We Should Thank Marc Andreesen (Part1)

There are those who see what is unseen or yet to be seen. Some people call them crazy. I call them Venture Capitalists.

Earlier this afternoon, when my only class for today was apparently cancelled, I went instead to the library to try to read something. I picked up Fortune magazine from the shelf, since the cover story promises the list of the top500 biggest firms in the world, those companies that influence the global economic ripples. What I found instead was a quieter storm in the guise of a not-so-main article.

I was drawn to this story about some guy named Marc Andreesen, a big guy with shiny bald head. I read the article straight and it turns out he was not just some guy; Marc Andreesen is The Man!

If you know Marc Zuckerberg, the 24-year old CEO of Facebook, you would identify him with Andreesen. Almost a two decades ago, when no one but geeks believe in the internet, Andreesen was the web wonderkid. Kind of like Nino Mulach, only that he shone on cyber wonders instead of intense chubbyness.

Andreesen, only 24 then and a fresh graduate, started Mosaic (some first-generation web browser) with Eric Bina. This was the time when the dotcom technology was recently but a sci-fi wishful thinking and all the other kids his age were doning on massive hair spray and/0r headbanging to Nirvana music. This was, however, Andreesen’s first real step into Sillicon Valley, a step which literally created revolutionary waves for the web world. Would you guess what’s second step? He co-found Netscape! It’s only the first (I think) single web phenomenon that ever questioned Microsoft and made it shiveringly cling to its spot big time.

The Netscape endured and thrived, not to mention earned. But MS, of course, did not take this sitting down. There was war. And eventually, Netscape tapped out and sold to AOL for a hefty price. But Andreesen did not tap out. What’s more is he dusted himself off for another round! Some few more, even.

From what I remember in the article, he next headed this web computing thing called Loudcloud. Apparently, this did not quite hit the top as the public did not seem ready for such a thing. After a major organizational downsizing and relaunching as Opsware, the project was again sold to another company.

From then on, he started being a web philantrophist, more correctly called venture capitalism. He began giving “angel money” to web startups such as Ning, a facebook-like social networking site. He carries this on with other upstarting web ideas with his partner Ben Horowitz. Now at 38, we could say that Marc Andreesen is now a necessary addition to any comprehensive manuscript of the 3 to 4-decade history of the web world, which I think, would be as thick and hefty as Marc is.

But must anyone write that history, this latest, apparrently most nuanced part of his carreer must not be missed-out: Andreesen now sits in the thinking board of your favorite darlings of the web, Facebook and Twitter. It is like if these sites have a conscience, Andreesen’s would be one of the loudest voices to it. Come to think of it, roughly two decades after his first big wave, Andreesen is still making big ones in our generation; some of it sweeping our social lives big time.

to be concluded

(Apologies, friends, if this blog sounds so wide-eyed about Marc Andreesen’s exploits. The blogger was only two years old during his high time. And was vitrually offline for the most part of her life.)