Hard Knocks, Age Transform Marc Andreessen 103
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Marc Andreessen, the brain behind Netscape, has spent the past several years engaged in an old-fashioned pursuit: rebuilding a traditional software company, Opsware, and trying to make it profitable, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'That he is making progress will be evident next week when the company expects to report a hefty quarterly revenue increase. In the process, he has settled down personally, morphing from technical whiz kid into serious businessman — the kind who delegates authority, makes sales calls in suits and dabbles in philanthropy. His experience helping bring Opsware back from the brink of financial disaster — in 2001, the company, then called Loudcloud Inc., staged a disappointing IPO and later had to completely overhaul its business to stay afloat — also has been formative, those who know him say.'"
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Actually, I'm sure he'd like it to become another netscape; netscape was the final word in browsing back in the day (before msie was standard). The problem was it fell behind it's competitors and sort of lost focus.
References: [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_Commun i cations_Corporation]Wikipedia[/url]:"Netscape had a successful IPO on August 9, 1995. The stock was to be offered at $14 per share; a last-minute decision doubled the initial offer
Re:Interesting.. but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Netscape was a great business (and had a great browser) when it was sold to AOL for $4.2 billion in 1999. Most of the issues with the browser started after that.
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AOL bought Netscape for so much money primarily because of its netscape
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Ironically that's because it was the default page for Netscape to open up to. Absent some action by a user to exlpicitly set it somewhere else (and where else was there) the outcoe could be nothing else.
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Firefox at least has the wisdom to let users choose what kind of extra pork to add to the browser via the beautifully simple extensions manager. That and they keep the mail cl
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I'd already ditched it by then. The problem was that it was getting worse at a much faster rate than MSIE was at getting better. All those nasty script errors that caused pop-ups (because Netscape had no idea how to handle them). And then there was the browser being junked up by useless extras (news reader, email program, etc) that you had to p
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Really??? That's not how I remember it. I myself am aligned with Charles Ferguson's (yeah, arrogant) take [amazon.com] on the matter...
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You're crazy. Here's what Netscape had when they were bought by AOL for $4.2 billion:
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First of all, I never said Netscape was worth $4.2 billion or that AOL got a great deal. I just said it was a great business at that time. Since it was bought it has been severly mismanged by AOL. $4.2 billion was an outrageous price, but that's what things were selling for at the time. It did have clear assets that would be highly profitable today if they had been managed properly.
A browser that was mostly given a
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"Makes sales calls in suits" (Score:2, Offtopic)
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Re:"Makes sales calls in suits" (Score:4, Insightful)
It is interesting how important attire can be. It reminds me of that picture of the early staffers at Microsoft with the caption "Would you have invested?" But on the flip side, even with a good idea, it is tough to make sales in sandals and shorts....
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That's about what I was thinking too.
And that's just internally.
RTFA (Score:2)
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I love a vague or misleading sentence as much as the next slashdotter, but I can't resist the opportunity to comment. A call can technically be a visit, at least if you've read lots of old literature. "A gentleman caller" was a young man who visited a woman to take her out. The same sort of thing could apply to businessmen. A sales call could, and probably was, an in-person visit between two businessmen.
Of course, the invention of the telephone and its corresponding telephone call do much to muddy the
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Marc Andreessen stood on the shoulders of people like Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, Robert Kahn, Jon Postel, etc. Visionary? No. Opportunist? Yes!
I don't knock the guy for trying to make a buck. I knock t
Bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
Myspace? Jesus give me a week I can duplicate it.
Facebook? You cannot even search the "messages" you get. Christ how hard is that?
YouTube? Uh...?
None of these sites are that amazing. They were just there at the right time and place.
Loudcloud was a loser from the start (Score:5, Insightful)
It sort of reminds me of a company I used to work for that has continually stayed just above the edge of bankruptcy by completely changing its business model (and its name) to fit the trend of the moment. It started out as a cable company, became an ISP during the boom, then became a wireless ISP, and now it's a real estate company.
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Wow. I'm a pretty goddamn jaded motherfucker when it comes to VA Linux, and I *worked* there. You're completely wrong. You're an AC, so I'm not going to go into how stupidly wrong you are.
Emm
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Unless, of course, you were to believe the article in Wired a couple years ago on LoudCloud. I used to subscribe, and there were parts I enjoyed, but man, nine times out of ten, the 'next big thing' featured in Wired turns to snot.
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Sounds like my telephone company.
Before and after battling Microsoft (Score:3, Funny)
Mr. Andreessen... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Mr. Andreessen... (Score:5, Funny)
There is no joke.
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-Eric
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-Eric
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1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line.
2. A mischievous trick; a prank.
Contrary to parent's belief, there was not joke.
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So, yeah.
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I'm SO enlightened right now, I'm glowing - GLOWING I tells ya!
He's deep into the Dark Side (Score:3, Funny)
the kind who delegates authority,
Yup. That's one of the first signs.
makes sales calls in suits
That's the seventh sign, unless you're hasidic, then it's the third, although gnostics numer it fourth.
and dabbles in philanthropy.
And that's the bottom. Darth Vader gave lots of surplus Imperial cheese to orphans. Emperor Ming would write checks to the Mongo Salvation Army. And then there's Ronald McDonald House as an attempt to karmically balance the hideous doings of that evil clown. It's all just a front.
mmmmm (Score:1)
Mmmmm. surplus imperial cheese. mmmm... That must be the reason Homer turned to the dark side. But seriously, this kind of thing is done all the time. The fascist dictator of Venezuela has given free heating fuel to a few Americans. His apologists never hesitate to point this out: "Who cares if he blames Jews for all the evil of the last 2000 years and wants Iran to have nuclear bombs and have them soon? He gave poor people GAS!"
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So does Taco Bell, but no one apologizes for them.
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Second most overrated man in tech (Score:3, Insightful)
http://web.archive.org/web/20030212202753/http://
The fact that he gets glowing articles for wearing a suit is a true case of the soft bigotry of low expectations.
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Re:Second most overrated man in tech (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the WSJ, what do you expect? That a newspaper of the PHB's, by the PHB's, and for the PHB's should see a former iconoclast going corporate as a praiseworthy sign of maturity isn't exactly a surprise.
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It's not wrong. (Score:1)
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Kudos to Mark for making a company work instead of cutting his losses and closing the doors.
Hard knocks? Yeah right! (Score:3, Insightful)
Want some hard knocks? Try not working for 6+months because of the dot-com slump; try working your way back to your pre-dot-com salary from a figure less than half that once you WERE able to find a job!
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Given how much he sold Netscape for, I wouldn't be surprised if he tried not working for 6+ months because of the dot-com boom.
Is it just me? (Score:3, Funny)
Headline Cut Short (Score:3, Funny)
"Hard Knocks, Age Transform Marc Andreessen into giant battle robot!"
Sloppy coder? (Score:2)
It seems like he had a lot of emacs responsibility at one time. Wouldn't that have to be earned?
JWZ mentions him here. [jwz.org]
Linuxgazette mentions his work on HTML extensions for emacs here [linuxgazette.net].
I saw a documentary on this! (Score:2)
Anyways, he took this blue pill and life went on as normal
ws
tim, take a bow (Score:2, Interesting)
The real Question is .. (Score:1)
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From the fourth sentence OF THE SUMMARY: "His experience helping bring Opsware back from the brink of financial disaster -- in 2001, the company, then called Loudcloud Inc...." I'm guessing you never did do too well on those pesky reading comprehension tests...
Re:he has a new company? (Score:5, Informative)
Loudcloud was a managed hosting provider, that also made software that allowed servers/network devices to be monitored, deployed and controled with a small number of highly technical staff. The benefit to the customer is/was that they don't have to pay for the high priced technical staff that is needed to host their site. Loudcloud had some of the best people I have ever worked with. It was a great place to work at. Sadly, because of some mistakes, Loudcloud ended up running very low on cash and management decided to sell the hosting part of the company to EDS (which already had a hosting division).
If you have the chance to look at Opsware's newest products (NAS & SAS), you should. I recently saw a demo of the NAS product (Network Automation tool), and it is super slick. The product flat out rocks. You can manage all of your switches, firewalls, routers, and load balancers, through a very slick web interface. A very nice product.
Re:Oh how times change (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering Mosaic was the first web browser to run on Windows, it is very much accurate to credit Marc Andreessen with setting the World Wide Web into motion and bringing it to the people. Meanwhile Microsoft missed the boat and only entered the browser market when it became very obvious that this Netscape thing was becoming very profitable and they wanted a piece. They then copied every aspect of the browser, packaged it into their operating system, thereby locking people in unknowingly, and to this day they continue to willfully 'invent new features'(read: break agreed upon standards) in order to keep other browsers out of their cheaply earned monopoly.
So. 'Visionary' turns out to be an apt label for him. Apt, I say!
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Unfortunately this often results in people tak
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Please enlighten us about this terrible clash. Please tell us when Microsoft began to ship IE with their operating systems. Please quote the year when NS3 and NS4 were released, and the year IE4 was released. Then ask anyone (anyone) about the quality of the Netscape browsers after version 2.0.
As a parallel exercise, you may also cite the year Microsoft started shipping a media player with their operating systems, and the numb
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I never said that Netscape was a perfect browser, or that Marc Andreessen didn't screw up his advantage. I just said he was a visionary. Which he was.
In fact I just conceded that he wasn't a good businessman.
Read my reply to your other rant.
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Are you ready to admi
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Yes, MSHTML is really no better than the Spyglass renderer. I still don't see how this "they didn't develop it" thing maps. By your definition then Firefox is really no better than Spyglass as well? After all, all that code was also "stolen", right?
Are you ready to admit the possibility
No. Understand I'm not trying to give you a hard time here. You were the one who questioned what I said to begin with, and two posts later followed up with the "Microsoft killed
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No, you claimed he was a visionary who was somehow damaged by a "monopolistic behemot". Now, unless I misread what you wrote, I'd love for you to prove me wrong.
Please understand though - I'm not contesting that Andreessen's contributions are useless or unimportant. Not by far. What I do frankly find insulting is the idea that he was just a poor guy with lots of talent, incredible business acumen and generally just a fantastic dude that got "crushed" by Microsoft. That is
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Um, I don't know what aspects of the browser you're not supposed to "copy". Did you level that accusation at Opera too?
'Visionary' turns out to be an apt label for him.
Your memory must be failing. Both Andreessen and Jim Clark essentially claimed they had pretty much "invented" the "internet" time and time again back way when Netscape was the darling of the stock market and they had zero competitors. The traditional media lapped that up as fact. I remember s
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Um, I don't know what aspects of the browser you're not supposed to "copy". Did you level that accusation at Opera too?
I don't know - by not copying it?
First of all Opera came after Mosaic(1992) and Internet explorer(1995) in 1996, and by that time the standard interface was entrenched in the popular consciousness. What you are saying here again proves my point. The fact that every browser since Mosaic has used basically the same interface layout invented by Andreessen pretty much proves that no one else ha
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Do you have a specific cite of this? That he specifically *invented* the layout and the concepts? I'd love to see it.
I don't ever recall Andreessen
The fact that you don't "recall" does not mean it's not true. Surely it's not my fault that you were young at the time.
In fact he's on record for crediting Al Gore
I don't understand how that is relevant. Please find me a specific instance where Andreessen or Clark specifically said "well, it was really the fol
You must be quite young. (Score:2)
There was HotJava, a browser developped by Sun in Java, more as a proof of concept of the language than as a real application powerhouse, and there was Amaya, the W3C browser released to test compliant HTML code.
And that was pretty much all the game in town.
You can find all this by yourself, to ask for references to what is pretty much well dcoumented history is lazy and disingen
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I'd give Jim Clark the credit for that aspect of it though. If Clark hadn't turned Netscape into a "business" it's pretty uncertain what would have happened with Andressen...succesful, probably. Fiendishly rich? Who knows.
a little clarification (Score:1)
* Marc Andreessen was an undergrad when he co-wrote the first version of Mosaic, for UNIX/X Windows, with Eric Bina.
* Eric Bina co-wrote the first version.
* Aleks Totic ported Mosaic to the Macintosh.
* Jon Mittelhauser and Chris Wilson ported Mosaic to Microsoft Windows on the PC.
* Rob McCool and his brother
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Uh I think you misspelt Al Gore's name