A History of the Internet Era from Netscape to the iPad Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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81. Founder of WebCal and "Turbo Yahoo" Bruce Spector
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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
80. Founder of CBS Sportsline Mike Levy
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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
79. Glenn Fleishman @GlennF Returns!
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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
78. Yahoo's Master Brand Builder, Karen Edwards
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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
77. Narendra Rocherolle @narendra of Webshots and 30 Boxes
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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
76. Steve Goldberg of Microsoft and the IAB
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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
75. The Development of Consumer Broadband with Intel's Avram Miller
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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
74. Developer of Winamp, Justin Frankel
Summary:A conversation with Justin Frankel, creator of the Winamp application, which was arguably the software package responsible for popularizing the MP3. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
73. "Father" of the MP3, Karlheinz Brandenburg
This is the story of MP3, the technology that (revolutionized? upended? destroyed? transformed?) changed music forever. It is also a conversation with the man who is most responsible for developing MP3 technology, Karlheinz Brandenburg. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
72. Owen Thomas Returns!
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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
71. Founder of Quote.com, Chris Cooper
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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
70. The Forgotten Story Of The Original IPhone Released In 1998
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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
69. Steve Yelvington Discusses Newspapers and the Early Web
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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
68. Founder of When.com, Ted Barnett
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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
67. Journalist Maggie Mahar Discusses the Dot-Com Bubble
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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.