Internet History Podcast

Welcome BACK to the Internet History Podcast. After essentially a 5 year hiatus, the Internet History Podcast is back, fully back, a whole slate of episodes coming to you, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to have our relaunch episode be with Jimmy Wales. What can I tell you? He’s the founder of Wikipedia. We get deep into the history of all that but also get into how he’s thinking about the web and Wikipedia in this age of AI.Chapters00:00 The Return of the Internet History Podcast00:58 Exploring Trust in the Digital Age04:09 Growing Up with Knowledge11:53 The Journey into Technology and Finance16:58 The First Encounters with the Internet18:38 The Spark of Entrepreneurship20:09 The Birth of Bomis and New Ideas27:13 The Transition from Newpedia to Wikipedia31:57 Navigating Challenges and Building Trust42:25 Moments of Realization and Trust in Wikipedia48:05 From Startup to Nonprofit: A New Direction51:17 Lessons in Nonprofit Fundraising53:02 Transparency and Community Engagement01:00:21 Wikipedia in the Age of AI01:07:29 The Future of the Open Web01:08:58 Defining Purpose in Knowledge Platforms01:12:05 Building Trust in Personal and Political LifeTakeawaysWikipedia's growth was fueled by community engagement and open editing.Trust is essential for the success of any platform.The transition from Newpedia to Wikipedia was a pivotal moment.Transparency in operations fosters community trust.AI's impact on knowledge sharing is significant but manageable.Defining a clear purpose helps in moderating content.Wikipedia's model demonstrates the power of decentralized knowledge.The importance of assuming good faith in online interactions.Nonprofit status allows for a focus on mission over profit.Building trust in personal and political life is crucial for society. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

People know that a16z changed tech by turning VCs and founders into rock stars. You know the names. But there’s one name you might not know, that real heads, deep inside the industry have known very well over the years. The legend, Margit Vennmachers. You know all those a16z names because of Margit, because of how she helped Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz and others build a16z into the most prominent VC firm in the world. This is a conversation with Margit about her entire career, her philosophy on coms and marketing and PR, and how a16z evolved. From the story behind Software Is Eating The World to how startups can build and burnish their own legend, from the woman who, behind the scenes, those in the know knew was making it happen.Chapters00:00 Intros02:13 From Farm Life to Tech Dreams03:56 Navigating Grief and Independence09:38 Cultural Shifts: From Germany to Silicon Valley12:25 The Early Days of Silicon Valley21:05 Launching Outcast Communications25:15 Building Credibility in the Startup World27:31 The Rise of Facebook and Industry Cycles29:43 Navigating Economic Cycles and Client Relationships30:53 The Decision to Sell Outkast32:43 Founding A16Z: The Backstory36:48 Marketing Strategies for A16Z42:00 The Evolution of Tech Leadership43:53 The Role of an Operating Partner46:39 Crisis Management in Tech51:42 The Concept of 'Software is Eating the World'55:41 Lessons from Two Decades with Mark and Ben56:49 The Future of Tech and AI58:06 Margit's Transition to Partner EmeritusTakeaways:Margit's upbringing on a small farm shaped her resilience.Grief can lead to early maturity and self-reliance.Her first tech job sparked a curiosity about the industry.Cultural differences in Silicon Valley were eye-opening.Founding Outcast Communications was driven by inspiration, not frustration.Crisis management is crucial in maintaining a company's reputation.PR for startups requires a focus on storytelling and relationships.The dot-com bubble taught valuable lessons about sustainability.A16Z's approach to venture capital emphasizes personality and visibility.The future of tech is intertwined with the responsible use of AI. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For my entire career in tech and startups, Fred Wilson has been like the god-level VC in the New York City ecosystem. Fred got his start investing before the dotcom bubble, rode the bubble investing in the earliest internet companies to great success, and then turned Union Square Ventures into the premier venture capital firm on the east coast. Hear the story of Fred’s investments in Geocities, Etsy, Coinbase, MongoDB among others. When I first started this podcast almost 12 years ago, Fred was one of the top 5 people I wanted to talk to.Chapters00:00 The Four Technological Revolutions11:08 Fred Wilson's Journey into Venture Capital21:34 The Rise of New York's Tech Scene34:53 Founding Union Square Ventures48:00 The Evolution of Web 2.057:16 Current Technological Intersections and Future OutlookTakeawaysThere are four major technological revolutions happening simultaneously: AI, synthetic biology, energy transition, and crypto.Fred Wilson transitioned from naval engineering to venture capital due to a passion for technology and finance.The New York tech scene began to emerge in the early 90s with digital media and online services.Flatiron Partners was founded to focus on internet investments during the dot-com boom.Investing in companies like GeoCities and Etsy showcased the potential of the internet.The dot-com crash taught valuable lessons about sustainable business models.Union Square Ventures was founded during a challenging economic period, emphasizing the importance of the application layer of the internet.The rise of social media and user engagement became central to investment strategies in the 2000s.Fred's blog became a platform for sharing ideas and attracting founders to his firm.Current technological advancements are driven by the convergence of AI, biology, energy, and crypto. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Serial entrepreneur Shirish Nadkarni came to the U.S. as a teenager with $25 in his pocket. After graduating from Harvard Business School, he worked at Microsoft where he engineered the $400 million acquisition of Hotmail and launched MSN.com, the world’s leading web portal.Striking out on his own in 1999 at the height of the dot-com boom, he founded TeamOn Systems, an early pioneer of mobile email that was later acquired by BlackBerry before becoming BlackBerry Internet Email servicing over 50 million users at its peak.His great new book is: From Startup to Exit: An Insider's Guide to Launching and Scaling Your Tech Business Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joshua Schachter, founder of del.icio.us, is someone I’ve wanted to talk to from the very first day of this podcast. As we’ll discuss, del.icio.us was such a standard bearer of the web 2.0 era. Of user generated content. Of sharing long before Facebook or Twitter or any of that. If my email chain is to be believed, this episode has been four years in the making, and I’m glad Josh and I found the time to do this episode and bring the podcast back. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Angelika Fuellemann is a designer who worked early on with BookSense.com, then got hired by Audible early on, so this is the early story of Audible. It’s funny… audio, streaming music, podcasts, audiobooks, it seems so obvious now, but it really is funny to look back and think about how off the wall this seamed before the smartphone. You mean books on tape will be a thing?  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Josh Marshall is one of the key people who brought blogging into the realm of serious, award winning and respectable journalism. The story of his blog/publication, Talking Points Memo, or TPM is the story of blogging becoming legit and serious, but also the story of modern media over the last 20 years of digital disruption. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is technology really rotting our brains, destroying our society... or is that what everyone has always worried about with every technological advance, going back to tv, or telephones, or even writing letters? The new book, Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid: Changing Feelings about Technology, from the Telegraph to Twitter tries to look at this question from a historical perspective. Is it really different this time? But more importantly... to what degree has technological change impacted how we think of things, and vice-versa.My thanks to the authors, Luke Fernandez and Susan J. Matt. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Well, as we say in this episode, he’ll always be known as the inventor of the hashtag, but Chris Messina has been central to so many things in tech over the last 20 years or so. Helped Mozilla launch Firefox. Founded BarCamp where so much Web 2.0 goodness happened and was launched. Cofounded the first co-working space in San Francisco. Helped Google try to grok social with Google+. Oh, and that hashtag business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I’ve said before I wish I could cover technology history beyond just North America, more… Well, Charles Miller has started a great podcast in Britain called Tech Business History. Charles used to report on the tech business as a BBC documentary producer. In the first series of his podcast, he’s exploring the dot com boom in the UK with some of the people he met when he was filming for the BBC back in 1999. It’s a fantastic show that I’ve fallen in love with, so what I want to do is play you an episode from his show that was amazing. It’s exactly the sort of interview I wish I had gotten for this show: In the episode we’re going to hear, he talks to Darryl Mattocks, the founder of a very early dot com called The Internet Bookshop. Yes, they were selling books on the internet before Jeff Bezos did. But I’ll let Charles introduce his guest – in this episode of TBH – Tech Business History. And if you like it, do catch up with the other episodes on iTunes or from your podcast providerThe Tech Business History Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Everyone knows Karen Wickre, because she’s one of those classic connectors. Once we finally got in touch, I wasn’t surprised to learn we knew about half a dozen of the same people though we had never remotely crossed paths. But Karen knows everyone because she’s popped up Zelig-like in a bunch of interesting places over the course of tech history over the last 30 years or so. Early tech journalism. Planet Out. Early Google employee. Early blogger. Early tweeter. Editorial Director at Twitter. Karen has a great book out that you should read, explaining how to do what she does so successfully, called Take The Work Out of Networking: An Introvert’s Guide To Making Connections That Count. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kevin Scott is the current Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft. We talk about his entire career, how being an academic seemed to be his path before he transformed the ads system at Google. Then he revolutionized the entire advertising industry at AdMob; is credited by some people by saving LinkedIn from technical rot; and now, today, oversees Microsoft's efforts in AI, VR/AR all the future things. Fantastic conversation.Kevin's podcast is: Behind the Tech Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we continue my efforts to preserve the history of the ISP industry. Today it feels like the Internet is simply all around us all the time, but there are amazing entrepreneurial stories about how that crucial infrastructure was laid. Today we talk to Sonic founder Dane Jasper, who can not only give us the history of the industry, but the present day as well, as Sonic is still a thriving and important independent ISP. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

20 years ago, the acclaimed documentarian Doug Block released a landmark film, Home Page. Doug’s documentary accidentally chronicled the birth of blogging, featuring several people we’ve talked to on this very show, including Justin Hall. But the documentary also captured a moment in time, the web going mainstream, the beginnings of the dotcom bubble, the early days of Wired, Hotwired and Suck and also so many of the things I ask people about on here regularly. How people learned to live online, to begin to port all of modern life over to the digital. Well, Home Page is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a re-release, and starting this week, you can watch it yourself everywhere films are gettable, including iTunes. Today we speak to Doug Block about this amazing movie that I think is one of the best historical records of the era we have been interrogating for nearly 5 years on this podcast. Go watch Home Page yourself, and check out The D-word, Doug’s community for documentarians, at D-word.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dan Maccarone is a digital design veteran, websites, products, strategy. He's got some amazing stories about the dotcom bubble, about the aftermath, and the rise of Web 2.0. He shares some unique design lessons but also, the story of the birth of Hulu, which I don't think has really been covered anywhere before. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Part two of the WSJ's online adventures intersect with several other stories we've covered on here over the years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’ve had a couple of people come on here to discuss how the New York Times got online, but the spiritual yin to their yang is the Wall Street Journal and we haven’t done enough to explore their path to embracing the internet. It’s worth doing that because they embraced a different model from basically day one. Almost alone among the web media pioneers, the Journal went the subscription route. So, we’re going to talk to Rich Jaroslovksy, who headed the team that brought the Journal online, to see why they went that route, to learn about the path to the web and much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s bothered me for a while that over the 5 years or so of this podcast, we haven’t focused very much on some corners of the history. For example… the legal side? Copyright law? Intellectual property law? How much have we talked about disruption and piracy and filesharing and all that stuff? So, I spoke to Richard Chapo, who has been doing Internet Law since the web went mainstream. We talk about the Napster era, we talk about how much of an influence the adult industry had on digital law, we talk about the state of digital law today, and actually, a whole bunch of contemtorary law stuff like GDPR. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Part three of our epic conversation with Stephan Paternot. Here's what happens when you've been through the wringer. When you've been to the top of the rollercoaster and also down to the bottom. Here's how you take stock of your life, how you reinvent yourself, re-find you entrepreneurial spirit... I feel like there are so many lessons in these three episodes. Lessons for entrepreneurs today. Lesson for... I dunno. People in the crypto space? My thanks to Stephan Paternot for an insanely great conversation.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ok, part 2 of the Stephan Paternot mega-episode right now. This is where we get into the meat of it, the good stuff, the whole crazy roller coaster ride of being the hottest startup of the dotcom era. And I was going to make this the last episode, but as I was editing this, I realized that after we get done with this story, Stephan talks a lot about what happens after... what happens after you've been on a crazy ride like this. How you have to reinvent yourself, and your life, and your career. He said so many interesting things about that, that for the first time ever, we're going to do a part 3, coming in two weeks, to talk about the reinvention. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.