening how come in
the morning you guys solved it now the
problem is soled in other part of the
World by really using this 24-hour development
cycle it's not only cricet the British
Empire gave India it also made English
the language of government and higher
education which gives Indian Engineers
another great
Advantage people here know English
unlike Japan or China and places like
that people know English you know so
that is a Frank of you know software you
have to know
English my kids uh study in a English
medium school they cannot uh read or
write my own own mother tongue which I'm
able to do it but the next generation is
not able to do
that same way you will find that Indians
don't have problem speaking of languages
they can speak French they can speak you
know Belgian probably you know most of
the languages people going from here
they pick up very easily
for an American especially an American
from Silicon Valley it's almost
impossible to Imagine India as a high
technology Development Center I mean
just look around this this is amazing
the average person in an Indian School
learns at least three languages English
Hindi and their local language some of
them know five or six compare that to
American students think about it in
terms of computer languages what are
they they have uh syntax they have
characters they have objects they have
verbs what's the difference between C++
and Hindi not all that much really they
have a 5,000 Year tradition of
[Music]
don't after the worldwide web and the
browser there's a third breakout
invention that's driving the expansion
of the web
lifestyle it's called Java a network
programming language named after the 's
favorite fuel like the others it's
helped make the internet easier to use
for anyone anywhere and with any kind of
computer because the internet grew in
such a halfhazard way the computers on
it use many different programming
languages this wasn't a problem when the
networks were separate but when the
worldwide web made it possible for them
to communicate there had to be a way to
make it easy a guy named James Gosling
came up with the answer he invented a
language that would run the same on any
computer Compu one siiz fited all which
was good for business and like
everything else on the internet it had a
strange name Java maybe he drank too
much coffee while working on his
invention better than naming it
Budweiser one of the most brilliant
programmers on the planet Bill Joy
the greatest programmer in the world
came into my office one day because I'd
heard he was upset and I said James
goling what's the matter why aren't you
happy this was like in the early 90s and
he says I'm tired of dealing with all
this old Legacy computer environment
it's just for a great programmer it's
it's it's kind of like trying to fly by
flapping your wings and he said I want
to go out and create a new
environment it was conceived way back in
1990 91 time frame um by a few engineers
at Sun Microsystems who wanted to create
a better uh better World um in terms of
software delivery software um
deployment and they were imagining
consumers being plugged into this
network world what they didn't realize
at the time was it was the internet it
was going to be the internet
what's Java I mean Java is a building
material I mean it's it's like it's like
concrete um it's something that you can
use to build software out of but it's a
material that's got some some pretty
different properties the one that has
sort of gotten the most air time that
most people hear about is right once run
anywhere or being architecture neutral
uh where you can sort of write a program
once and it will actually run on different
different
machines um and it can Rove across the
network and I said I don't care what you
want to do whoever you want to do it
whenever how long however long with
whoever for as much money I'll set you
up in a room I'll give you all the raw
meat and Jolt Cola and potato chips you
want anything you need for as long as
you want just go do something great he
said really I said yeah now get out of
here so he went off we set him up in
downtown poo Alto and they started
hiring a bunch of really great people
and they you know it was kind of like
Groundhog Day they'd come out every now
and then they look around and I'd look
and see what they have and I go I don't
get it and they go okay so they'd go
back in certainly early on I don't think
Scott had a good idea what it was about
or what it was for um you know it was
sort of this this group of you know
rabble rousers off in the corner doing
something really odd that he didn't know
how it related to their main business um
and you know the truth is that at you
know in the early times it didn't relate
to the main
business everyone knows that if you go
to the computer store you have to buy
software that runs on Windows or a
different piece of software that runs on
the Mac with Java you could take a
single program and it will run on both
and it will run on both well that
opportunity was created because of the
the internet Because the Internet is a
mixed Network and it doesn't make sense
to have 20 versions of your software on
a single server so the promise of the
internet coincided just at the right
time with the great inventions by people
like James goling and the language it's
taken the World by storm it uh it's very
clearly now going to be in some 300
million computers just 3 years from now
I think there's 200 books on the market
right now on Java 4 million programmers
programming in it and it's only 700 days
old so that's phenomenal I've done many
things that have gotten very popular but
amongst a very sort of nerdy
Community um because the kind of stuff I
do is stuff that I have no idea how to
explain it to my
mom and and or even explain you know
even at a high level why it's
interesting to my mom and so it tends to
stay in a fairly closed community and to
have something that has touched people's
everyday lives um surprised that surprised
surprised [Music]
[Music]
me the 1990s internet has spun off two
significant challenges for Bill Gates
both netscape's browser and Sun's
programming language Java were not
invented at
Microsoft bill was slow to see the
challenge at first then he took action
here on the shore of Lake Washington
near Seattle stands a monument to Bill
Gates Brilliance or at least to his
money the last time anyone tried to
estimate Bill's new house was going to
cost $50 million but over the last two
years his wealth has increased at a rate
of $31 million per day so no matter what
it costs it doesn't matter Bill Gates
didn't get to be the richest man in the
world just because he's smart or just
because he's lucky it's because he's
smart and lucky and knows it and pushes
his every advantage to the
Limit Bill had largely ignored the
internet How could a non-commercial
Network offer a business opportunity but
by 1994 there was growing Buzz about the
web and Netscape especially among new
Microsoft recruits fresh from college at
the urging of the troops bill went
surfing it was an allnighter that
changed Microsoft and the internet
industry bill went down to his place on
the Hood Canal
and with instructions on how to get on
and what to go look for and he got on
and started looking around and then started
started
just going from sight to site and I
think eventually spent the greater part
of all night on the on the net and came
back and had a meeting and described
that uh
the experience and said that U he was
kind of Blown Away with just how much
was really there well we always assumed
that Microsoft would be our biggest
enemy um because they would have to turn
their attention to this uh we got lucky
for a while in that they just they
weren't paying attention um there were
people inside Microsoft who knew what
Microsoft should do to respond to us but
the management team of at Microsoft was
sort of almost willfully ignoring what
was happening Gates is a smart guy
unlike the management of IBM in the
middle 80s Bill Gates is awake and
functioning and he noticed that the
internet was not going to be ignored he
tried to ignore it briefly and then he
saw it wasn't quickly he saw in time he
saw that it wasn't going to be ignorable
what Bill Gates did was turn an industry
super tanker on a dime at first he
didn't really get the internet but once
he did he wrote a memo called the coming
internet tital wave and quickly
refocused the entire company on
responding to the new environment it's
like Henry Ford going into aircraft
production or Boeing into pizza delivery
but it worked Microsoft was ever
building just in a New
Direction Bill likes to have a general
feeling of paranoia throughout the
entire company as to you know who's
going to come along with something
that's going to destroy one or all of
our businesses and so people are very
receptive to um an understanding of of a
sudden Direction change when Bill
finally says that boy we better do
something about this um
instantly people get it I wrote a memo
at one point called the internet Title
Wave that very explicitly said you know
I've told you many times in the past I
think uh the internet is is a priority
I'm now telling you it is the priority
and the timing was very good there
because we were getting along in terms
of Windows 95 we thought we had that all
well understood and we could really get
a lot of energy focused on the inter
Microsoft announced to the world their
change of Direction on a date with
historic significance for Americans
Pearl Harbor day it was actually uh
Admiral Yamamoto who observed uh that he
giant we did a a big event on uh
December 7th must been
1995 where we for the first time showed
the world how this had all built up and
they saw hey this is pretty dramatic
this company uh is going to deliver
great internet
software so that saying it was an
epiphanies a little too much but uh
saying that that that it became the
centerpiece of our strategy that's
absolutely right you will hear from us
that you know we're not forming an
internet division uh to us that's you
know it's like having an electricity
division or a software division uh the
internet is pervasive in everything that
that we're doing the big break happened
at the famous Pearl Harbor day talk uh
um but you know Microsoft was doing a
bunch of stuff leading up to that and in
fact they have this they have this this
thing they do now which is every 3
months they come out and say you know
and reann nowc how hardcore they are
about the internet and and so they
they've like done that like five or six
times now when the slumbering giant
awoke this was the result Microsoft's
own browser the Internet Explorer a
product design spefic specifically to
compete with Netscape Navigator funny
don't they look alike but in 1996 there
was a big difference between them
Netscape Navigator cost business users
$49 Internet Explorer was free they're
working hard as you can see here
implementing all the standards we need
and what what do you think will charge
for that like all the others nothing
okay well that's quite a
deal ours was always not free it was
freely downloadable but if you were a
business using it you you had to talk to
Netscape about a licensing agreement
that was the way we felt we would be
able to make money in the early days and
that was the way we made money we made
75 million the first year in revenues
and 375 million in the second year the
third year ended ended up being
somewhere north of 500 million in
revenues and and I um we did that by
selling giving giving licenses for
companies to make companywide use of the
browser Microsoft's free internet
explorers started taking market share
from Netscape to people who care about
the market benefits of competition
that's a controversial thing to do
giving it away is an anti-competitive
technique they're trying to kill
Netscape by drying up its Revenue
sources and it's it should be illegal
they should not be permitted to do that
in if there's if any
antitrust has any use it's to go in now
and say you C you spend millions and
millions of dollars to develop the thing
and you Give It Away hm why are you
doing that clearly you're doing that to
damage Netscape you're not allowed to do
that Microsoft came along in an attempt
to put us out of business gave away the
browser totally free even to companies
who wanted to use it for business and it
it definitely had an impact on us as a
consequence we had to give give away our
browser the results were just as the
first exponent of giveaway software
would have predicted John McAfee if you
have two competing products and they are
on a par in terms of functionality and
usability the free one is the one that
will propagate I have the full maybe
that's why Microsoft is just a little
sensitive about whether they are or are
not giving their browser away
Microsoft's never been accused of not
knowing how to make money
uh it's it's pretty straightforward if
you can sell volume uh software you can
do quite well now in order to keep
windows very strong we felt having a
free browser that promoted our
extensions as well as providing all the
power of of all the other standards that
that was critical to our strategy and so
the browser investment is totally paid
for by the fact that it helps windows
and windows is a very good uh quite
profitable business do we give away
software I don't think so nobody ever
told us we were giving away
the print manager the thing that let you
configure printers in Windows it's just
a built-in piece of Windows the browser
similar is really a built-in piece of
Windows now we sometimes update it when
it's not time to update the rest of
Windows and so we basically sort of
think let's make sure people get all
those updates but in point of fact to
run our browser you got to own windows
so in a sense while the browser itself
may be free we're getting paid on May
18th 1998 the Microsoft Netscape dispute
took on a new dimension the US
government stepped into the fight the
Department of Justice filed an antitrust
lawsuit against Microsoft alleging
anti-competitive practices in the
browser Market the justice department
has charged Microsoft with engaging in
anti-competitive and exclusionary
practices designed to maintain its
Monopoly in personal computer operating
systems and attempting to extend that
monopo to internet browser software the
intervention of Uncle Sam into an
industry which until now hasn't had much
regulation is a seismic event in the
history of the internet it may take
years to resolve but you know I bet
Microsoft even has plans to deal with
regulatory Earth Dennis Netscape is the
is the leader and Microsoft is the big
Microsoft's playing the role of IBM if I
might go back to the mid 80s so
Microsoft is the big bumbling company
who got taken by surprise with the
internet and and Netscape is the
Microsoft has switched roles it's so
Microsoft is now the dominant Monopoly
which relies on much too often I think
on its size rather than its Excellence
to succeed well netscape's done a very
good job and you always expect new
people to come along I didn't know you
know what their name would be or who
they would be but there'll always be
every year uh companies that latch on to
what the latest thing is and and get a
lot of visibility uh and deliver
products that relate to that they're
ruthless and vicious and if they decide
they want the business you're in ask
anybody who's gone up against them
directly now in fact of course they
weren't in our Market when we
started so we were hardly going after a
market that they were aware of but they
then realized it could be a big market
and it's their god-given right to own
any big market and
software when you're up against Bill
Gates and his money and he is following
the strategy the best bet is to get into
another business you know just say okay
forget it I'll do something else in life
because you cannot compete with that so
who will win this battle of the browsers
well Microsoft's blitzk has already
taken a big bite out of Navigator's
market share forcing Netscape to match
Microsoft's tactics and give their
browser away is history repeating itself
will Bill Gates own the internet the way
he already owns the PC Universe I don't
think so no one owns the internet and
it's a big place growing so fast there's
always room for someone with a dream a
taste for Cola and a willingness to go without
without
sleep someone like Joe Krauss of excite
the 26-year-old Tycoon gives me a tour
of the new headquarters for his billion
dooll company this is where I figured
we'd film The Death of Spock scene okay
so you put me in here you put me in here
yeah and you turn the Halon on [Music]
[Music]
the last mind
her it's a new show it's a it's a show
Shamu hey you brought with you the alien
baby you know this is leaking security
level 10 we like the you like the garage
door you started in the garage now you
have a g this conference room is
actually called the garage uhhuh right
so we figure sort ofk back to Our Roots
here in the garage this for executive
caliber meetings heon the Bol the first
time we were with you guys was I don't
know 94 right three years ago 94 in
another garage and uh I had a sense at
that time just a just a little sense
that you basically had no idea what you
were in you know up against that hasn't changed
just looking around me and saying wow
you know we have all these fantastically
Dynamic people that we're working with
and you know this company exists here
because of us because of something that
we started and um that's insanely
gratifying I was sort of listening to
myself talk about this and think wow are
we really successful at this point have
we really gotten that big so that now
I'm telling small startup companies how
to you know how to do the same thing I
think that the remembering back to the
garage helps keep uh helps keep you
paranoid because you realize how quickly
things can go from garage to something
like this and I think we all feel
extremely proud and happy and of what's
been accomplished but I think that uh it
sort of reminds you that just as easily
as you can make it here you can make it
garage this is the Silicon Valley fairy
tale and there are thousands more little
gangs of dreamers eating burritos and
working all night to make their Fortunes
in the wired world so they could
celebrate one day with a trip to Hawaii
we had all said at some point you know
the six Founders were all going to take
a trip to Hawaii and it always was sort
of well when we accomplish the next
thing and when we accomplish the next
thing we'll do it so when we get our
funding we'll do it we got the funding
we didn't do it when we get our
strategic round of financing we'll do it
and we didn't do that when we get this
deal we'll do it we didn't do it we're in
in [Music]
[Music]
like so the exciteed guys got to Hawaii
at last Aloha Graham 4 years ago he had
a one6 share in a bag of rice today he's
worth $100
million dreams large and small can come
true in the age of the internet as any
computer billionaire will tell
you I went on a camping trip two weeks
ago with my family how did I find the
campground at homepage I got up there
and it showed the nice little bunnies in
the cabins and the tent sites boom I reserved right there on the spot let's
reserved right there on the spot let's go
go camping the internet has come a long way
camping the internet has come a long way from the halls of the Pentagon time
from the halls of the Pentagon time sharing and the first faltering attempts
sharing and the first faltering attempts at packet switching to my way of
at packet switching to my way of thinking the arpanet is the best
thinking the arpanet is the best investment this country has ever made
investment this country has ever made other than probably the Louisiana
other than probably the Louisiana Purchase no one owns the internet No One
Purchase no one owns the internet No One controls the internet the internet is
controls the internet the internet is the common Heritage of all humankind the
the common Heritage of all humankind the killer after the internet is
killer after the internet is telepresence it's using the net to be
telepresence it's using the net to be places that you don't have to go to we
places that you don't have to go to we want to have a conference where everyone
want to have a conference where everyone attends but nobody
goes so that's how you get your name on a
a ballpark maybe one day this will be
ballpark maybe one day this will be excite park or cringely park or a
excite park or cringely park or a virtual Park which everyone attends on
virtual Park which everyone attends on the web
[Applause] [Music]
[Music] but for peanuts and Cracker Jack and
but for peanuts and Cracker Jack and that authentic sunburn up in the
that authentic sunburn up in the bleachers I guess you just have to be
theut and Cracker Jack I don't care if I never come back cuz it's fruit for the
never come back cuz it's fruit for the whole team if they don't win it's a
whole team if they don't win it's a shame cuz it's 1 2 three strikes your
shame cuz it's 1 2 three strikes your out at the whole ball
[Music] woo funding for this program has been
woo funding for this program has been provided by the annual Financial support
provided by the annual Financial support of viewers like you and by the Alfred P
of viewers like you and by the Alfred P slan
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