Marc Andreessen born in Cedar Falls, Iowa
Marc Lowell Andreessen is born in Cedar Falls, Iowa. He grows up 10 miles outside New Lisbon, Wisconsin, a village of 1,500, on Castle Rock Lake. His mother, Pat, works in customer service at Lands’ End. His father, Lowell, is a sales manager for Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. On his father’s job:
It was an Amway kind of thing–farmers slowly going out of business on their family farms sell seed corn to other farmers slowly going out of business.
He has one brother, Jeff, a history major at the University of Wisconsin. Andreessen discovers programming at age 12. While recuperating from an operation he persuades his parents to buy him a Radio Shack computer.
Netscape rename
Andreessen and a founding team of five other members announce the name change from Mosaic Communications Corporation to Netscape Communications Corporation based on the popularity of the “Netscape” browser. Chairman and CEO Jim Clark says:
We are making this name change both as a gesture of good will to the University of Illinois and to more clearly differentiate our company from other companies marketing World Wide Web browsers. ‘Netscape Communications’ more fully conveys the nature and breadth of our business, which is much more comprehensive than a simple browser for the Internet. Our new name enables us to underscore our unique identity as a premier provider of complete, standards-based client/server solutions for communicating and conducting commerce on the Net.
MicroTimes Man of the Year
0 CommentsAndreessen is selected as Man of the Year in the Silicon Valley-focused magazine. The interviewer focuses on Mosaic’s development and Andreessen’s reasoning behind its rapid adoption:
It was fun and easy to use. People could pull it down (from the Net), install it, and boom, it worked…The other part was, and this gets back to the server side, it was straightforward for people to do things specific to what they were doing. It was easy to build applications on top of it.
Young Innovators Under 35
0 CommentsAndreessen is named to MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 list for his work with Netscape and America Online.
Ultimately, his greatest influence on the future of technology could be the outcome of the Justice Department’s antitrust suit against Microsoft, in large part the result of Bill Gates’ business practices vis-à-vis Andreessen’s Netscape.
Loudcloud launch
Andreessen announces the formation of Loudcloud, a company based in Menlo Park, California, that provides high-performance computing and software services to Internet and e-commerce companies. Loudcloud is later recognized as the first company to conceive of the “cloud” paradigm. Andreessen teams up with several ex-Netscape employees, including Loudcloud’s co-founder and CEO, Ben Horowitz. Andreessen is listed as the company’s co-founder and chairman. According to reports, Loudcloud is privately funded by Andreessen and other employees.
Introduced to Adelson
Andreessen introduces Conway and Adelson via email. Adelson meets Conway at his house:
I remember being really impressed with the questions he was asking. The other thing was Ron’s database in his brain of contacts around Silicon Valley was the most extensive and probably most top-of-mind database of people that I’ve ever run into in my career.
Ning
Andreessen and Bianchini launch Ning, a free online service where users can build social applications. The service is a product of Palo Alto startup 24 Hour Laundry. Developers can use Ning’s tools to build new programs or work off of clones of existing services.
The difference between apps built on Ning and any of these other services is that we make it easy for developers to build whatever app they want for any topic, interest, group, language, location or product, without a lot of effort. As a user, you get to explore and take advantage of this wider variety of social apps.
Andreessen, Arrillaga marry
Andreessen marries Laura Arrillaga, a philanthropy teacher at Stanford University and the daughter of Silicon Valley real estate developer John Arrillaga. The marriage spurs Andreessen to start considering new philanthropic options:
I am completely committed to philanthropy because if I’m not, I’m in a great deal of trouble. I can’t even tell you.
Invests in Twitter
Twitter announces a round led by Union Square Ventures and including Conway, Andreessen, and others. It doesn’t disclose the funding amount or valuation. Twitter:
Twitter has had such an awesome start and now we’re even more excited to keep up the momentum. We’re very much looking forward to building a strong and sustainable company.
Joins Facebook board
After a period of speculation, Andreessen officially joins Facebook’s board of directors alongside Mark Zuckerberg, Jim Breyer, and Peter Thiel. The official press release calls Andreessen’s venture Ning, “a complementary platform to Facebook,” rather than a potential rival. Andressen says:
Facebook is one of the most innovative companies on the Web and it’s an honor to join the board. I’m looking forward to helping the team as Facebook continues to grow.
Joins eBay board
Andreessen joins eBay’s board of directors while working on the Ning social networking platform. eBay President/CEO John Donahoe says:
Marc is a true visionary whose experience will be invaluable to eBay. We look forward to learning from Marc’s insights and expertise as we drive further innovation on our platform, invest in growth opportunities, and develop technology that will further benefit our customers, build powerful communities and enhance e-commerce.
Andreessen Horowitz
Andreessen and Horowitz launch Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm. The two are well known investors, backing half a dozen startups each year, including social investing site kaChing, virtual worlds company Metaplace, mobile video company Qik, online publishing company Crowdfusion, dating site I’minlikewithyou, search company Blekko and media/technology company EQAL.
TPM Media investment
Andreessen invests in the media company that operates the TalkingPointsMemo blog. With contributions from other angel investors, the round of financing is estimated between $500,000 and $1 million. TalkingPointsMemo is recognized as one of a small number of blogging sites that does original journalism.
Skype purchase
Ebay sells Skype at a value of $2.75 billion to Silver Lake Partners, which includes Joltid, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and Andreessen Horowitz. SLP acquires a 70 percent stake in the Internet communication company. Andreesen notes:
Skype is gigantic and yet still a relatively small percentage of international call volume. This is, and ought to be, one of the most important companies on the Internet.
CrunchFund investors
Business Insider reports that among the investors in the fund are AOL, Conway, Milner, Benchmark Capital, Horowitz, Andreessen, Redpoint, and Sequoia.
Startup School
Graham interviews Andreessen about Netscape and how the tech industry has changed. Andreessen:
All of us who were lucky enough to be involved back then were completely unaware of what was going to happen
Beware high-value out-of-towners
0 CommentsAndreessen says he is warning portfolio companies to be skeptical of early-stage investments with high valuations as investors from outside Silicon Valley, who he doesn’t name, are acting unethically. He says they are often presenting term sheets as a start to negotiations rather than an end-point, and pushing valuations sky-high to get exclusivity on deals, increasing the risk for the startup if the investor walks, and making it harder for the investor to get future deals.
https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/452158174728970241
Promoted Pins add revenue
Pinterest starts Promoted Pins to add revenue, appearing in users’ search and category feeds. The mix of brands reflects activity on the site. Fashion features heavily, with Gap, Banana Republic, Lululemon Athletica, and Old Navy participating. Food makers Nestle , Kraft, and General Mills are also participating, along with Expedia.com and Walt Disney resorts in the travel category.
Pinterest raises $200M at $5B valuation
The company announces Series F funding from its existing roster including SV Angel, Bessemer, Fidelity, Andreessen Horowitz, FirstMark Capital, and Valiant Capital Partners. Total financing is $764 million, and the company is working on building out its ad monetization system and its search functions.
Snowden ‘Traitor’
0 CommentsAndreessen calls Snowden a traitor, a viewpoint he claims is a minority view in Silicon Valley:
For me obviously he’s a traitor. If you look up in the encyclopedia ‘traitor,’ there’s a picture of Ed Snowden. He stole national security secrets and gave them to everyone on the planet.
Andreessen also continuies his criticism of President Obams response to the NSA revelations, noting there is no plan to help American companies that do business overseas:
As far as I can tell there’s no plan, there’s no strategy, there’s no tactics, there’s nothing. The Snowden reveals keep coming out. The [Obama] administration is letting the NSA out to dry. They’re letting the American tech industry out to dry.