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What happens after Netscapes initial success

But they really come out of nowhere Netscape Because the

Internets been around for ten twenty years in various forms

But what Netscape has is something called the world wide web and

way to piggyback on that to navigate through it kind of

indexing system like in your local library you know the way the
books are sorted They got sorting and retrieving software to
find stuff on this Internet which has the
proliferated over years
And with the introduction of their software people for the first
time see very easy way to at least find all these web sites and
communicate and get sense of them It turns out that its not
so easy to actually use these web sites once find them but
you
still people get big rush out of just finding all thats out
there And then the introduction of Netscapes software leads to

great proliferation of these web sites because now people can

be found And some of the web sites even say something as simple
as--hello Im me You know youve found me The what happens
though is that investors how
go basically hyper about Netscape is .i
so unique and the future it is And the stock is bid up at

extraordinary levels in the first couple of really days and weeks

of its introduction It is the initial
biggest public offering in
basically the Wall Street history But theres couple of

problems with the company right out the gate since that dont seem
to bother people the buyers of the but
stock are very obvious
One is the company doesnt really make any money and then the
second is that it has very few sales This is highly unusual for
big stock offering of that doesnt have
company profits Some
of the big offerings of the past--Microsofts own offering Apple
Compaq--these were companies that had good track record and were
making some profits and on roll to make more So on the plus
side when Netscape comes out of the gate theyre with
synonymous
whole new style of computing almost like know you
you say Xerox
or Scotch Tape mean theyre with
synonymous this style of
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computing using the web Thats gives them huge lift On the

negative side they havent figured out how to make money from the

web So the stock from an extraordinary height almost

immediately begins gradual but inexorable drift downward

There were few times when it bounced up but basically almost as

soon as the stock hit the streets people began thinking that they

had really overpaid for hi stock And the thats on the

the technology side ot of people thought

that Netscape had major breakthrough of the sort that couldnt

be duplicated very easily and maybe not duplicated for many years
Again as time went on it became clearer particularly if you
look at Microsofts rival browser within three lets say

loosely three to four years Microsoft has produced browser

that many people think is the equivalent the rough equivalent of

Netscapes own browser Well thats not much of time

advantage So as it turns out Netscape didnt have the large

technological lead that in the initial hoopla over its coming out

party in 95 people assumed So you have the problem with the

business model they dont really have good revenue stream and

then the technological problem they dont have profound

advantage over their rivals ca one at

wants to build browser ey thro ew hundred million

dollat are likely to achieve the results Netscape now has

The
ffIved good news for Netscape was aggip they were

7jynonymous with the web they achieved huge following in short

time.CTAiid so as face today the twin problem
they ofjinding
way to get sales and finding technol cal edge they do it from

basically good foundation Now that foundation isnt an

inexhaustible resource It probably buys them another three to

five years But think that Netscape three to five from

years
now is either going to resemble Apple Computer--theres some

parallels there--or theyre going to be quite big and prominent in

the software in the digital universe
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Code writing in the large--why is it important

One reason is that its hard to understand the big questions about

the future of comptng and technology unless you understand how

some of this stuff is made You dont need to be an engineer or

to yourself to have better appreciation of whats
writ\codes
involved but think that anyone that knew what was involved in

writinSrowser software three four years ago probably could have

told you that Netscape didnt have any large advantage

technologically What they had was potentially marketing

advantage you know But so one reason is that if youre

interested in the fate of these industries one of the only ways

to understand whos got sustainable edge and who really has

sustainable momentum is if you can drill down below the surface

and see what its like to build for instance chip chip is

mainly software Its only at the last stage that the software

is because si lyalarger and larger percentage oR

the work force devoting its time making its living to software.\
mean its extraordinary how often you meet people now who say

they make their living you know working with computers writing
software Often they dont even define themselves as

programmers because the kind of code writing they do is integral

to the connections between computers and people But that itself-

mean weve got basically around the world tens of millions of

people making living this way And in the U.S we have at

least sev million people directly making living from

the highest of its size mean yeah youve

got baseball youve got Hollywood But you know when you really
think of group that has millions of people in it these are the

highest wages anybodys ever seen in the United States And the

funny thing about software is that people enter it from all sorts
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of angles Very few people relatively have kind of textbook

software ckground where they go to college and study software

Often these are people that cone from liberal arts or the

sciences And just because the opportunities are so great and

because theres real prove it to me attitude in software

theres no test theres no guild there1s certainly no union So

theres no real barriers If you can do the job theyll drag

you-- and youre willing tdo it theyll drag you off the

street theyll employ you And the last questions later about

why are you qualified Thiother thing about software thats

interesting is that with very few exceptions theres no licensing
and quality control of software The only exception is in medical

equipment Medical Equipment the FDA does as part of licensing

and approving the use of piece of medical equipment test the

software Other than that anybody can write or sell software

So quality control is very uneven but it provides lot of

incentives and opportunities for amateurs to get in Because you

know by the time people if they have good idea by the time the

customer catches up to the fact that the software doesnt work

that well hey theyre on to another software hopefully better
version Thats usually what they say Well theres final
li-i

reason you know third reason to care about who makes the

software and thats because the human element the drama the

character these are basically theyre sort of digital artisans

They work in small teams or alone they talk about what they do as
if it was kind of alchemy kind of wizardry They often dont
understand why piece of software works And further they dont
understand why one person is better at software than another
Thats one of the most extraordinary things about it It does

remind me of athletics in that way You know why is someone

good baseball hitter Often the hitters themselves cant really

explain it And often the best software people can not themselves

understand why theyre so good at it So they constantly have

this sense that theyve just sort of been hit on the head almost
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with you know touch

or have some sort of Midas They just dont-
that there arent canons
trrent tools and traditions that people judge themselves
against and that they train toward But the this
bus-me0 is greaL ausethrgEakes are very high its
remarkable how much money can be made from even small piece of
software that comes out at the mar- out to the market at the right
time So you know for all these reasons for the it sheds
way
light on the business issues for the way human issues are- the

character the lab the way those are exposed and then finally
the way new way of work is emerging work styles career styles
Software tells us lot about that

Technological breakthrough occurs outside of academia

Well thats mean part of what youre saying is true dont

think its so much that-- There are other fields technological
fields that are commercialized think that theres--where this
doesnt apply as much--but theres about how
something difficult
its been to codify software knowledge that its made it difficult/
for universities and traditional research institutes to sort of
corner the market on the in this
leading edge area mean you
know in Astronomy Astrophysics Biology know the
you
universities maintain wide lead over anybody else But in
software the professors go to to
companies try to figure out what
the latest tools and And part
innovations are of that is the -1

culture that has built around writing

up software thats somewhat S1

self-sustaining at this point Since you can make lot of money

at software in in the market and since its so difficult to figure
out why one person or one approach to software is so much better
or has better results in the market its tended to give these
market oriented people big advantage Cause academics need
canon you know they need laws traditions and that hasnt
happened in software yet and maybe it wont The the big mean
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the big challenge that people throw out to software is-- Right now

its like craft its very labor intensive to write any

software And people do wonder what if this becomes automated

you know how much could you automate of this Were still pretty
far away but think that academics who take more theoretical

approach to things dont they still hope that they can gain the

upper hand someday by coming around with some maybe very very
different approaches to it But think that this is one area
software where by wading into some of the commercial scenes like

Microsoft or Netscape or Sun youre likely to be doing

story about science Youre seeing people doing science Its

very practical science but its science And in many ways
theyre creating more new knowledge in Microsoft than they would

be at university just by the virtue of the field theyre in So

thats one of the reasons why the academics often pay so much
close attention Because they may want to pick up on some

innovations that dont commercially go anywhere but they want to

follow it they want to follow it up

Wall Street attracted strong math backgrounds Are these same

people coming to Silicon Valley More money and more fun

And have bigger impact You know its money and opportunity
think Theres lot of opportunity lot of responsibility is

given to younger people in the software field and so that makes

it exciting And also think that theres more evidence that

people can age gracefully in software mean your Netscape

project was good example of that There were fair number of

people in their thirties arid forties that were making big

contributions there Im not convinced that this is simply you

know complete novice young persons game But yeah theres
sense that software is kind of new frontier its you know its
the old gold rush metaphor the California gold rush all over

again Its the kind of Hollywood of the Twenties where the rules
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arent well established the power isnt that well established

And but fundamentally it offers opportunities for individual

people and it doesnt discriminate very much on their background--

where they came from where they were educated even whether they

speak English very well

Software development like Hollywood

Well on the production side think theres lot of

similarities You know softwares built by teams these are ad

hoc teams they come together for project and then they

disband These projects are pretty long they can be year two

years sometimes they can be as short as three months But you

know movies tend to be in that time range as well And then they

are also very specialized The Windows NT program which wrote

book about there were only one or two people out of the 500 on

that team that knew how everything worked how everything hung

together And its often very common for on large sprawling

software program for very few people to know how the pieces fit

together Arid Id say thats probably true with movie as well

So and then you have real pecking order You have your
software stars you have the grunts you have the drones that test

the software you have people that do routine code you know
printer adapters you know you know you have new program its
gotta run with the thousand printers that are out there and you
do all these printer drivers Well that they dont reserve that

for the stars And so you have lot of the same elements And

then the rewards are very great In Hollywood theyve got

points Here youve got stock options And both if theres

success can you know fuel lot of wealth for the participants in

this project

Is Microsoft culture better than or different from the

Valley
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-I

\-

Well thi that dont think theres

much difference between the Redmond area and Silicon Valley And

Microsoft has loyalty for one reason and one reason only--their
stock keeps soaring those options are worth lot more than when

you signed up If that ever stops theyll be leaving in droves

That is the reason They will just move Nothing will stop them

from moving to California think that theyre ay

Microsof ere isnt another good job you know 15

minutes from their house The other part though that-- So think

that this sort of this one large Silicon Valley that kind of runs

from San Jose all the way up to Seattle And the other part

though is what kind of lives do these folks lead and what does it

say about our society that were celebrating these folks Cause

in many ways the lives they lead are impoverished their

emotional lives are very narrow this is monk-like existence

there are very few women in these societies These are male
societies they are secret societies they function very much like

the Masons or some street gang These are people are misfits
would have hard time basically getting along in in more ordin
life And think that their interests are usually very narrow as

well Part of this is theyre victim of their own success

Because theyre good at software they need to keep pace And as

result keeping pace means to shut lot of other intellectual

things out They just dont have time to read time to hear about

the world They dont have much time for their families The

kinds of activities they like for recreation tend to be precise

physical activities that dont involve lot of thinking lot of

gray areas lot of these Yuppie sports like rock clinibin auto

racing--stuff that theyre just reacting And again this gets

ac theyre doing there is

reacting too Very few of them really understand what theyre

doing Because they dont have theoretical framework to write

software theyre just writing it And again its just like

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hitting the baseball If their code ets home nm nobodys

es ions-- snt make sense or why do you

that why d.oes -wek..-_Nekc$y cares why it works So thinkj

that the lives they lead tend to be pretty narrow think for

some of them the way they cope with this is by saying--Im goin$
to work like mad for ten fifteen years and then Im out of it

totally And what happens to these people over 20 30 years is

maybe interesting because weve never seen you know just as

kind of demographic footnote whats it going to be like to foll

the lives of say 10 or 20000 software millionaires who gave up

work at 35 mean what do they do with the rest of their lives

You just dont see that very often So we have large group we

can follow Maybe some of them will actually do something

socially redeeming down the line We can hope

re they an indicator of lives the rest of us might lead

Well think they are leading indicator but not not for what

youre suggesting mean think other people have said that

dont agree with that think theyre leading indicator in

just this way that the nature of work is being defined by

projects and teams so that were not thinking so much anymore
about having jobs Even though most of us do have specific

employers stable employers Thats what the statistics say and

thats the truth But even when you have stable employer

youre being asked your job is turning into succession of

projects not unlike these project teams that Hollywood and

software deal with At the end of project youre not let go

youre just asked to find new team to join And so think

that-

think the project nature of work that that is something that

the rest of us are picking up on not cause were emulating

software people just because the way the changes in the economy
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the changes in the way people create and the emphasis on getting

you know the job done rather than filling slot think has

pushed people But think the success of field like software

where you see so many people who have quote unquote no training

and no job titles when you see an industry doing so well like

that and when you see people being so successful think it

emboldens and encourages other employers to say--well maybe we

can do this Because lot of what stops them from allowing their

employees to take project approach is theyre just afraid they

want to control these people mean thats what job used to

be--one person making another person do their will Thats not

very fun any more right So thats where think were headed is

more autonomous workers And you see you really see this in the

software area

What besides money is driving this

Well look at the people that you filmed and you focused on
People want to have purpose and theyre getting great sense

of purpose You know theres big journey big challenge and

theyre responding And think that thats big part of what is

going on that theyre being asked to give their all And this is

at time when many people just dont believe in anything They

dont believe in institutions So the company becomes kind of

their flag mean theres something Medieval about it But you

know the company this becomes their tribe And then the work

itself its satisfying because lot is in your control and

yrrking with lot of autonomy So think those things

appeal to people Its also the performance the fact that its
ge..o._izcrk that gives lot of relief to people Cause it gives

lot of them the freedom to be jerks the freedom to let their

personality out Because often mean if you look at most of our

jobs most of our jobs could be done by lot of people And so

what becomes important in your job All this extra stuff--the
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preening the gossip the politicing how you dress what do you
look like And at least what you hear from these software people
is--all that goes out the boards Because if you deliver code
that works no one cares about anything else Well that1s the

good news It frees people up The bad news is how some of them
behave You know some of them behave really really badly So
when you put away these strictures you have people in
sleeping
their offices you know basically tantrums
throwing temper at all
times disrespecting people whole lot of stuff that wouldnt go
on in in straight job