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Netscape Time

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Netscape Time

The Making of the Billion-Dollar Start-up That Took on Microsoft

St. Martin’s Press,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

The prescient birth, unprecedented growth and melodramatic sale of Netscape are all part of Jim Clark’s story, so he’s the man to tell it.

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

Jim Clark offers an adventurous account of the birth and volatile life of Netscape Communications Corp., the company that produced the Web browser that helped make the Internet a household tool. If the rags-to-riches dot-com start-up story has become cliché, bear in mind that when Netscape Navigator arrived on the market, the Internet was still largely the semi-private domain of a few academic oddballs. Due to the seminal role that Netscape played in turning the Internet into the omnipresent force that it is today, Clark’s book does indeed represent an important first draft of history. The key phrase, of course, is first draft. If nothing else, Clark is a salesman and a promoter, and his goal here is to promote Netscape’s version of history - a particularly important goal at a time when the U.S. courts are weighing the fate of the company’s arch nemesis, Microsoft. Nevertheless, future historians will use this book in cobbling together the true tale of the Internet’s origins, as well as the genesis of the stock mania of the late 1990s. getabstract recommends this dramatic, and sometimes even suspenseful book, to all professionals, whose future decisions concerning the Internet will benefit from the de-mythologizing effect of historic perspective.

Summary

Profiting From Web Potential

Netscape was a fledgling Silicon Valley company when it created Navigator, the first popular software that gave computer users an easy way to navigate the Internet. Previously, the Web was very difficult to use. Scientists and academics employed it heavily, but it received little traffic from the general public. By making it easier to use, Netscape’s browser promised to democratize the Internet. That promise was fulfilled.

On the day of its initial public offering, Netscape could offer Wall Street only a brief operating history. Its browser had been available for just three quarters of a business year. The company had reported revenue for only two of those quarters and had not yet reported any profits. Netscape priced its stock at $28 a share, but strong market demand pushed it to an opening price of $71. The stock shot as high as $74.75 before closing at $58.25 on its first day of trading.

After the Netscape IPO, the company’s founder Jim Clark held a stake in the company that was worth $663 million. At the peak of Netscape’s run, Clark’s shares were worth $1.4 billion. Because Netscape employees also received stock, the IPO made...

About the Authors

Jim Clark  is co-founder and chairman of Netscape. He also founded three other tech companies: Silicon Graphics, Healtheon and myCFO.com. Clark is a former high school dropout who eventually earned a doctorate in computer science. Before becoming an entrepreneur, he taught electrical engineering at Stanford. He lives in Florida. Writer Owen Edwards  is a consulting editor for Forbes ASAP and lives in San Francisco.

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