Architects of the Web

No industry truly needs lots of MBAs. But most need at least a few. And in 1995, the nascent World Wide Web had scarcely a dozen. Those of us with the dumb luck to have landed there were able to write our own tickets as our industry expanded by a factor of thousands. Some became venture capitalist. Others, entrepreneurs. I leveraged my situation into a hitch writing a long, challenging book with dim commercial prospects (Pro Tip: Mommas, don’t let your babies grow up to be writers).

My ideal reader was someone like me 18 months earlier – a nontechnical business type with no knowledge of the Web, but an urge to understand how it would restructure the way we lived our lives and did business. I was as fervent an evangelist, believer and witness as most preachers are for their faith. The Web was an obscure domain that none of my friends outside of tech had even heard of. Perhaps ten of my 800 business school classmates were issued email addresses after graduating, and I wanted to bring them the gospel of all that would soon engulf them like a Bengali typhoon (in a good way, of course). I hoped to paint a highly accessible picture of how radically things – almost all things – were about to change, and why.

Twenty years on, I’m proud of how predictive certain elements of this book turned out to be. The companies and sites it profiles have largely been eclipsed – inevitable, given that in the mid-90s, there was no Facebook, Google, Uber, AirBnB, Wikipedia, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Netflix, Pinterest, etc. But most of the processes and market shifts that I anticipated have largely played out. Although today, of course, my book is not a prescient look into the future, but work of history (and rather ancient history at that)@ Yet I believe it remains valuable. I conducted more than a hundred interviews in researching this thing. Long, in-person interviews, recorded on audiocassette, and then arduously transcribed. This was history in the making. I was privileged to witness it, and am glad that I documented it.

I structured the book around eight domains that readers needed to fathom to fully grasp the Web’s potential. I then paired these domains with companies and entrepreneurs who had fun and accessible stories. The tale of how Marc Andreessen cofounded and grew Netscape thus became a route to understanding Web browsers and Internet software. Likewise, the story of Jerry Yang and Yahoo showcased the importance of search engines; that of Wired launched my survey of online publishing; RealNetworks was a gateway to discussing online audio (there was no online video yet); etc.

Some of the people profiled herein arguably peaked in the 90s. Others have never stopped ascending (I’m looking at you, Mr. Andreessen). But all of them did something huge and profoundly disruptive at an obnoxiously young age, and their stories will always matter.

Praise for Architects of the Web

"The best attempt yet to chronicle the beginnings of the a communications revolution that may someday make even the telephone seem insignificant."

The Economist

"Well written and rich with detail .... Reid's book will probably come to be viewed as the definitive early history of the eight companies he profiles."

-Fortune

"For anyone interested in a more sophisticated, somewhat technical introduction to the Net, or to the Web in particular."

-Worth Magazine

"Architects of the Web is a book for everyone. You don't have to be a 24-hour-a-day Nethead to appreciate this peek behind the Web's curtain For the savvy and newbies, Reid does all Internet users a favor by elaborating on this intensely evolving entity that has become a large part of everyone's life."

Copley News Service

"This book is clearly written, providing good, solid information on an industry that is so new that details are sometimes hard to find. Highly recommend for both public and academic libraries serving readers interested in wither the Web or doing business on it."

-Library Journal

"An authoritative overview of the first three years of the Internet."

-Kirkus Reviews

"Well-versed in hip geek talk, Reid successfully conjures a you-are-there feel to his coverage of this revolution-in-the-making."

-Booklist

"A lively history of the World Wide Web."

-Publishers Weekly