Marc Andreessen - Co-founded Netscape Communications Corp.

CO-FOUNDED NETSCAPE COMMUNICATIONS CORP.

At first the new company was called Mosaic Communications Corp. However, the NCSA, which held the copyright to Mosaic software, objected and the company was renamed Netscape Communications Corp. Andreessen, then 22 years old, became Nets-cape's vice president of technology. His job was to make the Web browser Mosaic faster and more interactive. He persuaded several NCSA team members to join him at Netscape, and soon the company released its new browser. While the development team wanted to call it Mozilla, short for Mosaic Killer, the company's marketing executives insisted on calling it Nets-cape Navigator.

Like Mosaic before it, Netscape Navigator was distributed for free on the Internet and quickly became very popular. The development of a downloadable browser and its introduction in October 1994 removed a significant technological hurdle for people seeking to go online; E-Commerce Times considered it one of the 10 key moments in the making of e-commerce. It was Netscape's browser that established the now-well-known brand name, prompting computer users to try other Netscape products. Soon, the company was profitable, and on August 9, 1995, made its initial public offering (IPO). One the first day of the IPO, Netscape's shares opened at $7 and closed at $29 after reaching a high of $36. In one day, Andreessen, who had worked at NSCA for $6.85 an hour, achieved a net worth of more than $50 million. By the end of 1995 his shares were worth $171 million.

For some time, Netscape enjoyed little or no competition for its browser. It was clear, however, by 1997 that Netscape was losing market share to Microsoft, which had introduced a competing browser—Internet Explorer 2.0—in 1995, followed by Explorer 3.0 in 1996. Andreessen, as Netscape's executive vice president in charge of product development, oversaw a staff of 1,000 tasked with staying ahead of the software giant. The most serious blow to Netscape's market position occurred when Microsoft brought out Internet Explorer 4.0 in September 1997 and bundled it with its Windows operating system. Netscape began to lose money, and by April 1998 Microsoft had captured some 40 percent of the browser market, while Netscape's share had shrunk from around 80 percent to 60 percent.

Andreessen refocused Netscape toward enterprise software for corporate intranets and electronic commerce in an effort to develop new sources of revenue. Before the year was over, however, America Online and Sun Microsystems announced they would jointly acquire Netscape's assets for $4.2 billion. Sun took over Netscape's intellectual property and the continuing development of its products, while America Online got Netscape's popular Web portal Net-Center and other assets. After the acquisition was completed in 1999, Andreessen became AOL's chief technology officer and worked from an office at AOL's headquarters in Virginia. Andreessen soon got restless, and he resigned in September 1999.