Marc Andreessen Biography

The amazing growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web has been due in large part to the genius of Marc Andreessen. His browser software, Mosaic and Netscape Navigator, made using the Internet easy and more popular for both businesses and home users. The company he helped found, Netscape Communications, made Andreessen an instant millionaire and industry icon.

Andreessen was born in Iowa in 1972. He grew up in the small town of New Lisbon, Wisconsin, with his parents, Lowell and Patricia. Marc Andreessen's father works as an agriculturist and his mother works for Land's End, a catalogue retailer. Andreessen was not the typical New Lisbon boy. He spent his early years reading and learning about computers to alleviate the boredom of small town life. In sixth grade, he wrote his first computer program --a virtual calculator for doing his math homework. But the program was on the school's personal computer (PC), and when the custodian turned off the building's power, Andreessen's program was wiped out. The next year, his parents bought him his first computer, a TRS-80 from Radio Shack that cost only a few hundred dollars. Marc taught himself BASIC programming from library books so he could write video games for the new PC.

Andreessen's teachers and classmates from New Lisbon remember him as a good student who excelled in computing, math, English, and history. "Marc had an intellectual capacity that could intimidate people," said his former principal Ken Adams. Andreessen could also challenge teachers, and was known to question the relevance of their assignments. At the University of Illinois, Andreessen planned to major in electrical engineering, which he considered his most lucrative option, but then changed to computer science. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 1993.

Andreessen now lives in Palo Alto, California with his fiancée, Elizabeth Horn, and their pet bull dogs. He enjoys a range of interests, including science fiction, classical music, philosophy, and business strategy. As might be appropriate for a computer whiz, Andreessen claims to be a "Netizen"-- he gets all his news from the World Wide Web, buys his books from the online site Amazon.com, and even uses the Internet to check theater times.

A $6.85 an hour job at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana's National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) got Andreessen interested in the Internet. At the NCSA, he worked with master programmer Eric Bina to develop an interface that could navigate the World Wide Web, integrating text, graphics, and sound. The result was Mosaic, which the NCSA team completed in 1993 and posted for free over the Internet. Over 2 million copies of the browser were downloaded the first year. Mosaic was responsible for a 10,000-fold increase in Web users over a period of two years.

After graduating from Illinois in 1993, Andreessen took a job with Enterprise Integration Technologies, a producer of Internet security-enhancement products, in California. Soon, however, he received an e-mail from Jim Clark, a former associate professor of computer science at Stanford University. Clark had founded Silicon Graphics Inc., which made computers that specialized in graphics processing, and was interested in improving on Mosaic. He set up a meeting with Andreessen, and the two decided to combine Andreessen's technical know-how and Clark's business expertise to launch their own company in 1994.

The company was named Mosaic Communications Corp., but when the NCSA, which owned the copyright to the Mosaic software objected to the name, the partners changed it to Netscape. Andreessen, as vice president of technology at the new company, worked to make Mosaic faster and more interactive. Andreessen was helped by several team members from the original Mosaic project at NCSA, whom he persuaded to join Netscape. Soon, the company released their new browser, which the development team wanted to call "Mozilla"-short for Mosaic Killer. The marketing department, however, insisted on Netscape Navigator.

The program was distributed free on the Internet, and quickly became extremely popular. This established Netscape as a "brand" name, and prompted computer users to try other Netscape products. Soon, the company was profitable. On 9 August 1995, Netscape first offered shares in the company to the public. That day, shares opened at $7 and shot up to $36. They closed at $29. In one day, the then-24-year-old Andreessen became worth more than $50 million. To celebrate, he went out and bought his first suit.

By December of that year, Netscape's stock reached an all-time high. The value of Andreessen's shares in the company skyrocketed to $171 million. But at almost the same time, Microsoft Corporation, which until then had been focusing primarily on PCs and had ignored the Internet, realized the value of browser software and announced that it would begin to work in that area. In July 1997, Andreessen became executive vice president in charge of product development at Netscape. In charge of a staff of 1,000, Andreessen set out to stay ahead of the giant Microsoft.

In September 1997, Microsoft launched its first browser, Internet Explorer 4.0. This was Netscape Navigator's first real competitor, and it began to lure Netscape users away. In January 1998, Netscape shocked Wall Street by announcing an $88 million loss for the quarter. By April, according to Business Week, Microsoft had captured about 40 percent of the browser market, while Netscape's share had shrunk from about 80 percent to around 60 percent.

Andreessen's challenge was to get Netscape back to profitability by focusing on new sources of revenue. He shifted the company's focus away from the browser market and toward enterprise software for intranets (corporate networks) and electronic commerce. However, rumors had surfaced in early 1998 that Netscape was on the block. Before the year was over, 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 NetCenter and other assets.

After the acquisition was finalized in 1999, Andreessen was named AOL's Chief Technology Officer and given an office at AOL's headquarters in Virginia. It wasn't a good fit for Andreessen, though, and he resigned in September 1999. The next month he announced the launch of his new company, LoudCloud Inc., which included several alumni from Netscape. The new company would provide technology and services to Internet companies and e-commerce sites. The company would help Web entrepreneurs by supplying them with the core technology for their e-commerce sites. After telling PC Week that LoudCloud would not be a software company, he affirmed his commitment to the company in Fortune, "I'm going to be involved for a much longer period of time [than fellow entrepreneur Jim Clark]."

Andreessen's browser software had a profound impact on society. According to People Weekly, Mosaic stimulated a 10,000 percent increase in the number of Web users within two years from its debut. And Netscape Navigator was even more popular. The astronomical growth of the World Wide Web could not have occurred without a simple product that helped users find their way through the vast, and sometimes disorganized, material on the Web. And the first such product was invented by Andreessen.

From the beginning, Andreessen used innovative strategies to get his program out to the public. By allowing computer users to download Mosaic and Netscape Navigator for free, he took a chance. But the browsers became so popular that users quickly developed confidence in the Netscape brand, and purchased other Netscape goods and services.

Andreessen was known for putting in long hours at Netscape, but his management style differed very much from that of his main competitor, Microsoft. Andreessen remained close to the programmers who work for him, maintaining a collegial, team-like atmosphere. He did not insist that his employees work long hours-in fact, he encouraged them to limit office hours to 50 per week. Characteristic of this team-oriented approach was Andreessen's decision to offer Netscape's browser code over the Internet to anyone who wants it. His reasoning was that the feedback he gets from other software developers could lead to new ideas for Netscape.

Andreessen has had to respond quickly to the intense competition within the computer industry. Microsoft's entry into the browser market challenged Andreessen to continue to improve Netscape's products and to develop new ones. After adding substantial content and services to Netscape's web site, he made the company attractive to America Online; and it was Netscape's development of e-commerce and enterprise solutions that attracted Sun Microsystems.

Though he admits he needs more experience, Andreessen likes business strategy. Venture capitalist John Doerr commented that Andreessen "has retained his fresh point of view about what's possible . . . . He has grown a lot . . ." And investment analyst Mary Meeker said of Andreessen "He'll be a great CEO--five to 10 years from now." As head of his new company LoudCloud, Andreessen will be able to make new contributions to the growth of the Internet and e-commerce.