Internet History Podcast

Andy Rachleff was a co-founder of Benchmark, one of the most respected venture capital firms to this very day, and one of the biggest venture players during the dotcom era. On today’s episode, Andy gives us more background on eBay’s founding and what venture investing was like during the dotcom era. But Andy is also that very rarest of breeds, someone who became an entrepreneur AFTER an illustrious career as a venture capitalist. So Andy also tells us all about Wealthfront, one of the most interesting players in the modern personal investment space. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary Check out The Top Entrepreneurs Podcast here!Books recommended on this episode:Storming the Magic KingdomWalt DisneyUnconventional SuccessSay EverythingThe Wikipedia RevolutionThe InnovatorsThe Expanse Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The famous Google Chef, Charlie Ayers, remembers joining Google when it was about 50 employees, the company’s early growth, culture, and the unique role he played in shaping that culture. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you know the Napster story at all, then you know about the Shawn(Sean)s. Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker. But in my opinion, and in the opinion of a lot of other people, a name that you should be just as familiar with is Jordan Ritter. Napster was an incredible phenomenon, reaching tens of millions of users at its height, and though Jordan Ritter didn't invent Napster, he very much was responsible for scaling it and turning it into the phenomenon it became. In today's episode, Jordan recounts the entire Napster story, from its gestation in the w00w00 hacker collective (which, by the way, people talk a lot about the PayPal mafia, but an argument can be made for a w00w00 mafia) all the way through Napster's legal descent into oblivion. You might know Jordan as the cofounder of Cloudmark and Servio, and at the end of the episode, he talks about the big problems he's working to solve today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Google's early days were marked by a lack of a solid business model and minimal revenue. The founders initially sold their search technology to portals and enterprises while making vague promises about online ads. The introduction of pay-per-click advertising revolutionized their approach, leading to dominance in online marketing. As they prepared for their IPO, Google surpassed Yahoo in searches, prioritizing their vision over Wall Street pressure. This pivotal moment not only reshaped the tech landscape but also inspired confidence in future innovations.

When Larry and Sergey first met, they didn’t like each other much...BIBLIOGRAPHY:In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives The Google Story How Google Works The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture Googled: The End of the World As We Know It The Google Guys: Inside the Brilliant Minds of Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/05/29/search-and-deploy http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1999/11/08/268521/index.htm Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During the dot-com era in the late 90s, there were four different venture-backed startups (six, depending on how you count) that focused on the pet retail space. Most famous, or notorious, I guess was Pets.com, of the sock puppet fame, but today, we’re going to get some context and perspective on this moment in time from another player from this era. Joshua Newman was the founder of Petstore.com, which actually got started first, but eventually ended up getting acquired by Pets.com. I wanted to talk to Joshua because I think the Petstore.com is a really interesting lens to look at e-commerce companies in the dot-com era, the strategies they pursued and the unbelievable environment they existed in. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Before Snapchat Stories, before YouTube, in the dial-up era of the 90s, there were a select few who were experimenting with streaming video and interactive media on the web. The most prominent and notorious of these pioneers was Pseudo.com. Dennis Adamo was one of the co-founders of Pseudo.com.You can learn more about Dennis' VR startup here: Spaceoutvr.comThe articles about Josh Harris and Pseudo that I mention are here and here.And the documentary on Harris called We Live in Public is on iTunes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's episode is a special event, a crossover episode with the Acquired Podcast, which you can find in your podcast directory by searching for the word Acquired, or by going to Acquired.fm. Acquired is hosted by Ben Gilbert, the Co-Founder of Pioneer Square Labs and David Rosenthal a Principal at Madrona Venture Group out in Seattle. To mash up our two models, we're going to talk about Yahoo's acquisition of Overture, and how that related to Google's ultimate success with Adwords. We talked about a lot of this with Gary Flake in episode 133, so, for a bit of context, here is that entire story. Please enjoy, and please, do check out the Acquired podcast at Acquired.fm Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gary Flake has been involved with search technology ever since he got turned on to this particular field in college. In this wide-ranging discussion, Gary lays out for us, basically, the history of search technology before Google, the impact of Google, and then, since he lived it, the notion of competing with Google. The reason why Gary can talk so in depth about all of this is that he was Yahoo's Chief Science Officer in the early 2000s, when Yahoo, via the infamous project Panama, and other initiatives, attempted to keep Google from taking over the entire search market. And because, prior to that, Gary was at Goto/Overture, he gives us basically the entire story of the birth of paid search as an industry. The story of Google is about two miracles. The first miracle is the Google algorithm that essentially solved search. And the second miracle is paid search... AdWords, AdSense, all of that... which is essentially the greatest advertising machine ever invented. But, not a lot of people remember: paid search was actually invented, not by Google, but by Goto/Overture. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.