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Nerds 2.0.1 - A Brief History of the Internet: Part 3 - Wiring the World | Multimedia HyperGuide | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Nerds 2.0.1 - A Brief History of the Internet: Part 3 - Wiring the World
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funding for this program has been
provided by the annual financial support
of viewers like you
remember excite by March 1997 after
three years they've gone from hacking
code in a garage to become an Internet
media company revenues from advertising
into the million and they've outgrown
office number three and time for another
move three years ago we visited with six
kids in a garage working on their dream
starting with eighteen thousand dollars
in a bag of brown rice
they built excite into a company with
two hundred 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
die we move from the garage to the
dining room we move from the dining room
to an office at 5,000 square feet we
move from that office to this office
about 12,000 square feet and now we're
moving to our final resting place
I wouldn't even guess that we would have
moved into the Garcia office that we
that we were at 2,000 square foot 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]
Excite is visible proof of the
Internet's astonishing progress its
growth mirrors the expansion of the
wired world in four years the number of
Americans using the Internet has risen
from five million to 62 million traffic
on the Internet is doubling every 100
days and the funds only just begun only
two years into this huge revolution
called the commercial use of the
Internet only two years I think where
other industries were just two years
into their lives I think where cars were
2 years and automobiles oh they were
terrible I mean bicycle wheels a tiller
for the steering wheel a motor that took
you at five miles an hour 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 a 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
modern 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 you even make meaning out of
life and out of death and that's a far
more powerful dynamic than cranking out
memos and doing financial analyses with
a spreadsheet
think of this as just a few milliseconds
after the Big Bang I mean we only barely
discern the fundamental laws of physics
what better place were a big bang
concerned the European laboratory for
particle research believe it or not this
is where the explosive growth of the
internet began here in Geneva
Switzerland the next great internet
breakthrough the world wide web was
created by an English programmer to make
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 that you get files
from different some computer email
exchange so that you could get email
from the proprietary systems to cross
borders and go into another proprietary
system and although I wasn't involved
with that that was the spirt there was a
lot of networking despite all this
networking there was no simple way for
CERN scientists to retrieve information
from each other's computers in fact it
was exactly like the internet on a small
scale obvious forever
what I'm trying to draw here is a
hundred and sixty thousand 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
berners-lee he 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 guru 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 know that what commands to give them
to actually get the data back and the
chances I went to get it back you
wouldn't be able to actually read it
anyway because overlay incompatibilities
started in October writing a program
called which I called World Wide Web
where 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 hotkey ctrl shift in and it
would bring up a another window Tim
berners-lee's greatest achievement may
have been giving an address to every bit
of information on the Internet you've
seen these things
ww cringe lee calm that's my webpage and
this is the address 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 cringe lucam 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 save the cringe lee domain
there's a website for sore eyes the
power of a hypertext link is that it can
leak to absolutely anything that's the
fundamental concept fundamental idea was
anything which was out there somewhere
sitting on a computer disk 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 key insight that I think I credit
Tim berners-lee with is the URL the idea
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
country 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 that so that's why the
characters HTTP backslash WW have become
as familiar as 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
Xanadu a magic place of literary memory
after Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan in
Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately
pleasure-dome decree where alph the
sacred River ran through caverns
measureless to man down to a sacred sea
Xanadu was measureless - 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
Coleridge's vision Nelson Xanadu never
saw the light of day but Tim's invention
did and the World Wide Web turned a
network for geeks into something
everyone could use though not everyone's
pleased Tim berners-lee figured out that
the key was extreme simplicity and
that's very painful to me because of
course now the Webster's are trying to
grapple with all the issues we were
trying to solve in a single design of
beginning and the world wide web was
pretty awful I mean 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 things but the
the unfortunate thing about the World
Wide 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 Hypertech is
obvious so I do not claim to have
invented hypertext I really discovered
it and it's like the telephone now the
telephone at the time seemed to be an
event in invention to us now it was a
discovery because it's obvious
okay so hypertext is like that to me was
simply the obvious next step of
literature what is hypertext hypertext
is known secuence giving excuse me to
Ted I must get back to the World Wide Web
Web
Tim's solution for the world's particle
physicists turned out to be a solution
for everyone helping to network in
compatible computers CERN wasn't in the
internet business but in 1991 they
published the code and within four years
the World Wide Web
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 and make it
work it was a tour de force the people
who did the world wide web were really
willing to take existing pieces of
things in god-awful condition in some
cases and figure out a way to make it
work and the World Wide Web people
deserve a lot of credit for what they
did I mean what they did was very difficult
why would success precisely because it
is not a monolithic new software product
you don't get web 9.0 in the mail on
cd-rom the web is a collection of a
whole bunch of small technologies that
fit together because a couple 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 anywhere to go buy
in fact the world wide web did work I
find this job just exciting for yourself
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 it
means that the dream is all over the
world you 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 - 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 fightin 9th district the
Honorable Rick voucher 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 of information 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 with one more software
breakthrough time for another word from
the cringe Lea glossary 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 text 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 easy-to-use 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 nineties internet
technology took place here a bright kid
named Marc Andreessen was earning
minimum wage at nights writing code in a
super computer 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 of scientists for
years Bill joy had been telling me that
someday we'd back at 21 year old kid who
would write software that would change
the world and lo and behold sitting in
my offices this 23 year old I'm not a
kid I mean he's a very mature hulking
shi young executive and Mark said the
software's gonna 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 it didn't have to be a
nerd 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 web
head and everyone's excited about the
web those ideas we've been present for
twenty years but it took a killer
application clearly mosaic marks mosaic
browsers 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 recruit
all the guys every single guy who helps
you write that program then I'll put my
own money in it and will distort 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 three million dollars in we flew out
to University of Illinois four days
later sign them all up
after a brief tussle with Illinois over
the mosaic name Jim and marks new
company became Netscape their product
was a mosaic killer navigator Jim's plan
for the company was well minimalist well
my attitude was if 2025 million people
are on the net today 1 million of them
are using mosaic this was bear in mind
April 94 and we can displace mosaic
there's 24 more million people who would
like product like this presumably and
the market with the size of the net was
doubling roughly every year and a half
so I mean by the time we had our
products in the marketplace it would be
50 million people since 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
was a big market here and we had one
meeting with Jim and Mark after that
decided to in dust him and set about on
a crash program of 120 days to hire over
for vice-presidents in a world-class CEO
and get the Netscape product shipped
well web time fortunately you had the
money 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 time we
had 65 million users most rapidly
assimilated product in history in other
words no one had ever achieved in a
stall base of 65 million anything in
fact I don't know if anyone had ever
cheat achieved that kind of install base
in anything except perhaps Microsoft and
in 1994 and 95 Netscape was known as the
fastest growing company in the industry
with all the requisite valley attributes
shiny low-rise 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
Andreessen and you know Netscape got
form but there was some clever work done
at Illinois there's always gonna be some
clever work done someplace that's not
here hopefully there's a lot of clever
work done here too there's always gonna
be some clever work done some place out
and number 2 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
for 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 but year of business was
seventy-five million dollars in revenue
and the next year was 375 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
thanks to the world wide web in 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 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 that 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
the biggest of these information
providers is America online a company
now worth 16 billion dollars even in the
real world of trains planes and
automobiles mean 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
and that's happening here at America on
lines 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
and beyond excuse me the 1982 bought my
first computer and wanted to hook it up
and be part of this this online world
and went to great lengths to make that
happen took many months hundreds of
dollars to get the modem to work with
the software to work with a cable to
work with a computer to actually connect
to this is this this world so it 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 Wichita 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 and making that happen and
popularizing that concept for a
mainstream audience I think they're
gonna be very very successful and we'd
like a well to be in this new
interactive world what AT&T was in the
telephone business a hundred years ago
or Microsoft has been more recently in
the the software business 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 decision to get into the
online service business we thought that
for people at home in particular this
would be explosive and we very much
believe that to this day electronic mail
staying in touch with your friends seen
what's going on in local community
getting up-to-date news and having that
be nicely packaged with chat sessions
and neat new software features we saw a
market for that [Applause]
[Applause]
even I made a foray into this
marketplace back in 1994 Apple Computer
created an online consumer service
called II World one of its notable
attractions was the columnist Robert X
cringe Lee at the time I made this bold
statement so my job on a world is to
create controversy and therefore get a
lot of people talking over the
electronic back fence he world went
belly-up though Apple fights on and me
why do you think I'm schmoozing with the
guy who runs America Online he has 10
million subscribers already but 80% of
Americans aren't liars that's what I'd
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 World Wide 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 mass
of information
well librarians crack that problem years
ago they invented the catalogue rather
than look individually through all those
books I can find what I want by
searching this card catalogue on the
Internet the same thing is accomplished
by a search engine it continually
catalogs 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 know about
two things are constant in Silicon
Valley is steady consumption of soda and
change excites original product was just
a search engine now they built a
business around it
they changed the company name the
offices change from grungy to glitzy and
in 1995 they became that web phenomenon
and Internet media site a cross between
an electronic newspaper and a cable
network funded by advertising we call
ourselves publishing on steroids so
devoid of print paper Inc 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 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 world wide web I'm
talking about sex [Music]
[Music] [Applause]
[Applause]
sex sells but there is a market for it
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 them in
the beginning of this industry like
other industries people are willing to
pay for adult content the home
videocassette industries is a prime
example initially people were paying
several thousand dollars back in the 70s
for machines to go home and basically
watch adult content as part of this job
of course you have to type is there is
there typing speed requirement no you
know you want to have your nails
manicure 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 put are you you don't have me put
the whole word down sure and then most
then old baby does your mom know that
yeah actually she does yeah she's okay
with it you know it's the sixties thing
she's all in that success
oh you've had a hippie mom yeah so it's
it's great now cool would not understand
but then anything with computers mm-hmm
oh honey you're moving up in the world
and computers that computer thing that's
going far that's going far it's futures
and computers so Zanna telling us
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 dollars and
it's been doubling each year
how about advertising well people say
what a puny number the software industry
only had 300 million dollars in
advertising for that internet support
its 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 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 for the last two
years the majority of our revenue but
then merchandise as well we have books
we have primers email services we do
free massages as well meet two wise
filiz Tom and Dave Gardner
they are dedicated to the bunking the
Guru's of Wall Street and sharing
financial advice with other net users
the Motley Fool's and archetypal web
service irreverent inclusive and inform
and blowing like crazy from 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
a I was a fetching fella back then the
Motley Fool today is a media company
which is whose mission is to teach
people how to invest their own money we
have six hundred thousand households
come in to the Motley Fool every month
building communities where people can
aggregate ideas let's say we have we put
a hundred thousand people together in a
block they're gonna buy insurance or
they're gonna buy mutual funds if we can
package them together have everyone work
together we're gonna be able to cut
prices significantly and that's the
beauty 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 is
willing to roll off his sleeves and make
his own decisions one size fits all
actually yeah oh there my reputation precedes
nothing foolish about saving money on
groceries a website called planet you
sends your grocery coupon direct to the
checkout replacing bulk mail and saving
trees all at once the idea came from
hyper nerd Christine come afford the key
concept is eating if you don't eat
you're dead okay so how about taking the
most basic thing 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 because you've got to buy
paper towels anyway the thing is 325
billion coupons are distributed in the
USA annually two percent are redeemed
to pers yes 98 percent all right end up
in the rubbish or in the recycling it is
totally ineffective so once you grab
your plenty of promotions either from a
partner website or from the planet your
website you can then say I want my
promotions mailed to me or I want my
promotions delivered to the store that I
shot that 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 catching the register receipt has a deduction
deduction [Music]
[Music]
Kerching is right in 1995 there were
27,000 commercial website in 1998 three
quarters 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 look at em you buy Munsingwear 34s
or whatever you know kangaroo pouch you
know you know twelve pair please mail it
to my house there's this very American
temptation to use the Internet to sell
things but what to sell well everyone on
the net can already read and write so
the first big commercial success is
using digital technology to push that
most analogue of products the printed
word but this is not Guttenberg being
replaced by the World Wide Web
it's Gutenberg enhanced using modern
technology to sell books lots and lots
of books [Music]
[Music]
in the spring of 1984 I came across the
statistic that web usage to ascribe 2300
percent 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
two and a half million title physical
bookstore the largest physical
bookstores in the world only have about
one hundred and seventy five thousand
titles and there's no way to have a
print catalog if you were to print the
amazon.com catalog to be the size of
more than 40 New York City phone books [Applause]
the basic tree knifes fairly simple
promise 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 the Internet
[Music] [Applause]
[Applause] [Music]
the Internet is creating the biggest
Californian 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 [Music]
[Music]
the sound of leather on willow it's a
cricket game we're not in England we're
in Santa Clara County the most heavily
wired and network community in the world
the valley employs thousands of Indian
born engineers who bring with them not
only their programming skills in their
engineering degrees but also their
cricket balls and bats sunshine and a
field to play is all we ask
since there's this big boom in American
in Silicon Valley here which for a whole
bunch of engineers to come all the way
from India you know we make the big you
know trip up to America to work and then
come here and find out that this cricket
being played India the second largest
country with the number of engineers
after the United States in the whole
world so I think that is a factor in the
second thing is because it's an
english-based system it's a lot easier
for people to come from India and
integrate and 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
I work in the industry with a zero
unemployment you can't get skilled labor
at any place so we're scouring the world
with world market to get programmers to
call either people is astonishing the
loyalty of the people and the work ethic
the quality of their English and
everything just blew us away we just had
a fabulous have a fabulous experience in
Bangalore and we're expanding or off
person that they were very very rapidly [Music]
[Music] [Applause]
[Applause] [Music]
[Music]
for all the outward differences India
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
miles 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
so what we have done is to set up the
company here the kind of investment with
you which is here which you are made
with a clear approach to do work in
India leverage those skills develop
those technology skills in India so that
we level it therefore Nowell Nowell
the net wear company from Utah is
constructing a new Indian headquarters
building here 21st century technology
built by pre-industrial labor we work
with GE General Electric almost all the
units of GA a light signals sequent
Xerox partner minister services in Boston
Boston
sundar San Caron 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
they say that in Bangalore every second
person writes code and everybody honks
at the traffic lights how can you remain
a pastime out here so you didn't tend to
get bored easily hum for some time it
makes you feel nice in India we have a
computer as part of the curriculum now
it's just some +3 grade 3 as you'd call
it so I've been doing some kind of
programming others since +8 when I was
there it was class 8 so once I finished
my bachelor's I got into a non formal
Institute for computer learning and I
started programming programmers in
Bangalore are awake when America is
asleep the Internet has perfected the 24
hour workday you're working when your
customer is sleeping ok to that extent
if it 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 a great advantage
especially if you're doing things
offshore began a call in the evening
through email saying there's a problem
next year morning when people come to
the u.s. problem is solved while the
customer gets surprised saying well I
just told your father bug in evening how
come in the morning you guys solved it
now the problem is solving other part of
the wall by really using this 24-hour
turbine cycle it's not only cricket 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 lingua
franca of Reynosa software you have to
know English [Music]
[Music]
my kids study in our English medium
school they cannot 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'll find that
Indians don't have a problem checking 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 is amazing the average
person in Indian school or at least
three languages English Hindi and their
local louder's 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 syntax
they have characters they have objects
they have verbs what's it in between C++
and Hindi not all that much whether they
have a 5,000 year tradition of
mathematics which we don't after the
world wide web and the browser is a
third break out invention that driving
the expansion of the web lifestyle it's
called the Java a network programming
language named after the Valley'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 haphazard way the computers on it
used many different programming
languages this wasn't a problem when the
networks were separate but when the
World Wide 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 one size fit at 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
Budweiser
one of the most brilliant programmers on
the planet bill joy calls him the
greatest program
world came to my office one day because
I heard he was upset and I said James
Gosling what's the matter why aren't you
happy this was like in the early
nineties and he says I'm tired of
dealing with all this old legacy
computer environment just for a great
programmer 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 timeframe by a few engineers at
Sun Microsystems who wanted to create a
better better world in terms of software
delivery software deployment and they
were imagining consumers being plugged
into this networked world but they
didn't realize at the time was it was
the internet it was going to be the Internet
Internet
what's Java I mean Java is a building
material I mean it's it's like it's like
concrete it's something that you can use
to build software at out but it's a
material that's got some some pretty
different properties the one that has
sort of gotten the most airtime the most
people hear about is write once run
anywhere or being architecture neutral
where you can for the writer program
once and it will actually run on
different machines and it can Rove
across the network and I said I don't
care what you want to do wherever you
want to do it whatever how long ever
along with whoever for as much money
I'll set you up in a room I'll give you
all of Rami 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 I get
out of here so he went off we set him up
in downtown Palo Alto and they started
hiring a bunch of really great people
and they you know it's kind of like
Groundhog Day they'd come out every now
and then they'd look around and I'd look
and see what they had I don't get it
they go ok so they go back in certainly
early on I don't think Scott had a good
idea what it was about or what it was
for you know it was sort of 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 and you know the truth is
that at you know in the early times it
didn't relate to
in 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 can 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 Gosling in the language it's taken
the world by storm it it's very clearly
now gonna be in some 300 million
computers just three 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
among the very sort of nerdy community
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 explaining you
know even though the high level why it's
interesting to my mom and so it tends to
stay in a fairly close community and
have something that has touched people's
everyday lives surprised that surprised me
[Music]
the 1990s Internet has spun off to
significant challenges for bill gates
both netscape browser and sons
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 is
going to cost fifty million dollars but
over the last two years his wealth has
increased at a rate of 31 million
dollars per day so no matter what it
cost 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 blowing 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 all-nighter that changed
Microsoft and the internet industry
no went down to his places 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 just going from site to site and
I think eventually spent greater part of
all night came back and had a meeting
and described the experience and said
that he was kind of blown away with just
how much was really yeah well we always
assume that Microsoft would be our
biggest enemy because they would have to
turn their attention to this
we got lucky for a while in that they
just they weren't paying attention there
when people inside Microsoft who knew
what Microsoft should do to respond to
us but the management team of Microsoft
was sort of almost willfully ignoring
what was happening in cases a smart guy
unlike the management of IBM in the
middle 80s Bill Gates is awake and
functionally 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 gonna be ignoring
what Bill Gates did was turn an industry
supertanker on a dime at first he didn't
really get the Internet but once he did
he wrote a memo called the coming
Internet tidal 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 dole likes to have a
general feeling of paranoia throughout
the entire company as to who's gonna
come along with something that's gonna
destroy one or all of our businesses and
some people are very receptive to an
understanding of a sudden direction
change when bill finally says that boy
we better do something about this
instantly people get it I wrote a memo
at one point called the internet tidal
wave that very explicitly said you know
I've told you many times in the past I
think the Internet is is a priority I'm
now telling you it is the priority and the
the
timing was very good there because who
are 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 Internet
Microsoft announced to the world their
change of direction on a date with
historic significance for Americans
Pearl Harbor Day it was actually Admiral
Yamamoto who observed that he feared
we did a big event on December 7 in 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 is going to deliver great
Internet software so the saying that was
an epiphany is a little too much but
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
to us that's you know it's like having
an electricity division or a software
division the Internet is pervasive in
everything that that we're doing the big
break happened at the famous Pearl
Harbor they talked 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 three months they
come out and say you know Andrey
anounced how hardcore they are about the
internet and and so they have 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 designed
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 we'll
charge for that like all the others
nothing okay but that's quite a deal
ours was always not free it was freely
downloadable but if you were a business
using it 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
up ended up being somewhere north of 500
million in revenue Stan and I we did
that by selling giving giving licenses
for companies to make company-wide use
of the browser Microsoft's free Internet
Explorer started taking market share
from Netscape the 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 drawing up its revenue
sources and it's it should be illegal
they should not be permitted to do that
in any antitrust has any use its to go
in now and say you caught you spend
millions and millions of dollars to
develop the thing and you give it away
hmm 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 definitely had an impact
on us as a consequence we had to give
away give away our browser the results
were just as the first exponent of give
away 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
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 it's it's
pretty straightforward if you can sell
volume software you can do quite well
now in order to keep Windows very strong
we felt having a free browser that
promoted our extensions and
well as providing all the power 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 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 lets
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 on 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 monopoly 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 earthquake that scape 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 eighties so
Microsoft is the big bumbling company
who got taken by surprise with the
internet and might and Netscape is the
Microsoft has switched roles as
goodnight 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 that escapes done a very good job
and you always expect new people to come along
along
I didn't know you know what their names
would be or who they would be but
they'll always be every year companies
that latch on to what the latest thing
is and and get a lot of visibility and
deliver products that relate to that for
their ruthless and vicious and if they
decide they want the business you're in
ask anybody who's gone up against them
directly 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
this 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 blitzkrieg has already
taken a big bite out of navigators
market share
forcing Netscape to match Microsoft's
tactics and give their browser away is
history repeating itself will Bill Gates
on 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 sleep
someone like Joe Kraus of excite the 26
year old tycoon gives me a tour of the
new headquarters for his billion-dollar
company this is where I figured we
filmed the death of Spock scene okay you
put me in here you put me in here yeah
and turn the Halon on [Music]
[Music]
the last mine melt tell my wife I love
her it's a new show it's a show every 90
minutes I'm like Shamu hey you brought
with you the alien baby you know this is
leaking security level ten actually
called the garage right so we figure
sort of hark back to our roots here in
the garage for executive calendar
meetings he dons the bulb the first time
we were with you guys was I don't know
ninety-four three years ago 94 in
another garage and 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 that's insanely
gratifying I'm 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
that you know how to do the same thing
because I think that the remembering
back to the garage helps keep-- 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
what's been accomplished but I think
that it sort of reminds you that just as
easily as you can make it here you can
this is the Silicon Valley fairytale 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 to 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 didn't do that when we get
so the Excite guys got to Hawaii at last
Aloha gram four years ago he had a
one-sixth share in a bag of rice today
he's worth a hundred million dollars
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 an old age their each other
nice little bunnies and the cabins and
the tent sites boom I reserved right there on the spot let's go camping the
there on the spot let's go camping the Internet has come a long way from the
Internet has come a long way from the halls of the Pentagon I'm sharing and
halls of the Pentagon I'm sharing and the first faltering attempts that gets
the first faltering attempts that gets with you to my way of thinking the
with you to my way of thinking the ARPANET is the best investments this
ARPANET is the best investments this country has ever made other than
country has ever made other than probably the Louisiana Purchase no one
probably the Louisiana Purchase no one owns the internet no one controls the
owns the internet no one controls the Internet the internet is the common
Internet the internet is the common heritage of all humankind the killer
heritage of all humankind the killer after the Internet is telepresence it's
after the Internet is telepresence it's using the net to be places that you
using the net to be places that you don't have to go to we want to have a
don't have to go to we want to have a conference where everyone to tens but
conference where everyone to tens but nobody goes so that's how you get your
nobody goes so that's how you get your name on a ball park maybe one day this
name on a ball park maybe one day this will be exciting our or prims Lee Park
will be exciting our or prims Lee Park or a virtual park which everyone attends
or a virtual park which everyone attends on the web
on the web [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 against it just have to be boy
[Applause] buy me some peanuts and
[Music] - three-strikes-you're-out happy home
- three-strikes-you're-out happy home [Applause]
[Applause] [Music]
[Music] funding for this program has been
funding for this program has been provided by the annual financial support
provided by the annual financial support of viewers like you
of viewers like you and by the Alfred P sloan Foundation
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