Welcome BACK to the Internet History Podcast. After essentially a 5 year hiatus, the Internet History Podcast is back, fully back, a whole slate of episodes coming to you, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to have our relaunch episode be with Jimmy Wales. What can I tell you? He’s the founder of Wikipedia. We get deep into the history of all that but also get into how he’s thinking about the web and Wikipedia in this age of AI.

Chapters

00:00 The Return of the Internet History Podcast

00:58 Exploring Trust in the Digital Age

04:09 Growing Up with Knowledge

11:53 The Journey into Technology and Finance

16:58 The First Encounters with the Internet

18:38 The Spark of Entrepreneurship

20:09 The Birth of Bomis and New Ideas

27:13 The Transition from Newpedia to Wikipedia

31:57 Navigating Challenges and Building Trust

42:25 Moments of Realization and Trust in Wikipedia

48:05 From Startup to Nonprofit: A New Direction

51:17 Lessons in Nonprofit Fundraising

53:02 Transparency and Community Engagement

01:00:21 Wikipedia in the Age of AI

01:07:29 The Future of the Open Web

01:08:58 Defining Purpose in Knowledge Platforms

01:12:05 Building Trust in Personal and Political Life

Takeaways

Wikipedia's growth was fueled by community engagement and open editing.

Trust is essential for the success of any platform.

The transition from Newpedia to Wikipedia was a pivotal moment.

Transparency in operations fosters community trust.

AI's impact on knowledge sharing is significant but manageable.

Defining a clear purpose helps in moderating content.

Wikipedia's model demonstrates the power of decentralized knowledge.

The importance of assuming good faith in online interactions.

Nonprofit status allows for a focus on mission over profit.

Building trust in personal and political life is crucial for society.

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People know that a16z changed tech by turning VCs and founders into rock stars. You know the names. But there’s one name you might not know, that real heads, deep inside the industry have known very well over the years. The legend, Margit Vennmachers. You know all those a16z names because of Margit, because of how she helped Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz and others build a16z into the most prominent VC firm in the world. This is a conversation with Margit about her entire career, her philosophy on coms and marketing and PR, and how a16z evolved. From the story behind Software Is Eating The World to how startups can build and burnish their own legend, from the woman who, behind the scenes, those in the know knew was making it happen.

Chapters

00:00 Intros

02:13 From Farm Life to Tech Dreams

03:56 Navigating Grief and Independence

09:38 Cultural Shifts: From Germany to Silicon Valley

12:25 The Early Days of Silicon Valley

21:05 Launching Outcast Communications

25:15 Building Credibility in the Startup World

27:31 The Rise of Facebook and Industry Cycles

29:43 Navigating Economic Cycles and Client Relationships

30:53 The Decision to Sell Outkast

32:43 Founding A16Z: The Backstory

36:48 Marketing Strategies for A16Z

42:00 The Evolution of Tech Leadership

43:53 The Role of an Operating Partner

46:39 Crisis Management in Tech

51:42 The Concept of 'Software is Eating the World'

55:41 Lessons from Two Decades with Mark and Ben

56:49 The Future of Tech and AI

58:06 Margit's Transition to Partner Emeritus

Takeaways:

Margit's upbringing on a small farm shaped her resilience.

Grief can lead to early maturity and self-reliance.

Her first tech job sparked a curiosity about the industry.

Cultural differences in Silicon Valley were eye-opening.

Founding Outcast Communications was driven by inspiration, not frustration.

Crisis management is crucial in maintaining a company's reputation.

PR for startups requires a focus on storytelling and relationships.

The dot-com bubble taught valuable lessons about sustainability.

A16Z's approach to venture capital emphasizes personality and visibility.

The future of tech is intertwined with the responsible use of AI.

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Summary

Ken and Roberta Williams were the founders of the legendary PC gaming company Sierra Online. Assistant Professor of Digital Media in the School of Literature, Media and Communication at Georgia Tech, Laine Nooney, joins the show to discuss the history and legacy of Sierra Online. You can find out more about Laine's work at her website, LaineNooney.com and by following her on Twitter at Sierra_OffLine.

Pictures of Ken and Roberta Williams:

Picture 1

Picture 2

A screencap from King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne

A screencap from Kings Quest V

A screencap from Leisure Suit Larry

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Summary

Larry Kramer was the founder of MarketWatch.com. He’s also been the President and Publisher of USA Today and he’s currently interim CEO of TheStreet.com. We talk to him about creating a brand like MarketWatch in a space dominated by powerful incumbents like The Wall Street Journal, CNBC and others. But we also hear what it was like to work in the legendary Washington Post newsroom in the 1970s and 80s, as well as what it takes to bring success to modern media properties like USA Today in the digital era. If you want a first hand primer of when digital and old-world media collided, you couldn’t do better than to listen to the career path of Larry Kramer.

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Summary

Marc Tarpenning, along with Martin Eberhard, was the cofounder of Tesla Motors back in 2003. But before that, Tarpenning and Eberhard were also the cofounders of NuvoMedia, which produced one of the world's first ebook devices, the rocket eBook. So, for the first part of the episode, Mark recounts the story of NuvoMedia and then about 25 minutes in we begin the founding of Tesla, in my opinion, perhaps the most amazing startup story of the last 20 years.

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Summary

Tom Rielly was the founder of PlanetOut, the largest LGBT website and community of the 1990s. Tom recounts the unique impact the web and online technology had on the LGBT community and, prior to that, remembers the early days of the Mac industry. But of course, Tom is best known today for his work at TED, where he is director of Community as well as the TED Fellows program. So we get some interesting TED history as well, especially how posting TED Talks online has transformed the organization.

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Summary

What more do I need to say? Joey and Carl are back for round two.

You can visit the Suck archives here.

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Summary

I can't be sure about this exactly, but I would hazard to say Rafat Ali is possibly patient zero when it comes to taking a blog and turning it into a real, 21st century media company. Before the Huffington Post, before TechCrunch, even, maybe, kind of, before Gawker, Rafat founded PaidContent in 2002. He later sold it to the Guardian Media Group in 2008. Today he is the CEO of Skift.com, a media vertical in the travel industry space. Rafat has such an amazing story: an immigrant's story, an accidental entrepreneur's story, and, basically, the first-hand story of how blogging morphed into "professional," modern digital media. 

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Summary

Matt Kursh was a part of the pre-web Silicon Valley frenzy for pen computing that we’ve spoken about several times on this show. Matt is kind enough to give us an in depth look at that mini-bubble and explains how it happened and how it paved the way, in a roundabout way, for modern handheld devices. Matt was also involved in several Microsoft initiatives in the 1990s, including the pioneering local site Sidewalk and MSN.com at the height of the portal era.

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Summary

To celebrate our 100th episode, we’re taking a special look at one of the foundational legends of the technology industry. It’s about the man who invented the modern disc operating system (the OS) and the concept of the software platform. That man was Gary Kildall. And the question we examine in this episode is, why is Bill Gates the richest man in the world, and not Gary Kildall? Could things have turned out differently?

In this episode we use audio from the following documentaries:

Triumph of the Nerds

and

Computer Chronicles

Special thanks to Justin Schwinghamer for the original score and the voice acting.

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Kevin Scott is the current Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft. We talk about his entire career, how being an academic seemed to be his path before he transformed the ads system at Google. Then he revolutionized the entire advertising industry at AdMob; is credited by some people by saving LinkedIn from technical rot; and now, today, oversees Microsoft's efforts in AI, VR/AR all the future things. Fantastic conversation.

Kevin's podcast is: Behind the Tech

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Summary

Carl Steadman and Joey Anuff were the founders of perhaps the most influential of the early web content sites, Suck.com. If you’re unfamiliar with Suck, you’re about to get a taste of why so many of us have been such big fans for so long. If you’re a longtime follower of the adventures of Joey and Carl, then get ready for some of that old time stuff, for the first time in 20 years.

You can visit the Suck archives here.

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Summary

Rob Lord was the founder of the Internet Underground Music Archive all the way back in 1993. This would become the first website devoted to the distribution of music via MP3 downloads, and very much paved the way for a lot of what came later. Before almost anyone else, Rob had a vision that digital would be the future of music distribution, and he has pursued that vision throughout his career, which includes such music related startups as N2K, Muse.net and the Songbird player. We’ve actually already mentioned Rob at length in the Justin Frankel episode, as Rob joined Justin to create Nullsoft and disseminate the Winamp player. There’s some great, never-before-discussed details here, about doing business with the music industry, with Napster, and even with a young Travis Kalanick.

Today, Rob is working on a new startup called Shrines, which should be in public beta shortly.

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Summary

Most of you will know Chris Fralic as a partner in the VC firm First Round Capital, here in New York City. But Chris was also heavily involved in two key companies that we’ll be talking more about over the next year, Half.com and del.icio.us. Chris gives us the history and context for those two innovators, and shares stories from an interesting career, stories that range from competing against Michael Dell to sell computers to launching TED Talks online.

As an added personal historical bonus, Chris shared the Personal Pitch Deck he put together when trying to convince Half.com to hire him, back in the day. You can see he did his homework, analyzing the market, evaluating the opportunity and weighing the challenges Half would face. No wonder he got hired. Click here to view it.

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Summary

I wanted to speak to Quentin Stafford-Fraser because he was involved in the first “web” cam. I say “web” in quotes because, it wasn’t technically on the web, but, well, you’ll understand the distinction when you listen. But Dr. Stafford-Fraser has been involved in so many things, right up to the present day, that I couldn’t help but ask him about the rest of his fascinating career. So, come for the webcam stuff, but stay to hear about studying computer science under the founding legends of the field, the first webserver at Cambridge, the development of Virtual Network Computing, augmented reality, and even the present and future of smart and autonomous car technology.

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Summary

Paul Sagan has had a long and illustrious career, which includes: 1) stints working on the Full Service Network, that interactive tv initiative in Orlando Florida that we've mentioned several times in the past, as well as 2) being a key member of the team that developed Pathfinder, one of the very first professionally produced content sites on the world wide web. He was also heavily involved in the development of another company we've mentioned previously, Akamai Technologies, where he served as Chief Operating Officer, CEO and Director. Today, Paul is Executive in Residence at General Catalyst Partners. A couple of times, we mention another oral history project that Paul is a part of, and that is Digital Riptide, which collects interviews about how journalism and digital technology have evolved over the past 25 years. You can find out more about that project at DigitalRiptide.org.

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There's a certain romance surrounding dorm room startups. From Microsoft, to Dell, to Facebook, there's something about the audacity of building a company before you even get your degree that catches the imagination. The title for the first of the Dot Com dorm room startup probably goes to Tripod, which was founded all the way back in 1992 by Bo Peabody. Bo recounts how Tripod stumbled upon one of the earliest antecedents for what today we would call social media, and gives us an amazing analysis about what it really takes to succeed as an entrepreneur.

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SummaryToday we’re going to talk a bit about alternate Internets. In previous episodes, we have outlined how, going back to the 1970s and 80s, early experiments with networked computing and online services began using a technology called Videotex. So, I wanted to dig deeper into these experiments to look at them as valuable precursors to the world wide web and the modern Internet. It is unlikely, for various technical reasons, that videotex could have evolved systems that could have challenged the modern TCP/IP internet as we know it, but it’s fun to explore these other systems and imagine an alternative net that might have developed. And most interestingly, to me at least, this exercise will allow us to examine Minitel, the French Videotex network that grew to prominence a full decade before the World Wide Web.

Special thanks to Laurent Bristiel @LaurentBristiel for his research assistance on this episode.

The New York Times on the death of the Minitel

This is the Reply All episode about working for a Minitel Rose service

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Summary

Dale Dougherty was the organizer of the world’s first ever web developers conference, the World Wide Web Wizards Workshop in July of 1993. This was where Tim Berners-Lee and Marc Andreessen first met. Dale is also the man who coined the term “Web 2.0” when he organized the first Web 2.0 Summit. But Dale was also the co-founder of the web’s first ever commercial website, Global Network Navigator, or GNN. Today, Dale is probably best known as the founder of Make Magazine, Maker Faires and the entire Maker Movement.

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Summary

If you'll remember in Episode 32, we explored the early digital media startups like Salon, Slate, Suck, Pathfinder, etc. One site that was mentioned, but did not get a lot of detail in that episode was Feed Magazine (aka, Feedmag.com, or Feed). The reason I couldn't go into much detail is because secondary sourcing about Feed is difficult to come by 20 years on. And that's what I was absolutely delighted to make contact with Stefanie Syman. Stefanie, along with Steven Johnson, was a co-founder of Feed, and she recounts the wonderful time period early on when two freelance writers could say, "Gee, why don't we just publish a magazine on the web?" It's a great story of the early Internet scene in New York City, and stay tuned to hear all the people who cut their teeth at Feed and went on to fabulous careers.

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Summary

I don't think very many people, twenty years ago, would have imagined that maps, location technology and the like would prove to be so strategically important and structurally integral to the Internet and modern technology as we're coming to know it. One person who might have had the vision was Barry Glick, founding CEO of MapQuest. Barry was there in the early days when maps and computers first met, and he has stayed in the location tech industry through the emergence of GPS, mobile devices and now into the current future of driverless cars and the like.

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Summary

Tom Hadfield was the founder of Soccernet, which is still the premiere soccer (football!) website in the world. But just as the title says, Tom began Soccernet when he was twelve or thirteen. So, certainly, Tom takes the cake, out of anyone we’ve spoken with so far, for having been in the Internet Game his entire life. Tom tells us the unique story of Soccernet’s founding and how it ended up with ESPN. As a bonus, since Tom is the first person we’ve spoken to from outside of North America, he’s also able to give us our first look at how the web took off in other parts of the world.

BTW, spread the word on the podcast via these links:

NPR’s Earbud.fm submission form.

ProductHunt podcast tool

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Summary:

In the early 1990s, Brad Silverberg was one of the key champions of the Internet within Microsoft. As the first ever Senior Vice President of the Internet Platform and Tools Group, he essentially led Microsoft’s efforts to embrace the Internet and the Web beginning in late 1995. As the senior Vice President of the Personal-Systems Division, Brad also led the development of Windows, from the launch of Windows 3.0 through Windows 95, which he helped establish as Microsoft’s greatest ever product. Today, he is a venture capitalist with both Fuel Capital and Ignition Partners.

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Summary:

One of the big trends of recent years in the tech space has been the rise of delivery startups like Instacart and Postmates and the like. In a way, this is a resurrection of an idea, if you remember famous 90s startups like WebVan, Peapod and Kozmo.com. So, I thought it would be interesting to speak with someone who founded a delivery startup back in the 90s. Tim DeMello was the founder of Streamline, a delivery startup which actually predated the dot-com era. We talk to Tim about the economics of home delivery businesses and find out what he thinks the prospects are for the current crop of delivery companies.

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Martin Nisenholtz is a digital media pioneer. He founded perhaps the first digital marketing group at Olgilvy and Mather all the way back in 1983. But from 1995 through 2012, he was first the President of New York Times Electronic Media and then CEO of New York Times Digital and then Senior Vice President of Digital Operations at the New York Times Company. Martin, is literally the guy who has been front and center in everything the Times has been doing in digital for the last 20 years. He headed the team the launched the first NYTimes.com website back in 1995, and he has helped steer all of their web and digital efforts all the way through to the present social and mobile era.

A screenshot of @Times on AOL here.

A screenshot of an early NYTimes.com homepage here.

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Listen:

Evan Kirstel is a 20 year veteran of the wireless, broadband, cloud and social space. He is also absolutely the number one person to follow on Twitter if you like a daily dose of amazing articles and blog posts. Evan helps me frame just that: how the modern wireless industry developed, the various issues involved in the evolution of broadband, and where it all might be going.

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Summary:

Chris Higgins is back! In this very fun episode we talk about Windows 95, command line computing, who is the Microsoft of tech today and how the Matrix is the perfect hacker/Internet movie.

Listen, we promised a bunch of things would be in the show notes, but sadly, we didn’t write them down. This is what I could remember. If there are others I forgot some, send them to me via email or a tweet.

• The Windows 95 video with Chandler and Rachel from Friends.
• How I Won the Lottery.
• DR-DOS.
• The Incomparable Podcast episode where they debate the canonical tech books.
• The "small" Nokia phone Brian loved.
• The "Morpheus" Nokia phone from the Matrix.
• The Steven King-directed movie about killer cars.

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Summary:

Terry Jones was the founder and CEO of Travelocity. Perhaps the primary pioneer in the online travel space, Terry explains the unique challenges Travelocity faced when dealing with the airline industry, fending off competition from the likes of Microsoft (Expedia) along with giving us a pretty fascinating look at how the modern travel industry works.

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Summary:

Part 2 of eBay’s founding story. How, why and when eBay became the undisputed king of the online auction space.

Bibliography:

•  The Perfect Store: Inside eBay
•  The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute

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Summary:

Bruce Spector is another early web entrepreneur whose company would be acquired during the dotcom era. In this case, the company was WebCal and the acquirer was Yahoo. Bruce later went on to spearhead Yahoo's acquisitions during the late 90s, including two of the largest, Broadcast.com and Geocities.

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Summary:

There was a time, early on in the web era, where things were very much wide open. An entrepreneur could survey the scene and say, "No one has done a great sports site yet. Why don't I build one?"

Mike Levy did just that, taking on deep-pocketed incumbents like ESPN to build Sportsline (eventually, CBS Sportsline) into a lasting and powerful brand. Mike recounts Sportsline's initial incarnation as a dialup service, its partnerships early on with major sports celebrities, as well as being present for the foundations of the modern fantasy sports industry.

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Summary:

Glenn Fleishman is back to talk more about Amazon's founding mythologies, the recent controversies surrounding Amazon's work culture, and the effect the web revolution has had on publishing and journalism, but from the point of view of a writer.

The New York Times article we discuss extensively can be found here.

The David Halberstam book on the rise of modern media can be found here.

And the book that Glenn recommends can be found here.

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Summary:

Most people agree that Yahoo the king of the dot-com-era search sites on the strength of its zany, friendly, ubiquitous brand. The woman responsible for building that brand was Karen Edwards. Karen recounts becoming the first dot-com company to advertise on tv, seeking out “near-surfers” and marketing an internet company in an era where many people didn’t know what the internet even was.

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Summary:

How did we get from a place where people were completely skeptical of living their personal lives online to the "share everything" society we live in now? Well, companies like Webshots got us here. Webshots was the first site to organize and encourage public photo sharing online. Narendra Rocherolle was one of the founders of Webshots and in this episode, we talk a lot about the digital sharing habit and how it evolved. But we also get what I think is the most detailed and informative founder arcs we've yet heard. You'll learn how Webshots was founded, pivoted a couple of times, found success, had a successful exit... only to find its acquiring company in bankruptcy after the dot-com bust... only to have the founders themselves buy the company back and find success all over again.

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Summary:

Steve Goldberg was the first hire for Microsoft's Advertising division. He was present at the launch of such projects as MSNBC, Slate, Expedia and MSN, the portal. Steve goes into fascinating detail about Microsoft's relationship to the advertising industry, and Microsoft's strategic goals generally. But we also speak more broadly about online advertising, because Steve was one of the founders of the IAB, that online advertising trade association/standards body that, to this day, is such a guiding force for the industry.

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Summary:

Avram Miller was the co-founder of Intel Capital, and during the 90s, racked up some of the greatest venture fund successes of all time, backing such companies as Broadcast.com, Geocities, CNET and more. Crucially, for our purposes, Avram and Intel were also instrumental in the development of residential broadband. Just this week, we heard in the news how Comcast has more internet subscribers than tv subscribers for the very first time. Avram was key in—as he puts it—convincing the Cable industry that it wasn't just in the entertainment business but in the communications and technology business as well.

Please visit Avram's exceptional blog: Two Thirds Done.

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Summary:

A conversation with Justin Frankel, creator of the Winamp application, which was arguably the software package responsible for popularizing the MP3.

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Summary:

Owen Thomas is back on the show for another analysis episode, helping us establish the context for the dot-com era. You can listen to his previous episode here.

Note: Next week's episode will be dropping on Tuesday morning.

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Summary:

Get ready for one of the most fascinating entrepreneurial stories we've covered thus far on the show. Chris Cooper was the founder of Quote.com, which, as you'll see, powered the finance portals of everyone from the search engines to the online traders like E*TRADE. But, prior to that... let's just say Chris Cooper has done it all: degrees in Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering; a job testing nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site; several years making his living as a professional gambler in Las Vegas; several years making his living manufacturing illegal drugs, Breaking Bad-style; a stint in prison where he learned to code; proprietor of a subscription-based BBS; and of course, founder of one of the web's first sources of financial information.

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It turns out that almost exactly 9 years before Steve Jobs introduced the world to the iPhone, there was another 3-in-1 device that was introduced to the world, and it just so happened that that device was also known as an iPhone.

But the company that brought the "first" iPhone to market, all the way back in 1998, was called InfoGear, not Apple.

This is the story.

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Summary:

Today we’re going to go a bit backwards in our timeline, back to some of the issues we covered in our Chapter 5 episodes. All of the research I did on newspapers and their early attempts to experiment with digital media came from secondary sources. That is why I was excited to be introduced to Steve Yelvington on Twitter. Steve is a several-decades-long veteran of the newspaper industry as well as a true online and web pioneer. He gives us some great first-person perspective about how the news industry succeeded and failed in its attempts to address the challenges of the Internet Era.

We mention a recent blog post of his in our conversation. You can read that blog post here.

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Summary:

So far in our project, we've mostly spoken to people who were involved in startups that went public in the dot com era. But as I've said many times, that's only part of the story. I very much wanted to speak to someone involved with a successful startup that was acquired by a larger "portal" site. So, I reached out to Ted Barnett, who was one of the founders of the early web calendar site, When.com, which was eventually acquired by AOL. In this episode, we talk about the economics and strategic considerations of a 90s startup that found overnight success, but could not scale in a way that would allow it to continue to grow without hooking up with a larger, deeper-pocketed partner.

But Ted's career is so interesting and varied, we also got to delve into a bunch of other fascinating topics: what it was like to work at Apple in the late 80s, early 90s John Sculley-era; the pre-web "bubble" of pen-computing startups; working at AOL at the height of its late-90s powers; how a company like Kodak dealt with technological disruption completely decimating its 100-year old business; and even the current prospects for Virtual Reality technology.

Because our discussion with Ted paints such a well-rounded picture of a technology career lived in full... recounting how a young technologist can work their way up the ranks, all the way to founder and CEO... I would go so far as to say this is absolutely an essential listen for young people who are starting out in Tech today.

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Summary:

Maggie Mahar is an award-winning journalist who has written for Money magazine, Institutional Investor, the New York Times, Bloomberg, and in the 1990s, covered the markets for Barron’s Magazine. She is also the author of an excellent book, Bull: A History of the Boom and Bust, 1982-2004, that has been extremely helpful for me as I begin to frame the episodes that will bring us into the dot-com “bubble” era. I reached out to her to see if she would help me kick around some of the ideas that her book raised… in order to wrap my mind the causes and context of the bubble. Of course, I recorded our conversation so that we can all start thinking about this era together.

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