Marc Andreessen

File:Mosaic browser plaque ncsa.jpg

Plaque commemorating the creation of Mosaic web browser by Bina and Andreessen, new NCSA building, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Marc Andreessen (born July 9, 1971, in Cedar Falls, Iowa and raised in New Lisbon, Wisconsin, United States) is one of the most successful entrepreneurs (called a Silicon Valley "whiz kid" ), startup coach, blogger, investor, and a multi-millionaire software engineer best known as co-author of Mosaic, the first widely-used web browser, and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. He was the chair of Opsware, a software company he founded originally as Loudcloud, when it was acquired by Hewlett-Packard. He is also a cofounder of Ning, a company which provides a platform for social-networking websites. Andreessen is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, having started 2 successful companies and working on Ning, his third venture.

Education

Andreessen received his Bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As an undergraduate, he interned one summer at IBM in Austin, Texas, United States. He also worked at the university's National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), where he became familiar with Tim Berners-Lee's open standards for the World Wide Web. Andreessen and a full-time salaried co-worker Eric Bina worked on creating a user-friendly browser with integrated graphics that would work on a wide range of computers. The resulting code was the Mosaic web browser.

Netscape

After his graduation from the university in 1993, Andreessen moved to California to work at Enterprise Integration Technologies. Andreessen then met with Jim Clark, the recently-departed founder of Silicon Graphics. Clark believed that the Mosaic browser had great commercial possibilities and suggested starting an Internet software company. Soon Mosaic Communications Corporation was in business in Mountain View, California, with Andreessen as cofounder and vice president of technology. The University of Illinois was unhappy with the company's use of the Mosaic name, so Mosaic Communications changed its name to Netscape Communications, and its flagship web browser was the Netscape Navigator.

In the year between the formation of the company and its IPO, Andreessen engaged in extensive public outreach on behalf of his vision of the web browser's potential, something he had in fact done continuously since making the decision to distribute Mosaic for free via the Internet.

One of these events, hosted by Internet commercialization pioneer Ken McCarthy, was captured on video [1] and provides a unique look at the state of the web between the time Andreessen and his colleagues launched Mosaic and the time when web browsers and servers became mainstream commercial products. At the time of the recording, Andreessen was 23 years old.

Netscape's IPO in 1995 propelled Andreessen into the public's imagination. Featured on the cover of Time and other publications, Andreessen became the poster-boy wunderkind of the Internet bubble generation: young, twenty-something, high-tech, ambitious, and worth millions (or billions) of dollars practically overnight.

Netscape's success attracted the attention of Microsoft, which recognized the web's potential and wanted to put itself at the forefront of the rising Internet revolution. Microsoft licensed the Mosaic source code from Spyglass, Inc., an offshoot of the University of Illinois, and turned it into Internet Explorer. The resulting battle between the two companies became known as the Browser Wars.

Netscape was acquired in 1999 for $4.2 billion by AOL, which made Andreessen its Chief Technology Officer.

Loudcloud

However, he would soon leave to form Loudcloud, a services-based Web hosting company that underwent an IPO in 2001. Loudcloud sold its hosting business to EDS and changed its name to Opsware in 2003, where Andreessen served as chairman. Opsware was purchased by Hewlett-Packard in September 2007 for approximately $1.6 billion.

Current ventures

Andreessen is an investor in social news website Digg and several other early-stage technology startups, like Plazes and Twitter. His latest project is Ning, which launched in October 2005. He serves on the board of Open Media Network, a combined Kontiki (VeriSign) client and media player, launched in 2005. Andreessen is now active in the blogging community. You can check out his blog at: http://blog.pmarca.com/

Personal life

Andreessen is married to Laura Arrillaga, who is the chairwoman of the Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund [2], and the daughter of Silicon Valley real estate billionaire John Arrillaga.

External links

• pmarca, Andreesen's blog, launched June 2007
• Michael Moritz interviews Marc Andreesen et al at TechCrunch40 conference video
• First Internet Marketing Conference, San Francisco, 1994 Video includes Andreesen discussing Mosaic. See also: Internet Marketing Conference
• Ning Social Network Creation service
• PBS mini-bio
• Biography of Marc Andreesen Ibiblio.com
• Opsware Inc On the record: Marc Andreessen Interview re: successor to Loudcloud. December 7, 2003. Retrieved 2007-04-15.

• Netscape pioneers launch free content network CNET News.com. John Borland, April 25, 2005. Accessed 2007-04-15.
• Open Source Conversations 2005-10-19 Interview with Marc Andreessen
• MP3 / OGG EdTechLive.com audio interview with Marc on education, free and open source software, and social networking