WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.839 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. It is February 00:00:02.839 --> 00:00:06.679 2026 and today we're looking at something that, 00:00:06.679 --> 00:00:09.400 well, on the surface feels like we're digging 00:00:09.400 --> 00:00:11.939 up a fossil. It really does. But it's a fossil 00:00:11.939 --> 00:00:15.240 that was, and this is the crazy part, still twitching 00:00:15.240 --> 00:00:17.839 until just a couple of months ago. We are talking 00:00:17.839 --> 00:00:21.809 about the official... Final absolute death of 00:00:21.809 --> 00:00:24.190 the Netscape brand. It really is the end of an 00:00:24.190 --> 00:00:26.670 era. And I don't use that phrase lightly. This 00:00:26.670 --> 00:00:28.929 isn't just some old company going under. No. 00:00:29.010 --> 00:00:31.690 It's the final closure of the chapter that you 00:00:31.690 --> 00:00:34.049 could argue started the commercial Internet as 00:00:34.049 --> 00:00:36.109 we know it. See, that's what threw me when I 00:00:36.109 --> 00:00:37.850 was prepping for this. I think if you ask the 00:00:37.850 --> 00:00:40.390 average person on the street or heck, even the 00:00:40.390 --> 00:00:42.509 average person in Silicon Valley when Netscape 00:00:42.509 --> 00:00:45.530 died, they'd probably say, what, 2003? Maybe 00:00:45.530 --> 00:00:47.530 2005 if they were really thinking about it. Right. 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:50.939 But the actual heartbeat, the last official service, 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:54.560 stopped on November 30, 2025. That's the date. 00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:57.380 That was the day they finally, finally killed 00:00:57.380 --> 00:01:00.299 the ISP service. Which is just wild to me. The 00:01:00.299 --> 00:01:03.880 idea that in late 2025, while people are using 00:01:03.880 --> 00:01:07.920 AI assistants and VR headsets, there was someone 00:01:07.920 --> 00:01:12.359 somewhere paying $9 .95 a month for a Netscape 00:01:12.359 --> 00:01:14.700 dial -up account. It is surprising that it lasted 00:01:14.700 --> 00:01:17.049 that long. Honestly. But, you know, legacy services 00:01:17.049 --> 00:01:19.810 have a very, very long tail. I guess so. That 00:01:19.810 --> 00:01:23.890 date, though, November 30, 2025, that marks the 00:01:23.890 --> 00:01:27.409 true discontinuation. It's the final period at 00:01:27.409 --> 00:01:30.129 the end of a very long, very, very complex sentence. 00:01:30.390 --> 00:01:33.030 So today our mission isn't just to, you know, 00:01:33.090 --> 00:01:35.989 mourn a dial up service or make jokes about the 00:01:35.989 --> 00:01:38.109 screeching modem sound, but we might do a little 00:01:38.109 --> 00:01:40.329 of that. It's hard to resist. It is. We want 00:01:40.329 --> 00:01:42.730 to go beyond the usual browser war story that 00:01:42.730 --> 00:01:44.129 everyone knows. We want to look at the entire 00:01:44.129 --> 00:01:46.340 life cycle. Because when I was prepping, I realized 00:01:46.340 --> 00:01:48.760 Netscape isn't just a browser history footnote. 00:01:48.819 --> 00:01:51.180 It's actually the architect of the world we live 00:01:51.180 --> 00:01:53.340 in right now. That is the absolute key. Yeah. 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:55.579 If you just look at the browser war Netscape 00:01:55.579 --> 00:01:58.420 versus Internet Explorer, you miss all the nuance. 00:01:58.620 --> 00:02:01.400 You really do. You miss the fact that this company 00:02:01.400 --> 00:02:04.500 went from a startup to the biggest IPO in history 00:02:04.500 --> 00:02:08.270 in just 16 months. You miss the weird, weird 00:02:08.270 --> 00:02:11.229 origins involving Nintendo of all companies. 00:02:11.310 --> 00:02:12.990 We have to get to that. And you miss the fact 00:02:12.990 --> 00:02:16.050 that the technical legacy of Netscape is basically 00:02:16.050 --> 00:02:18.669 the operating system of the modern web. That's 00:02:18.669 --> 00:02:20.490 the part that just gets me. We're going to talk 00:02:20.490 --> 00:02:23.409 about how a company goes from having, what, 90 00:02:23.409 --> 00:02:26.789 % market share to less than 1 %? And yet, if 00:02:26.789 --> 00:02:29.189 they hadn't existed, we might not have the internet 00:02:29.189 --> 00:02:31.610 as we know it today. It's a paradox, right? A 00:02:31.610 --> 00:02:34.430 complete business failure in the long run? but 00:02:34.430 --> 00:02:36.729 a technological triumph that fundamentally defined 00:02:36.729 --> 00:02:38.849 how the world communicates and does business. 00:02:39.050 --> 00:02:41.370 OK, so let's unpack this. And I really want to 00:02:41.370 --> 00:02:43.250 start with the origin story, because this is 00:02:43.250 --> 00:02:45.250 one of those things that sounds like a tech urban 00:02:45.250 --> 00:02:47.770 legend, but it's completely real. It is. We all 00:02:47.770 --> 00:02:50.729 associate Netscape with the web, with browsers, 00:02:50.889 --> 00:02:53.710 with the information superhighway. But the original 00:02:53.710 --> 00:02:56.629 pitch wasn't for a browser at all. No, not even 00:02:56.629 --> 00:02:58.909 close. And this is one of the great what if. 00:02:59.340 --> 00:03:01.780 moments in tech history yeah i mean if things 00:03:01.780 --> 00:03:04.599 had gone just slightly differently we would not 00:03:04.599 --> 00:03:06.419 be talking about a browser company and it all 00:03:06.419 --> 00:03:09.520 involves nintendo it does so let's set the scene 00:03:09.520 --> 00:03:13.800 it's early 1994 you have jim clark a legend a 00:03:13.800 --> 00:03:18.040 total legend in silicon valley he founded Silicon 00:03:18.040 --> 00:03:20.759 Graphics SGI. These are the high end machines 00:03:20.759 --> 00:03:23.159 that, you know, made the dinosaurs in Jurassic 00:03:23.159 --> 00:03:26.580 Park. Right. The super expensive, powerful workstations 00:03:26.580 --> 00:03:29.560 that everyone in Hollywood wanted. Exactly. So 00:03:29.560 --> 00:03:31.699 Clark is looking for his next big thing. He's 00:03:31.699 --> 00:03:34.539 cashed out of SGI. He's got money. And he recruits 00:03:34.539 --> 00:03:36.860 this young guy, Mark Andreessen, fresh out of 00:03:36.860 --> 00:03:39.120 the University of Illinois. And Andreessen's 00:03:39.120 --> 00:03:42.759 claim to fame was NCSA Mosaic. Right. He'd worked 00:03:42.759 --> 00:03:45.280 on Mosaic at the university. Mosaic was the first 00:03:45.280 --> 00:03:47.319 really popular browser, the one that actually 00:03:47.319 --> 00:03:49.800 made the web look like, well, something other 00:03:49.800 --> 00:03:51.599 than just black and white text. The first one 00:03:51.599 --> 00:03:53.500 with inline images, right? That was the big deal. 00:03:53.639 --> 00:03:56.800 That was the game changer. But, and this is key, 00:03:57.039 --> 00:04:00.300 it was taxpayer -funded academic software. The 00:04:00.300 --> 00:04:03.520 University of Illinois owned it. So Clark and 00:04:03.520 --> 00:04:05.400 Andreessen get together, and you'd think the 00:04:05.400 --> 00:04:07.780 first conversation would be, hey, let's build 00:04:07.780 --> 00:04:10.439 a better Mosaic and sell it. But it wasn't. No. 00:04:10.979 --> 00:04:13.919 Their first meeting... And the subsequent 20 00:04:13.919 --> 00:04:16.639 -page pitch deck they put together was for an 00:04:16.639 --> 00:04:19.720 online gaming network. Specifically for the Nintendo 00:04:19.720 --> 00:04:23.000 64. For the Nintendo 64 console. Now, you have 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:25.019 to remember, the N64 hadn't even launched yet. 00:04:25.060 --> 00:04:27.139 It was still in development, still codenamed 00:04:27.139 --> 00:04:30.000 Project Reality. Wow. Clark and Andreessen wanted 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:32.300 to build a network where you could play games 00:04:32.300 --> 00:04:34.639 online, download new levels, maybe even chat 00:04:34.639 --> 00:04:36.980 with other players. That sounds remarkably modern. 00:04:37.100 --> 00:04:39.579 They were basically pitching... Xbox Live or 00:04:39.579 --> 00:04:42.500 PlayStation Network, but in 1994. It was incredibly 00:04:42.500 --> 00:04:44.759 forward -thinking. But just think about the infrastructure 00:04:44.759 --> 00:04:48.139 back then. Modems were screechingly slow. The 00:04:48.139 --> 00:04:50.680 cloud wasn't even a concept. They were pitching 00:04:50.680 --> 00:04:53.519 this massive, interconnected gaming ecosystem 00:04:53.519 --> 00:04:56.839 to Nintendo of all companies. I can just imagine 00:04:56.839 --> 00:05:00.060 the Nintendo executives in Kyoto just sitting 00:05:00.060 --> 00:05:02.439 there. Nintendo is notoriously conservative, 00:05:02.959 --> 00:05:05.879 famously protective of their hardware and their 00:05:05.879 --> 00:05:08.420 walled garden. Exactly. And here come these two 00:05:08.420 --> 00:05:11.199 Silicon Valley guys saying, hey, let us hook 00:05:11.199 --> 00:05:13.100 your new console up to all the telephone lines 00:05:13.100 --> 00:05:15.220 in the world. It must have seemed like madness 00:05:15.220 --> 00:05:17.699 to them. Marc Andreessen actually said later 00:05:17.699 --> 00:05:20.279 in an interview, and I'm paraphrasing, if they 00:05:20.279 --> 00:05:22.220 had shipped a year earlier, we probably would 00:05:22.220 --> 00:05:24.769 have done that instead of Netscape. So it wasn't 00:05:24.769 --> 00:05:27.089 just Nintendo saying no. It was a timing issue. 00:05:27.290 --> 00:05:30.509 It was a timing issue. The N64 hardware wasn't 00:05:30.509 --> 00:05:33.769 ready. It kept getting delayed. Jim Clark was 00:05:33.769 --> 00:05:36.250 a guy who moved fast. He didn't want to sit around 00:05:36.250 --> 00:05:38.310 and burn cash waiting for Nintendo to get its 00:05:38.310 --> 00:05:40.310 act together. So he's got the team. He's got 00:05:40.310 --> 00:05:42.709 the funding. But he doesn't have a console to 00:05:42.709 --> 00:05:44.970 build for. He's all dressed up with nowhere to 00:05:44.970 --> 00:05:48.029 go. Right. So they had to pivot. And they looked 00:05:48.029 --> 00:05:50.149 at what Andreessen knew best, which was browsers. 00:05:50.649 --> 00:05:54.910 And they decided, OK, plan B. If we can't build 00:05:54.910 --> 00:05:56.790 the gaming network, let's build the universal 00:05:56.790 --> 00:05:59.579 client for the entire internet. It's absolutely 00:05:59.579 --> 00:06:02.100 insane to think that because of a Nintendo production 00:06:02.100 --> 00:06:04.819 delay, the entire trajectory of the commercial 00:06:04.819 --> 00:06:08.160 internet changed. It really is. If the N64 ships 00:06:08.160 --> 00:06:11.379 on time, maybe the web stays an academic tool 00:06:11.379 --> 00:06:13.939 for another five years. Maybe we don't get the 00:06:13.939 --> 00:06:16.560 dot -com boom when we did. It's very, very likely. 00:06:16.699 --> 00:06:18.819 The commercial aggression that Netscape brought 00:06:18.819 --> 00:06:21.720 to the web, that urgency to ship and dominate, 00:06:21.920 --> 00:06:24.259 was a direct result of them needing a product 00:06:24.259 --> 00:06:27.040 right now. So, okay, they pivot to the browser. 00:06:27.850 --> 00:06:30.829 But they couldn't just use the code Andresen 00:06:30.829 --> 00:06:32.949 and his friends wrote at the university, right? 00:06:33.029 --> 00:06:34.670 That belonged to the government, technically. 00:06:34.910 --> 00:06:37.449 Correct. And this is a crucial point that often 00:06:37.449 --> 00:06:40.189 gets overlooked. They had to rewrite the entire 00:06:40.189 --> 00:06:43.009 browser from scratch. Zero lines of code from 00:06:43.009 --> 00:06:45.029 Mosaic. They couldn't lift a single line. If 00:06:45.029 --> 00:06:46.629 they had, the University of Illinois would have 00:06:46.629 --> 00:06:49.189 sued them into oblivion. But even though they 00:06:49.189 --> 00:06:50.850 wrote new code, they made a bit of a mistake 00:06:50.850 --> 00:06:53.009 with the name. Right. They incorporated it as 00:06:53.009 --> 00:06:56.069 Mosaic Communications Corporation on April 4, 00:06:56.230 --> 00:06:59.000 1994. Which, to them, must have made perfect 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:02.060 sense. We're the guys who built Mosaic. But the 00:07:02.060 --> 00:07:04.800 University of Illinois and the NCSA, the National 00:07:04.800 --> 00:07:07.839 Center for Supercomputing Applications, they 00:07:07.839 --> 00:07:10.439 saw it very differently. They saw it as trademark 00:07:10.439 --> 00:07:14.259 infringement. And, frankly, theft of their brand. 00:07:14.399 --> 00:07:16.939 They came down on them hard. It's always the 00:07:16.939 --> 00:07:20.019 lawyers, isn't it? Almost immediately. So there 00:07:20.019 --> 00:07:22.019 was legal trouble from day one. They had to change 00:07:22.019 --> 00:07:24.740 the name. They officially adopted Netscape on 00:07:24.740 --> 00:07:28.699 November 14th, 1994. And that name came from 00:07:28.699 --> 00:07:31.199 an employee. Yeah, a guy named Greg Sands apparently 00:07:31.199 --> 00:07:33.579 coined it, which is a great name, but even that 00:07:33.579 --> 00:07:35.480 had issues. Wait, Netscape sounds so generic 00:07:35.480 --> 00:07:38.300 now, but back then, didn't Cisco have a claim 00:07:38.300 --> 00:07:41.399 on it or something similar? They did. Cisco Systems 00:07:41.399 --> 00:07:43.980 held a trademark on a product called Netscape. 00:07:44.459 --> 00:07:47.259 But Jim Clark, being the formidable dealmaker 00:07:47.259 --> 00:07:50.639 he was, Managed to work that out. Probably involved 00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:53.759 a fairly large checkbook. I imagine so. But before 00:07:53.759 --> 00:07:55.899 they settled on that polished corporate image 00:07:55.899 --> 00:07:58.579 of Netscape, we have to talk about the internal 00:07:58.579 --> 00:08:01.560 culture. Because this tells you everything you 00:08:01.560 --> 00:08:03.779 need to know about their attitude. So you're 00:08:03.779 --> 00:08:05.779 talking about the lizard? I am talking about 00:08:05.779 --> 00:08:08.860 the lizard. The internal codename for the browser 00:08:08.860 --> 00:08:12.040 project was Mozilla. Which, of course, everyone 00:08:12.040 --> 00:08:14.480 knows today because of Firefox and the Mozilla 00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:17.399 Foundation. But let's break down where that word 00:08:17.399 --> 00:08:19.399 actually comes from, because it's not just some 00:08:19.399 --> 00:08:22.139 cute made -up name. No, it's a portmanteau. It 00:08:22.139 --> 00:08:26.300 stands for Mosaic Killer. Mozilla? Mosaic Killer? 00:08:26.379 --> 00:08:30.259 That is so aggressive. It is. That's not... We 00:08:30.259 --> 00:08:32.100 are here to compete in the marketplace. That 00:08:32.100 --> 00:08:35.039 is, we are here to find our main competitor and 00:08:35.039 --> 00:08:37.740 murder them. He was incredibly aggressive. Their 00:08:37.740 --> 00:08:41.700 stated goal was to displace NCSA Mosaic as the 00:08:41.700 --> 00:08:44.919 number one browser in the world. Full stop. They 00:08:44.919 --> 00:08:46.600 wanted to wipe it off the map. And they had a 00:08:46.600 --> 00:08:48.899 mascot to go with the name. Oh, they did. An 00:08:48.899 --> 00:08:51.679 employee named Dave Titus drew this cartoon, 00:08:52.019 --> 00:08:55.340 Godzilla Like Lizard. Was it literally crushing 00:08:55.340 --> 00:08:57.519 things? Literally. It was this green and purple 00:08:57.519 --> 00:08:59.440 monster. And they had different versions of it. 00:08:59.440 --> 00:09:00.940 Sometimes it was breathing fire. Sometimes it 00:09:00.940 --> 00:09:02.759 was crushing buildings. Sometimes it was stomping 00:09:02.759 --> 00:09:05.120 on the NCSA logo. It was on their website in 00:09:05.120 --> 00:09:07.559 the very early days. It represented that raw 00:09:07.559 --> 00:09:11.000 startup energy. We are pirates. We are here to 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:13.220 destroy the old guard and build something new. 00:09:13.460 --> 00:09:15.399 But that doesn't exactly fly when you're trying 00:09:15.399 --> 00:09:18.840 to sell. enterprise server software to, I don't 00:09:18.840 --> 00:09:22.240 know, Citibank or General Electric? No. Please 00:09:22.240 --> 00:09:24.879 trust us with your secure e -commerce transactions. 00:09:25.299 --> 00:09:28.279 And by the way, here is a giant green lizard 00:09:28.279 --> 00:09:32.490 destroying a city. Three quarters. 75%. In four 00:09:32.490 --> 00:09:35.330 months. I don't think we see adoption rates like 00:09:35.330 --> 00:09:38.149 that even today. Maybe. What, ChatGPT comes close? 00:09:38.330 --> 00:09:40.710 Maybe. But even then, this was software you had 00:09:40.710 --> 00:09:44.590 to actively seek out and download over a screeching 00:09:44.590 --> 00:09:48.309 14 .4K phone line. It was because the product 00:09:48.309 --> 00:09:50.690 was just objectively superior to everything else. 00:09:51.049 --> 00:09:53.970 NCSA Mosaic was great for its time, but Netscape 00:09:53.970 --> 00:09:56.470 was faster, it was more stable, and it had this... 00:09:56.860 --> 00:09:59.700 killer feature what was that it loaded the text 00:09:59.700 --> 00:10:01.860 of a web page first so you could start reading 00:10:01.860 --> 00:10:03.960 while the images were slow loading in the background 00:10:03.960 --> 00:10:05.899 oh that's right i remember that that sounds so 00:10:05.899 --> 00:10:08.590 trivial now but on a slow modem That was an absolute 00:10:08.590 --> 00:10:10.830 game changer. It was the first tool that made 00:10:10.830 --> 00:10:13.669 the web feel usable, not like a chore for a normal 00:10:13.669 --> 00:10:16.009 person. There's this fantastic quote I found 00:10:16.009 --> 00:10:19.929 from Macworld magazine in May of 1995. They reviewed 00:10:19.929 --> 00:10:22.809 Netscape Navigator and they said, Netscape Communications 00:10:22.809 --> 00:10:25.330 wants you to forget all the highway metaphors 00:10:25.330 --> 00:10:27.269 you've ever heard about the internet. That's 00:10:27.269 --> 00:10:29.610 a great line. Instead, think about an encyclopedia 00:10:29.610 --> 00:10:32.950 one with unlimited graphically rich pages. That 00:10:32.950 --> 00:10:37.379 is a very, very perceptive quote for 1995. It 00:10:37.379 --> 00:10:39.399 really is, because up until then, all we ever 00:10:39.399 --> 00:10:43.320 heard was information superhighway. Which sounds 00:10:43.320 --> 00:10:45.679 like transit. It sounds like a commute. It sounds 00:10:45.679 --> 00:10:48.440 like work. Exactly. A highway is just a functional 00:10:48.440 --> 00:10:51.159 way to get from point A to point B. It's pavement 00:10:51.159 --> 00:10:54.419 and signs. But an unlimited encyclopedia with 00:10:54.419 --> 00:10:57.059 graphically rich pages. That sounds like magic. 00:10:57.120 --> 00:10:59.240 That sounds like exploration and discovery. And 00:10:59.240 --> 00:11:01.500 that's exactly what Netscape delivered. It was 00:11:01.500 --> 00:11:03.779 the tool that turned the internet from a text 00:11:03.779 --> 00:11:07.019 -based academic network into a visual, commercial, 00:11:07.340 --> 00:11:09.759 and cultural medium. And that visual medium, 00:11:09.879 --> 00:11:12.159 that promise of a new world, is what... What 00:11:12.159 --> 00:11:15.039 triggered the next massive phase of the company's 00:11:15.039 --> 00:11:19.899 life? The money. August 9, 1995. This is a date 00:11:19.899 --> 00:11:22.240 that is etched into financial history. The IPO. 00:11:22.559 --> 00:11:24.820 The initial public offering. Now, the context 00:11:24.820 --> 00:11:27.379 here is just so important. Netscape had only 00:11:27.379 --> 00:11:29.460 officially existed as a company for about 16 00:11:29.460 --> 00:11:32.039 months. That's nothing. Usually a company waits 00:11:32.039 --> 00:11:34.379 years to go public. You want to show a long track 00:11:34.379 --> 00:11:36.840 record. You want to show steady profits, predictable 00:11:36.840 --> 00:11:39.419 growth. And Netscape, they didn't have profits, 00:11:39.500 --> 00:11:42.899 did they? No. They had revenues, and the revenues 00:11:42.899 --> 00:11:45.019 were doubling every quarter, which is incredible. 00:11:45.740 --> 00:11:48.620 But they were burning cash like crazy to grow. 00:11:48.779 --> 00:11:51.159 They were not profitable. By any traditional 00:11:51.159 --> 00:11:52.940 Wall Street standard, they were not ready to 00:11:52.940 --> 00:11:55.639 go public. But the hype. The hype was something 00:11:55.639 --> 00:11:58.720 else entirely. It was off the charts. The stock 00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:00.960 was originally priced by the investment bankers 00:12:00.960 --> 00:12:03.940 to be offered at $14 per share. Okay, a reasonable 00:12:03.940 --> 00:12:06.100 number. But the demand from institutional investors 00:12:06.100 --> 00:12:09.139 was so high, so overwhelming, that at the very 00:12:09.139 --> 00:12:11.879 last minute, the night before the IPO, the bankers 00:12:11.879 --> 00:12:14.820 decided to double the offering price. They doubled 00:12:14.820 --> 00:12:18.299 it. To $28 a share. A 100 % price hike before 00:12:18.299 --> 00:12:20.539 the opening bell even rings? That's unheard of. 00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:24.200 It was. And it still wasn't enough. When the 00:12:24.200 --> 00:12:26.539 market opened, the stock didn't just sit at 28. 00:12:26.759 --> 00:12:30.039 It just soared. It hit $75 on the first day of 00:12:30.039 --> 00:12:33.059 trading. From an initial target of 14 to an opening 00:12:33.059 --> 00:12:37.820 of 28 to a high of 75 in a matter of hours. It 00:12:37.820 --> 00:12:41.879 eventually closed the day at $58 .25. And that 00:12:41.879 --> 00:12:44.679 gave Netscape, a company that was barely a year 00:12:44.679 --> 00:12:47.779 old and had zero profits, a market value of $2 00:12:47.779 --> 00:12:53.340 .9 billion. $2 .9 billion in 1995 dollars. I 00:12:53.340 --> 00:12:56.500 mean, was Wall Street just losing its collective 00:12:56.500 --> 00:12:58.820 mind or did they see something in the math that 00:12:58.820 --> 00:13:01.220 actually justified that valuation? They were 00:13:01.220 --> 00:13:03.539 looking at the math of today. They were completely 00:13:03.539 --> 00:13:05.840 throwing out the old rulebook and looking at 00:13:05.840 --> 00:13:08.139 the math of tomorrow. This is the moment that 00:13:08.139 --> 00:13:11.269 coined a term we still use. The Netscape moment. 00:13:11.470 --> 00:13:13.370 What does that mean specifically when people 00:13:13.370 --> 00:13:16.529 say that? A Netscape moment is a high visibility 00:13:16.529 --> 00:13:20.309 IPO that signals the dawn of an entire new industry. 00:13:20.629 --> 00:13:23.009 It was the moment Wall Street woke up and realized 00:13:23.009 --> 00:13:25.590 the Internet wasn't a toy for academics anymore. 00:13:25.809 --> 00:13:27.909 It wasn't a quirky hobby. It wasn't a cotonomy. 00:13:28.049 --> 00:13:31.730 It was a new economy. This single IPO kickstarted 00:13:31.730 --> 00:13:33.750 the investment craze that became the dot -com 00:13:33.750 --> 00:13:36.220 bubble. Suddenly, every venture capitalist in 00:13:36.220 --> 00:13:38.519 the world was desperately looking for the next 00:13:38.519 --> 00:13:41.659 Netscape. And it turned the founders into instant 00:13:41.659 --> 00:13:43.659 celebrities. I mean, I remember the photo. Oh, 00:13:43.679 --> 00:13:46.440 absolutely. They had this brilliant PR strategy 00:13:46.440 --> 00:13:50.799 led by Roseanne Ciannino that intentionally positioned 00:13:50.799 --> 00:13:54.440 Marc Andreessen not as a button -down CEO, but 00:13:54.440 --> 00:13:57.179 as a rock star programmer. I have this image 00:13:57.179 --> 00:13:59.460 burned into my head. Wasn't he on the cover of 00:13:59.460 --> 00:14:02.210 Time magazine? Yes. Barefoot. Barefoot on the 00:14:02.210 --> 00:14:04.909 cover of Time magazine. Sitting on what looks 00:14:04.909 --> 00:14:07.690 like a throne, basically. It was the perfect 00:14:07.690 --> 00:14:11.289 visual metaphor. It was the absolute antithesis 00:14:11.289 --> 00:14:15.629 of the old guard IBM or Microsoft executive in 00:14:15.629 --> 00:14:18.250 a gray suit. Right. It was a declaration that 00:14:18.250 --> 00:14:21.129 said the geeks have inherited the earth. And 00:14:21.129 --> 00:14:22.850 for a while there, it really seemed like they 00:14:22.850 --> 00:14:25.009 had. It shifted the center of gravity in business 00:14:25.009 --> 00:14:27.950 from the East Coast finance types to the West 00:14:27.950 --> 00:14:30.289 Coast engineer types. So they have the money. 00:14:30.309 --> 00:14:32.049 They have the fame. They have 90 percent of the 00:14:32.049 --> 00:14:34.409 market. They are, for all intents and purposes, 00:14:34.629 --> 00:14:37.330 the kings of the world. But now they have to 00:14:37.330 --> 00:14:39.450 actually build the future they promised. And 00:14:39.450 --> 00:14:41.389 this is where we need to slow down and really 00:14:41.389 --> 00:14:43.690 look at the technology they created. Because 00:14:43.690 --> 00:14:46.250 I feel like people give Netscape credit for the 00:14:46.250 --> 00:14:48.590 browser, but they forget what was actually in 00:14:48.590 --> 00:14:50.409 the browser, the stuff that's still. with us. 00:14:50.590 --> 00:14:52.490 This is the part of the story I find the most 00:14:52.490 --> 00:14:56.169 compelling. Because while the company died, the 00:14:56.169 --> 00:14:59.190 code lived on. The fundamental DNA of the web, 00:14:59.350 --> 00:15:02.129 the things you and I and everyone listening use 00:15:02.129 --> 00:15:05.129 every single day, was written by Netscape engineers 00:15:05.129 --> 00:15:08.090 during this crazy high pressure period. Okay, 00:15:08.110 --> 00:15:10.210 so let's verify that claim. What did they actually 00:15:10.210 --> 00:15:13.049 build that we still use today, literally, right 00:15:13.049 --> 00:15:16.149 now? Three things, primarily. And you cannot 00:15:16.149 --> 00:15:18.809 run the modern internet without them. First, 00:15:19.149 --> 00:15:22.129 And maybe most importantly, JavaScript. The language 00:15:22.129 --> 00:15:23.870 of the web. The programming language of the web. 00:15:23.929 --> 00:15:26.330 It was created by Brendan Eich, one of the early 00:15:26.330 --> 00:15:28.990 Netscape employees. And the story behind it is 00:15:28.990 --> 00:15:31.309 just legendary. He wrote the first prototype 00:15:31.309 --> 00:15:34.370 in about 10 days. 10 days for an entire programming 00:15:34.370 --> 00:15:37.799 language. 10 days in May of 1995. They needed 00:15:37.799 --> 00:15:39.580 a scripting language for the browser. They wanted 00:15:39.580 --> 00:15:41.279 something that could make web pages dynamic, 00:15:41.580 --> 00:15:43.840 you know, make buttons clickable in a more advanced 00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:46.100 way, make images change when you hover over them. 00:15:46.179 --> 00:15:47.799 Great. Before JavaScript, the web was basically 00:15:47.799 --> 00:15:50.620 just static digital paper. It was totally static. 00:15:50.879 --> 00:15:53.299 You downloaded a page. You read it. That was 00:15:53.299 --> 00:15:55.940 it. JavaScript allowed the page to do things. 00:15:56.059 --> 00:15:58.440 It brought interactivity to the client side, 00:15:58.580 --> 00:16:00.870 to your computer. So every time I fill out a 00:16:00.870 --> 00:16:03.769 form online and it tells me invalid email address 00:16:03.769 --> 00:16:06.429 without having to reload the entire page, that's 00:16:06.429 --> 00:16:08.970 JavaScript. That's JavaScript. Every interactive 00:16:08.970 --> 00:16:12.090 map you use, every social media feed that updates 00:16:12.090 --> 00:16:14.750 automatically, every video player in your browser, 00:16:14.870 --> 00:16:18.649 that is all powered by JavaScript. It is by far 00:16:18.649 --> 00:16:20.769 the most widely used programming language in 00:16:20.769 --> 00:16:23.309 the world, and it was born in Netscape. Okay, 00:16:23.370 --> 00:16:25.950 so that's a massive one. What's more, too? Cookies. 00:16:26.049 --> 00:16:29.889 Ah, yes. The thing everyone loves to hate. The 00:16:29.889 --> 00:16:32.110 reason I have to click accept all on every single 00:16:32.110 --> 00:16:34.149 website I visit. Created by another founding 00:16:34.149 --> 00:16:37.470 engineer, Lou Montulli. Now, we think of cookies 00:16:37.470 --> 00:16:39.990 today primarily as these annoying tracking devices 00:16:39.990 --> 00:16:42.570 for ads. But we have to understand the original 00:16:42.570 --> 00:16:45.049 problem they were invented to solve. Right. They 00:16:45.049 --> 00:16:46.870 weren't invented to spy on us, were they? No, 00:16:46.950 --> 00:16:49.149 not at all. They were invented because the fundamental 00:16:49.149 --> 00:16:52.419 protocol of the web HTTP is stateless. Okay, 00:16:52.480 --> 00:16:55.080 what does stateless mean in plain English for 00:16:55.080 --> 00:16:57.039 someone who's not a programmer? It means the 00:16:57.039 --> 00:17:00.500 web server has total amnesia. Every single time 00:17:00.500 --> 00:17:03.159 you click a link or load a page, the server treats 00:17:03.159 --> 00:17:05.059 you like a complete stranger it's never seen 00:17:05.059 --> 00:17:07.640 before. It has no memory of your previous visit. 00:17:07.759 --> 00:17:10.859 None whatsoever. So without cookies, you couldn't 00:17:10.859 --> 00:17:13.380 log into a website. Why not? You'd type in your 00:17:13.380 --> 00:17:15.839 username and password and hit enter. The server 00:17:15.839 --> 00:17:18.119 would say, okay, you're logged in. and show you 00:17:18.119 --> 00:17:20.460 your home page but then as soon as you clicked 00:17:20.460 --> 00:17:23.240 on view inbox or add to cart the server would 00:17:23.240 --> 00:17:25.180 have forgotten who you were and say who are you 00:17:25.180 --> 00:17:27.599 please log in again so a cookie is basically 00:17:27.599 --> 00:17:30.000 just a name tag that your browser wears that 00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:32.319 is the perfect analogy it's a tiny little text 00:17:32.319 --> 00:17:34.579 file stored on your computer that the browser 00:17:34.579 --> 00:17:37.380 sends back to the server with every single request 00:17:37.380 --> 00:17:40.400 it just says hey it's me again i'm user 1234. 00:17:40.940 --> 00:17:42.859 And without that, you have no shopping carts, 00:17:42.980 --> 00:17:45.880 no user accounts, no personalization of any kind. 00:17:46.039 --> 00:17:48.200 The entire commercial web is impossible without 00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:50.859 them. So they invented the ability to have a 00:17:50.859 --> 00:17:53.859 persistent session, to actually do business online. 00:17:54.299 --> 00:17:57.119 Exactly. And speaking of doing business, that 00:17:57.119 --> 00:17:59.200 leads directly to the third great innovation, 00:17:59.539 --> 00:18:04.599 SSL, Secure Sockets Layer. The little lock icon 00:18:04.599 --> 00:18:07.259 in the URL bar that we all look for? The lock 00:18:07.259 --> 00:18:10.630 icon. It was later renamed TLS, transport layer 00:18:10.630 --> 00:18:13.250 security, but Netscape developed the original 00:18:13.250 --> 00:18:17.250 SSL to secure online communications. Before this, 00:18:17.410 --> 00:18:19.609 sending any data over the internet was like sending 00:18:19.609 --> 00:18:22.549 a postcard through the mail. Meaning anyone handling 00:18:22.549 --> 00:18:24.569 the postcard along the way could just read it. 00:18:24.650 --> 00:18:27.430 Any hacker, any network administrator, anyone 00:18:27.430 --> 00:18:29.289 sitting between your computer and the server 00:18:29.289 --> 00:18:31.430 could just grab that data out of the air and 00:18:31.430 --> 00:18:33.970 read it in plain text. So if I sent my credit 00:18:33.970 --> 00:18:36.839 card number to a website. Anyone could have intercepted 00:18:36.839 --> 00:18:39.480 it. Netscape realized very early on that if people 00:18:39.480 --> 00:18:41.279 were going to buy things online, which was their 00:18:41.279 --> 00:18:43.259 entire business model, they needed encryption. 00:18:43.519 --> 00:18:45.779 They needed a way to wrap that digital postcard 00:18:45.779 --> 00:18:49.039 in an unbreakable envelope. So let's recap. JavaScript 00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:51.759 makes the web interactive. Cookies make it personal 00:18:51.759 --> 00:18:54.839 and commercial. And SSL makes it secure. You 00:18:54.839 --> 00:18:57.480 literally cannot use the modern internet without 00:18:57.480 --> 00:19:00.680 those three things. Amazon, Google, Facebook, 00:19:00.880 --> 00:19:03.839 your online banking application. They all rest 00:19:03.839 --> 00:19:07.380 on that foundational tripod of technologies that 00:19:07.380 --> 00:19:09.599 Netscape pushed out in a frantic two -year period. 00:19:09.779 --> 00:19:11.859 That is the absolute definition of a lasting 00:19:11.859 --> 00:19:14.799 legacy. But they didn't just stick to the basics, 00:19:14.880 --> 00:19:17.400 did they? They started to get a little ambitious. 00:19:17.559 --> 00:19:20.299 I see communicator in our outline here. Right. 00:19:20.359 --> 00:19:22.519 They started to expand. They moved from Netscape 00:19:22.519 --> 00:19:25.190 Navigator. which was just the browser, to Netscape 00:19:25.190 --> 00:19:27.490 Communicator, which was a full suite of applications. 00:19:27.849 --> 00:19:30.190 It had email. It had mail and news groups, an 00:19:30.190 --> 00:19:33.369 address book, and an HTML editor called Composer. 00:19:33.490 --> 00:19:35.369 I remember Composer. It was like a very, very 00:19:35.369 --> 00:19:37.829 basic word processor, but for making web pages. 00:19:38.089 --> 00:19:41.470 I think I built my first terrible flashing text 00:19:41.470 --> 00:19:44.289 GeoCity site with Composer. A lot of people did. 00:19:44.470 --> 00:19:47.250 It was a tool that was democratizing web creation 00:19:47.250 --> 00:19:49.920 for non -programmers. But they also tried to 00:19:49.920 --> 00:19:51.920 push heavily into the server software market. 00:19:52.059 --> 00:19:54.480 They had products like SweetSpot and NetSite 00:19:54.480 --> 00:19:56.180 Commerce. They were trying to own the entire 00:19:56.180 --> 00:19:59.480 ecosystem. The whole stack. From the server running 00:19:59.480 --> 00:20:01.779 in the data center to the browser on your desktop, 00:20:02.079 --> 00:20:05.200 they wanted it all to be Netscape. But not everything 00:20:05.200 --> 00:20:09.299 they touched turned to gold. There was this thing 00:20:09.299 --> 00:20:12.339 called push technology, NetCaster. What was that 00:20:12.339 --> 00:20:15.099 about? Oh, NetCaster. This was the big idea of 00:20:15.099 --> 00:20:18.029 the web top. The theory was that instead of you 00:20:18.029 --> 00:20:21.250 having to go to a website to check the news or 00:20:21.250 --> 00:20:23.970 your stock portfolio, the website would push 00:20:23.970 --> 00:20:26.730 that information directly to your desktop background, 00:20:26.990 --> 00:20:29.769 updating it constantly. Like a dynamic wallpaper 00:20:29.769 --> 00:20:32.410 or a ticker tape running across your screen? 00:20:32.630 --> 00:20:34.609 Sort of. Netscape thought this was the future. 00:20:34.970 --> 00:20:36.710 They genuinely believed the browser was going 00:20:36.710 --> 00:20:39.130 to replace the Windows desktop entirely. But 00:20:39.130 --> 00:20:41.109 in reality, what happened was businesses just 00:20:41.109 --> 00:20:43.349 used it to push ads. Of course they did. And 00:20:43.349 --> 00:20:45.470 it was resource heavy. It slowed everything down. 00:20:45.490 --> 00:20:47.710 It was profoundly annoying. It was a classic 00:20:47.710 --> 00:20:49.970 case of a company falling in love with its own 00:20:49.970 --> 00:20:52.910 technical capability versus asking, does the 00:20:52.910 --> 00:20:55.650 user actually want or need this? And this brings 00:20:55.650 --> 00:20:57.950 up a criticism that really started to plague 00:20:57.950 --> 00:21:00.710 them around this time. The charge of featuritis. 00:21:00.990 --> 00:21:05.099 Yes. The criticism, which was very valid, was 00:21:05.099 --> 00:21:08.200 that Netscape was prioritizing cramming new features 00:21:08.200 --> 00:21:11.299 into the product over making the existing features 00:21:11.299 --> 00:21:13.640 stable and fast. They were running so fast to 00:21:13.640 --> 00:21:16.099 stay ahead that the software itself became bloated. 00:21:16.220 --> 00:21:19.700 It started crashing a lot. And when you are the 00:21:19.700 --> 00:21:21.839 gateway to the Internet for 90 percent of the 00:21:21.839 --> 00:21:23.880 world and you start crashing people's computers, 00:21:24.099 --> 00:21:27.039 that opens a very, very wide door for a competitor. 00:21:27.259 --> 00:21:29.920 And speaking of competitors. We have to talk 00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:31.819 about the villain of the story. Or, depending 00:21:31.819 --> 00:21:34.119 on your perspective, just the other 800 -pound 00:21:34.119 --> 00:21:36.880 gorilla in the room. Microsoft. The browser wars. 00:21:37.240 --> 00:21:40.079 This is the stuff of Silicon Valley legend. This 00:21:40.079 --> 00:21:41.859 is where the business story really becomes a 00:21:41.859 --> 00:21:43.960 war story. It does. And it starts with a meeting. 00:21:44.259 --> 00:21:47.859 June 1995. This meeting is infamous, isn't it? 00:21:47.880 --> 00:21:50.019 It became a central point in the Department of 00:21:50.019 --> 00:21:52.259 Justice antitrust case against Microsoft years 00:21:52.259 --> 00:21:55.259 later. It was a pivotal moment. Microsoft executives 00:21:55.259 --> 00:21:57.900 visited Netscape's headquarters in Mountain View. 00:21:58.269 --> 00:22:01.430 OK, so set the scene for us. Netscape is the 00:22:01.430 --> 00:22:03.670 hottest company on the planet, the darling of 00:22:03.670 --> 00:22:07.750 Wall Street. But Microsoft is, well, they're 00:22:07.750 --> 00:22:10.250 the empire. They own the operating system on 00:22:10.250 --> 00:22:13.650 nearly every computer. That's the dynamic. So 00:22:13.650 --> 00:22:17.069 Microsoft walks into the Netscape offices. And 00:22:17.069 --> 00:22:19.329 according to the people who were in the room 00:22:19.329 --> 00:22:23.349 from Netscape's side, the allegation, which Microsoft 00:22:23.349 --> 00:22:26.430 has always denied, was that they came with a 00:22:26.430 --> 00:22:29.319 proposal. To divide the market. To divide the 00:22:29.319 --> 00:22:31.279 market. What does that even mean in practice? 00:22:31.640 --> 00:22:34.440 Basically, the proposal was this. Microsoft will 00:22:34.440 --> 00:22:36.440 handle the web browser for the Windows operating 00:22:36.440 --> 00:22:38.539 system. You guys at Netscape can have all the 00:22:38.539 --> 00:22:40.339 other operating systems, Mac, Unix, whatever 00:22:40.339 --> 00:22:42.380 else is out there. Wait a second. So Microsoft 00:22:42.380 --> 00:22:45.440 essentially said, we own Windows, so we should 00:22:45.440 --> 00:22:47.440 own the Internet on Windows. You can have the 00:22:47.440 --> 00:22:49.619 scraps. That was certainly Netscape's interpretation. 00:22:50.299 --> 00:22:52.720 And considering Windows had about 90 % of the 00:22:52.720 --> 00:22:55.319 personal computer market at the time, that wasn't 00:22:55.319 --> 00:22:57.279 an offer of partnership. It was a threat. It 00:22:57.279 --> 00:22:59.420 was a death sentence. So Netscape told them to 00:22:59.420 --> 00:23:02.000 get lost. Obviously. They refused. They said, 00:23:02.079 --> 00:23:04.460 no, we are going to compete with you on Windows. 00:23:04.859 --> 00:23:07.950 And from that moment, the war began. Just a couple 00:23:07.950 --> 00:23:09.970 of months later, Microsoft released Internet 00:23:09.970 --> 00:23:13.990 Explorer 1 .0 bundled inside the Windows 95 Plus 00:23:13.990 --> 00:23:16.990 pack. And here's a really fun, ironic fact. IE 00:23:16.990 --> 00:23:19.289 wasn't built from scratch by Microsoft, was it? 00:23:19.390 --> 00:23:21.849 No. Remember how we talked about NCSA Mosaic, 00:23:22.069 --> 00:23:24.410 the code that Netscape couldn't legally use? 00:23:24.529 --> 00:23:26.809 Yes. Microsoft went to a... different company 00:23:26.809 --> 00:23:29.349 called Spyglass, which had legally licensed the 00:23:29.349 --> 00:23:31.509 Mosaic source code, and they licensed it from 00:23:31.509 --> 00:23:34.210 them. That is just dripping with irony. So Internet 00:23:34.210 --> 00:23:36.730 Explorer and Netscape share a common ancestor 00:23:36.730 --> 00:23:39.789 in the original Mosaic code. They are, in a way, 00:23:39.950 --> 00:23:42.470 cousins fighting to the death. Exactly. Now, 00:23:42.490 --> 00:23:45.589 to be fair, IE 1 .0 and 2 .0 were honestly pretty 00:23:45.589 --> 00:23:48.009 bad. They were slow. They were buggy. They didn't 00:23:48.009 --> 00:23:50.049 really threaten Netscape's dominance initially. 00:23:50.349 --> 00:23:52.529 But Microsoft says two things that Netscape didn't. 00:23:52.720 --> 00:23:54.859 Infinite money and total control of the operating 00:23:54.859 --> 00:23:59.039 system. By 1996, they released IE 3 .0. And that 00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:00.799 was the first serious competition. It was actually 00:24:00.799 --> 00:24:02.220 a pretty good browser. It supported a lot of 00:24:02.220 --> 00:24:06.619 new technologies. But then came IE 4 .0 in 1997. 00:24:07.579 --> 00:24:10.880 And this is where Microsoft played their ultimate 00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:13.420 ace card. The bundling strategy. They didn't 00:24:13.420 --> 00:24:15.920 just bundle it. They integrated Internet Explorer 00:24:15.920 --> 00:24:19.259 directly into the Windows operating system. It 00:24:19.259 --> 00:24:21.180 wasn't a separate program anymore. It was part 00:24:21.180 --> 00:24:23.829 of the desktop. part of the File Explorer. You 00:24:23.829 --> 00:24:26.069 couldn't uninstall it. And the pricing was key. 00:24:26.690 --> 00:24:29.349 Netscape Navigator cost money. You had to go 00:24:29.349 --> 00:24:31.630 to a store and buy it in a box for $40 or $50 00:24:31.630 --> 00:24:35.269 or pay to download it. And Microsoft made Internet 00:24:35.269 --> 00:24:38.109 Explorer free. It's hard to compete with free. 00:24:38.410 --> 00:24:40.809 It's impossible to compete with free when free 00:24:40.809 --> 00:24:43.349 comes pre -installed on every single computer 00:24:43.349 --> 00:24:46.049 you buy. Why would a normal user go through the 00:24:46.049 --> 00:24:48.430 hassle and expense of getting Netscape when there's 00:24:48.430 --> 00:24:50.730 a perfectly good blue E icon already sitting 00:24:50.730 --> 00:24:52.740 on their desktop? I remember that quote from 00:24:52.740 --> 00:24:54.599 a Microsoft executive at the time. He said they 00:24:54.599 --> 00:24:56.420 were going to cut off Netscape's air supply. 00:24:56.680 --> 00:24:59.200 That was the infamous quote, and that's exactly 00:24:59.200 --> 00:25:02.690 what they did. Was that illegal, though? Giving 00:25:02.690 --> 00:25:04.730 away a product for free to gain market share, 00:25:04.890 --> 00:25:07.910 is that a crime? That was the core of the DOJ's 00:25:07.910 --> 00:25:10.710 antitrust case. The government argued that Microsoft 00:25:10.710 --> 00:25:14.210 was illegally using its monopoly power in one 00:25:14.210 --> 00:25:17.329 market, operating systems, to destroy all competition 00:25:17.329 --> 00:25:19.849 in a separate adjacent market, which was browsers. 00:25:20.130 --> 00:25:22.789 They argued it wasn't just competition. It was 00:25:22.789 --> 00:25:25.470 predatory behavior designed to suffocate a rival. 00:25:25.690 --> 00:25:27.329 But even though the government eventually stepped 00:25:27.329 --> 00:25:30.490 in and won that case, for Netscape... It was 00:25:30.490 --> 00:25:33.349 way too late. Way, way too late. The legal wheels 00:25:33.349 --> 00:25:35.910 turned very slowly, but business moves at light 00:25:35.910 --> 00:25:38.390 speed. By the time the trial was really heating 00:25:38.390 --> 00:25:40.549 up, Netscape was already dying. And then there 00:25:40.549 --> 00:25:42.930 was the Apple blow. Oof, that one had to hurt. 00:25:43.269 --> 00:25:45.789 Apple agreed to make Internet Explorer the default 00:25:45.789 --> 00:25:48.680 browser on macOS. This was during the time when 00:25:48.680 --> 00:25:51.640 Steve Jobs had just returned to Apple and Microsoft 00:25:51.640 --> 00:25:54.480 famously invested $150 million in the company 00:25:54.480 --> 00:25:57.000 to keep it afloat. So even the Mac users, the 00:25:57.000 --> 00:25:59.180 traditional creatives, the rebels, the think 00:25:59.180 --> 00:26:01.839 -different crowd were being force -fed Internet 00:26:01.839 --> 00:26:04.819 Explorer right out of the box. Netscape lost 00:26:04.819 --> 00:26:07.579 their last major stronghold. Their market share 00:26:07.579 --> 00:26:10.849 just went into absolute freefall. From over 90 00:26:10.849 --> 00:26:14.730 % in the mid -90s to less than 1 % by 2006. It 00:26:14.730 --> 00:26:16.930 was a total collapse. And internally, things 00:26:16.930 --> 00:26:19.470 were falling apart, too. Oh, yeah. The first 00:26:19.470 --> 00:26:21.950 bad financial quarter hit at the end of 1997. 00:26:22.950 --> 00:26:25.990 The stock cratered. Layoffs started in January 00:26:25.990 --> 00:26:29.299 1998. Executives from that time described the 00:26:29.299 --> 00:26:32.619 atmosphere as hectic and crazy. People were sleeping 00:26:32.619 --> 00:26:34.539 under their desks trying to ship the next version. 00:26:34.720 --> 00:26:36.759 But every time they looked up, Microsoft had 00:26:36.759 --> 00:26:39.460 eaten another 5 % of the market. So they're cornered. 00:26:39.460 --> 00:26:41.140 They're bleeding money. They're losing market 00:26:41.140 --> 00:26:43.880 share every day. And they decide to do something 00:26:43.880 --> 00:26:46.519 drastic, something that at the time seems like 00:26:46.519 --> 00:26:50.039 a desperate Hail Mary pass. January 1998. Netscape 00:26:50.039 --> 00:26:52.019 makes a shocking announcement. They are going 00:26:52.019 --> 00:26:54.059 to release the entire source code for their next 00:26:54.059 --> 00:26:57.299 browser. Communicator 5 .0 to the public for 00:26:57.299 --> 00:27:00.460 free. They went open source. They did. And they 00:27:00.460 --> 00:27:02.740 established the Mozilla organization to manage 00:27:02.740 --> 00:27:06.920 this new open source project. Now today, we're 00:27:06.920 --> 00:27:10.099 all used to open source. Linux, Android, basically 00:27:10.099 --> 00:27:14.819 the entire cloud runs on it. But in 1998, for 00:27:14.819 --> 00:27:17.880 a major commercial company to give away its crown 00:27:17.880 --> 00:27:20.640 jewels, its most valuable intellectual property, 00:27:20.839 --> 00:27:23.299 it was absolutely shocking. Was it a desperate 00:27:23.299 --> 00:27:27.019 move? Or was it some kind of brilliant 4D chess 00:27:27.019 --> 00:27:30.859 legacy play? I think it was likely both. Financially, 00:27:30.920 --> 00:27:32.640 it did not save the company. They still lost 00:27:32.640 --> 00:27:34.759 the browser war in the short term. But technologically, 00:27:34.960 --> 00:27:37.680 it saved the code. It ensured that the web didn't 00:27:37.680 --> 00:27:40.019 become a complete Microsoft monopoly for the 00:27:40.019 --> 00:27:42.430 next decade. But that transition to open source 00:27:42.430 --> 00:27:44.450 wasn't smooth, was it? I read about something 00:27:44.450 --> 00:27:47.329 called Gromit. Ah, Gromit. That was the internal 00:27:47.329 --> 00:27:49.569 code name for the Communicator 5 .0 codebase. 00:27:49.670 --> 00:27:51.490 When they finally released all that code to the 00:27:51.490 --> 00:27:53.829 public, the open source community took one look 00:27:53.829 --> 00:27:55.930 at it and basically recoiled in horror. It was 00:27:55.930 --> 00:27:58.789 that bad. It was a mess. It was what programmers 00:27:58.789 --> 00:28:02.140 call spaghetti code. Years of rushing features 00:28:02.140 --> 00:28:05.079 out the door, patching bugs on the fly, working 00:28:05.079 --> 00:28:09.039 under intense crunch. It had made the code incredibly 00:28:09.039 --> 00:28:12.859 complex and unmanageable. It was very, very difficult 00:28:12.859 --> 00:28:15.299 for outside developers to understand it, let 00:28:15.299 --> 00:28:17.140 alone contribute to it. So they couldn't just 00:28:17.140 --> 00:28:20.099 patch it up and keep going? No. The newly formed 00:28:20.099 --> 00:28:22.619 Mozilla organization made an incredibly controversial 00:28:22.619 --> 00:28:25.759 and brave decision. They decided to scrap it. 00:28:26.119 --> 00:28:27.740 The whole thing. They threw it all away. They 00:28:27.740 --> 00:28:29.819 decided to rewrite the browser's layout engine 00:28:29.819 --> 00:28:32.859 from scratch. Rewriting from scratch. In software 00:28:32.859 --> 00:28:34.740 engineering, isn't that usually considered a 00:28:34.740 --> 00:28:36.839 cardinal sin? The one thing you should never 00:28:36.839 --> 00:28:40.220 do. It is. There's a famous essay by Joel Spolsky 00:28:40.220 --> 00:28:42.579 about this very topic. When you rewrite from 00:28:42.579 --> 00:28:45.019 scratch, you throw away years and years of accumulated 00:28:45.019 --> 00:28:47.640 knowledge and bug fixes. You go dark for years 00:28:47.640 --> 00:28:49.500 while you rebuild. And that's exactly what happened. 00:28:49.660 --> 00:28:52.619 And while they were in the dark rewriting, Microsoft 00:28:52.619 --> 00:28:56.000 was just winning. Completely. Netscape 6, the 00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:58.660 first browser based on the new code, was delayed 00:28:58.660 --> 00:29:01.859 massively. Internet Explorer cemented its 90 00:29:01.859 --> 00:29:03.900 plus percent market dominance during that long 00:29:03.900 --> 00:29:08.519 silence. But that rewrite produced a brand new 00:29:08.519 --> 00:29:11.700 modern rendering engine called Gecko. And Gecko 00:29:11.700 --> 00:29:13.980 is important. Gecko is incredibly important. 00:29:14.200 --> 00:29:16.500 It eventually powered the later versions of the 00:29:16.500 --> 00:29:19.220 Netscape browser. But more importantly, it became 00:29:19.220 --> 00:29:21.680 the foundation of a brand new lightweight browser 00:29:21.680 --> 00:29:24.539 that the Mozilla project started. That browser 00:29:24.539 --> 00:29:27.700 was called Firefox. So Firefox is the phoenix 00:29:27.700 --> 00:29:30.259 that rose directly from the ashes of that decision 00:29:30.259 --> 00:29:33.019 to rewrite. Exactly. If they hadn't made that 00:29:33.019 --> 00:29:35.160 painful choice to burn the old code and build 00:29:35.160 --> 00:29:37.339 Gecko from the ground up, we wouldn't have had 00:29:37.339 --> 00:29:40.059 Firefox. And if we didn't have Firefox to challenge 00:29:40.059 --> 00:29:42.460 IE's dominance in the mid -2000s, we probably 00:29:42.460 --> 00:29:44.460 wouldn't have had Google Chrome, which was sparked 00:29:44.460 --> 00:29:46.680 by that renewed competition. We would have likely 00:29:46.680 --> 00:29:48.799 been stuck in a world using a descendant of Internet 00:29:48.799 --> 00:29:51.680 Explorer 6. That is a genuinely terrifying thought. 00:29:53.319 --> 00:29:55.559 are struggling with this massive rewrite, the 00:29:55.559 --> 00:29:57.380 business guys are looking for an exit strategy. 00:29:57.619 --> 00:30:00.500 And they found a big one. The AOL era. November 00:30:00.500 --> 00:30:03.859 1998. America Online announces they are buying 00:30:03.859 --> 00:30:08.420 Netscape. For $4 .2 billion in a stock swap. 00:30:08.799 --> 00:30:11.619 But by the time the deal actually closed in March 00:30:11.619 --> 00:30:15.609 of 1999. The value of AOL's stock had ballooned 00:30:15.609 --> 00:30:17.930 so much in the dot -com bubble that the deal 00:30:17.930 --> 00:30:21.289 was worth $10 billion. $10 billion. That is a 00:30:21.289 --> 00:30:24.430 massive exit for a company that was, by all accounts, 00:30:24.589 --> 00:30:27.130 losing the war badly. It was a golden parachute 00:30:27.130 --> 00:30:29.849 for the investors and the founders. But for the 00:30:29.849 --> 00:30:32.329 company culture, for the engineers, it was an 00:30:32.329 --> 00:30:34.789 absolute disaster. Talk to me about that culture 00:30:34.789 --> 00:30:37.630 clash. It seems obvious in retrospect. You have 00:30:37.630 --> 00:30:40.170 Netscape? The heart of Silicon Valley, engineering 00:30:40.170 --> 00:30:42.750 driven, obsessed with open standards, with the 00:30:42.750 --> 00:30:45.329 motto, information wants to be free. Right. And 00:30:45.329 --> 00:30:48.089 you have AOL East Coast, marketing driven, famous 00:30:48.089 --> 00:30:50.549 for its walled garden approach. Right. AOL was 00:30:50.549 --> 00:30:52.410 the place where you stayed inside the AOL software. 00:30:52.569 --> 00:30:54.539 They didn't want you to leave. Netscape was the 00:30:54.539 --> 00:30:57.099 tool for exploring the open web. It was oil and 00:30:57.099 --> 00:30:58.819 water. Yeah. They were philosophically opposed. 00:30:59.339 --> 00:31:01.339 Critics at the time, like Jamie Zawinski, one 00:31:01.339 --> 00:31:03.599 of the famous early Netscape developers, were 00:31:03.599 --> 00:31:05.720 very, very vocal that this would never work. 00:31:05.839 --> 00:31:07.960 He quit, didn't he? He resigned very publicly 00:31:07.960 --> 00:31:10.480 shortly after the acquisition was finalized. 00:31:10.559 --> 00:31:13.500 He saw the writing on the wall. He knew the AOL 00:31:13.500 --> 00:31:15.740 bureaucracy would crush the Netscape engineering 00:31:15.740 --> 00:31:18.380 culture. But there was this weird interim period 00:31:18.380 --> 00:31:22.460 called the Sun -Netscape Alliance. iPlanet. What 00:31:22.460 --> 00:31:24.339 was that? Yeah, this is a forgotten chapter. 00:31:24.559 --> 00:31:28.180 For a brief period, Sun Microsystems and AOL 00:31:28.180 --> 00:31:31.000 collaborated on the server software side of the 00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:33.740 business. They rebranded all the Netscape Enterprise 00:31:33.740 --> 00:31:37.440 server software as iPlanet. I remember seeing 00:31:37.440 --> 00:31:39.960 iPlanet logos on servers back in the day and 00:31:39.960 --> 00:31:41.839 never knowing what it was. That's what it was. 00:31:41.859 --> 00:31:43.920 They focused on enterprise servers, e -commerce 00:31:43.920 --> 00:31:46.619 platforms. Eventually, the alliance fell apart 00:31:46.619 --> 00:31:49.380 and iPlanet became a division of Sun Microsystems. 00:31:49.849 --> 00:31:53.089 And later, when Oracle bought Sun in 2010, they 00:31:53.089 --> 00:31:55.170 kept selling some of those applications. So in 00:31:55.170 --> 00:31:57.630 a weird roundabout way, some of the original 00:31:57.630 --> 00:32:00.089 Netscape server code is probably still running 00:32:00.089 --> 00:32:03.089 deep inside some Oracle enterprise systems somewhere 00:32:03.089 --> 00:32:05.309 in the world today. The code that just never 00:32:05.309 --> 00:32:07.930 dies. It's incredible. But a company itself? 00:32:08.369 --> 00:32:13.730 The end was coming. July 2003. Time Warner, who 00:32:13.730 --> 00:32:16.509 by then owned AOL after that disastrous merger, 00:32:16.750 --> 00:32:20.130 pulled the plug. They officially disbanded the 00:32:20.130 --> 00:32:22.650 Netscape division. Laid off all the remaining 00:32:22.650 --> 00:32:24.809 programmer? Laid them off. They took the big 00:32:24.809 --> 00:32:27.410 Netscape logo off the building in Mountain View. 00:32:27.549 --> 00:32:29.970 That's such a sad image, taking the sign down. 00:32:30.130 --> 00:32:32.789 It really is the symbolic end. But before they 00:32:32.789 --> 00:32:35.089 turned off the lights for good, they did one 00:32:35.089 --> 00:32:37.990 last crucial thing. They formally established 00:32:37.990 --> 00:32:40.789 the Mozilla Foundation as an independent nonprofit. 00:32:41.819 --> 00:32:43.980 And gave them some seed money. They gave them 00:32:43.980 --> 00:32:46.680 about $2 million in startup funding and spun 00:32:46.680 --> 00:32:48.519 them off completely to ensure their independence 00:32:48.519 --> 00:32:50.960 from AOL's corporate influence. That was the 00:32:50.960 --> 00:32:52.720 lifeboat. That was the lifeboat that allowed 00:32:52.720 --> 00:32:55.039 Firefox to survive the shipwreck of the parent 00:32:55.039 --> 00:32:57.420 company. So 2003, the company is effectively 00:32:57.420 --> 00:33:00.660 disbanded. The employees are gone. But the brand, 00:33:00.819 --> 00:33:04.019 the brand just wouldn't die. It entered what 00:33:04.019 --> 00:33:06.359 I've been calling the zombie years. From 2004 00:33:06.359 --> 00:33:09.140 all the way to 2025. That's a long time to be 00:33:09.140 --> 00:33:11.490 a zombie. Let's briefly touch on this because 00:33:11.490 --> 00:33:14.130 it gets really weird. AOL kept trying to release 00:33:14.130 --> 00:33:16.869 new browsers called Netscape. They did. There 00:33:16.869 --> 00:33:19.549 was Netscape 8, which was released between 2005 00:33:19.549 --> 00:33:23.009 and 2007. And this one was just bizarre. It wasn't 00:33:23.009 --> 00:33:25.289 even developed in -house by AOL. They outsourced 00:33:25.289 --> 00:33:27.369 it. They outsourced it to a small company called 00:33:27.369 --> 00:33:30.829 Mercurial Communications. And it had this dual 00:33:30.829 --> 00:33:32.690 engine feature you mentioned. Okay, that sounds 00:33:32.690 --> 00:33:35.509 chaotic. What does that mean? It means it included 00:33:35.509 --> 00:33:38.099 both... The Gecko rendering engine from Firefox 00:33:38.099 --> 00:33:40.819 and the Trident rendering engine from Internet 00:33:40.819 --> 00:33:43.920 Explorer inside the same browser. Why on earth 00:33:43.920 --> 00:33:46.380 would you do that? For compatibility. The web 00:33:46.380 --> 00:33:48.680 was so broken back then because so many corporate 00:33:48.680 --> 00:33:52.500 websites were built only to work in IE. So Netscape 00:33:52.500 --> 00:33:54.539 8 would try to automatically switch engines. 00:33:54.799 --> 00:33:56.859 If it detected a site was on a compatibility 00:33:56.859 --> 00:33:59.519 list, it would use the IE engine. If not, it 00:33:59.519 --> 00:34:02.269 would use the Firefox engine. That sounds incredibly 00:34:02.269 --> 00:34:04.809 dangerous from a security perspective. It was. 00:34:04.849 --> 00:34:07.349 It effectively exposed users to the security 00:34:07.349 --> 00:34:09.389 vulnerabilities of both browsers at the same 00:34:09.389 --> 00:34:12.070 time. And it led to this one specific failure 00:34:12.070 --> 00:34:15.909 that is just legendary in how bad it was. Netscape 00:34:15.909 --> 00:34:18.130 8 actually broke Internet Explorer's ability 00:34:18.130 --> 00:34:21.110 to open XML files. How did it do that? Simply 00:34:21.110 --> 00:34:23.849 by opening the Netscape browser once. It would 00:34:23.849 --> 00:34:26.880 damage a global Windows registry key. So even 00:34:26.880 --> 00:34:28.780 if you closed Netscape and went back to using 00:34:28.780 --> 00:34:32.159 regular IE, your XML files wouldn't open properly 00:34:32.159 --> 00:34:33.960 anymore. You had to manually go into the registry 00:34:33.960 --> 00:34:36.300 and fix it. Wow. Talk about a mosaic killer. 00:34:36.440 --> 00:34:38.579 It was killing the Windows registry. That's just 00:34:38.579 --> 00:34:41.000 sad. It was a total mess. So then they tried 00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:44.320 one last time with Netscape Navigator 9 in 2007. 00:34:44.780 --> 00:34:46.880 This one was built in -house, though. Yes. This 00:34:46.880 --> 00:34:49.429 one was developed by AOL. It was based on Firefox 00:34:49.429 --> 00:34:52.690 2. It had a retro green and gray interface. And 00:34:52.690 --> 00:34:55.369 it was actually a decent, solid browser. But 00:34:55.369 --> 00:34:57.250 it was just too little, too late. The world had 00:34:57.250 --> 00:34:59.650 moved on. Nobody cared anymore. And support for 00:34:59.650 --> 00:35:02.329 that was officially ended in 2008. March 1st, 00:35:02.329 --> 00:35:05.329 2008. AOL officially stopped all support and 00:35:05.329 --> 00:35:07.610 development. There were some Save Netscape petitions 00:35:07.610 --> 00:35:10.530 online from diehard fans, but it was over. Asa 00:35:10.530 --> 00:35:13.030 Dotzler, a prominent Firefox developer, famously 00:35:13.030 --> 00:35:16.150 wrote a blog post titled, Good Riddance. Ouch. 00:35:16.760 --> 00:35:19.320 Why so harsh? His argument was that the Netscape 00:35:19.320 --> 00:35:21.719 brand had become a distraction. It was a ghost. 00:35:22.320 --> 00:35:24.679 He wanted people to stop clinging to the memory 00:35:24.679 --> 00:35:27.159 and move on to the living air of that legacy, 00:35:27.360 --> 00:35:29.940 which was Firefox. But AOL still wasn't done 00:35:29.940 --> 00:35:32.539 with the corpse yet. They tried to turn Netscape 00:35:32.539 --> 00:35:35.559 .com, the website, into a social news site. Propeller 00:35:35.559 --> 00:35:38.599 .com. Oh, right. I vaguely remember Propeller. 00:35:38.639 --> 00:35:42.179 In 2006, they rebranded the Netscape .com portal 00:35:42.179 --> 00:35:45.409 as a big clone. Users could submit stories and 00:35:45.409 --> 00:35:47.730 vote them up or down. Digg was huge back then. 00:35:47.849 --> 00:35:50.469 It was. But the Netscape brand didn't mean social 00:35:50.469 --> 00:35:53.210 news to anyone. It meant browser. The traffic 00:35:53.210 --> 00:35:56.550 to the site dropped 55 % almost overnight. They 00:35:56.550 --> 00:35:58.510 eventually rebranded it fully to just Propeller 00:35:58.510 --> 00:36:01.230 and then quietly shut it down in 2010. Which 00:36:01.230 --> 00:36:03.989 leads us to the final shambling survivor, the 00:36:03.989 --> 00:36:06.989 thing that finally died in November 2025. The 00:36:06.989 --> 00:36:10.130 ISP. The discount dial -up ISP. For $9 .95 a 00:36:10.130 --> 00:36:12.849 month. Kept alive by AOL and then by the various 00:36:12.849 --> 00:36:15.489 companies that bought AOL, like Verizon and Yahoo, 00:36:15.710 --> 00:36:18.550 it just sat there, a line item on a balance sheet, 00:36:18.630 --> 00:36:21.110 collecting auto payments from people who probably 00:36:21.110 --> 00:36:23.369 forgot they even had it or who lived in rural 00:36:23.369 --> 00:36:26.170 areas where dial -up was still the only option. 00:36:26.559 --> 00:36:28.559 And they even had a special browser for it, too, 00:36:28.679 --> 00:36:30.840 right? Yeah, a custom Chromium -based browser 00:36:30.840 --> 00:36:33.800 developed by a UK security firm called CenturyBay. 00:36:34.139 --> 00:36:36.619 It was just a skinned version of Chrome designed 00:36:36.619 --> 00:36:38.900 to keep the service limping along. It had absolutely 00:36:38.900 --> 00:36:40.980 nothing to do with the original Netscape code. 00:36:41.179 --> 00:36:46.079 Until November 30, 2025. The final, final death. 00:36:46.340 --> 00:36:48.559 The plug was finally pulled. So we've tracked 00:36:48.559 --> 00:36:51.489 this entire journey. From the wild Nintendo pitch 00:36:51.489 --> 00:36:54.170 to the rocket ship IPO to the brutal browser 00:36:54.170 --> 00:36:56.769 wars, the open source pivot, the long zombie 00:36:56.769 --> 00:37:00.269 years, and finally, the quiet death of a dial 00:37:00.269 --> 00:37:03.730 -up service. When we synthesize this entire legacy, 00:37:04.030 --> 00:37:07.030 what do we see? I see a complete duality. If 00:37:07.030 --> 00:37:08.909 you look at it strictly as a business, on a P 00:37:08.909 --> 00:37:11.570 &L sheet, it's a failure. It got crushed by Microsoft 00:37:11.570 --> 00:37:13.730 and then completely mismanaged by AOL. Can't 00:37:13.730 --> 00:37:15.610 argue with that. But if you look at the world 00:37:15.610 --> 00:37:18.070 we live in today, it's one of the greatest technological 00:37:18.070 --> 00:37:20.630 triumphs in history. Let's break down the key 00:37:20.630 --> 00:37:22.829 takeaways then. What are the pillars of this 00:37:22.829 --> 00:37:25.170 legacy that people should remember? Number one 00:37:25.170 --> 00:37:27.289 is the infrastructure. I can't stress this enough. 00:37:27.530 --> 00:37:30.690 The web is built on a foundation of SSL, cookies, 00:37:30.849 --> 00:37:33.789 and JavaScript. Netscape gave us those tools. 00:37:34.050 --> 00:37:36.590 They didn't just build a popular car. They built 00:37:36.590 --> 00:37:38.610 the roads, the traffic lights, and the security 00:37:38.610 --> 00:37:41.630 system for the entire digital city. Number two 00:37:41.630 --> 00:37:44.449 would be the business model. The model. The Netscape 00:37:44.449 --> 00:37:47.050 moment. They defined what a modern tech startup 00:37:47.050 --> 00:37:50.099 looks like. Get big fast, burn cash to grow, 00:37:50.280 --> 00:37:53.119 go public on hype, and try to change the world. 00:37:53.260 --> 00:37:55.699 They wrote the playbook for the entire dot -com 00:37:55.699 --> 00:37:58.579 era, for better and for worse. And number three, 00:37:58.659 --> 00:38:01.019 which might be the most important, the open web. 00:38:01.280 --> 00:38:03.780 This is the most critical one, I think. If they 00:38:03.780 --> 00:38:06.300 hadn't made that desperate, crazy move to create 00:38:06.300 --> 00:38:09.579 Mozilla in 1998, if they hadn't released that 00:38:09.579 --> 00:38:13.119 code into the wild, we might still be living 00:38:13.119 --> 00:38:16.019 in a browser monoculture where one single company 00:38:16.019 --> 00:38:18.800 owns the doorway to the internet. That is a chilling 00:38:18.800 --> 00:38:21.800 thought. In a way, Netscape died so that the 00:38:21.800 --> 00:38:24.280 web could remain open and competitive. In a way, 00:38:24.280 --> 00:38:28.360 yes. They took the hit from Microsoft, and their 00:38:28.360 --> 00:38:31.500 death created the opening for Firefox, which 00:38:31.500 --> 00:38:34.179 in turn created the opening for Chrome. They 00:38:34.179 --> 00:38:35.960 broke the monopoly by sacrificing themselves. 00:38:36.590 --> 00:38:38.610 I want to leave our listeners with a final provocative 00:38:38.610 --> 00:38:40.590 thought. Let's go all the way back to that Nintendo 00:38:40.590 --> 00:38:43.230 pitch at the very beginning. Okay. If that had 00:38:43.230 --> 00:38:45.590 worked, if Netscape had become an online gaming 00:38:45.590 --> 00:38:49.110 network for the Nintendo 64, it's possible the 00:38:49.110 --> 00:38:50.929 World Wide Web would have remained an obscure 00:38:50.929 --> 00:38:53.349 academic tool for physicists for another five 00:38:53.349 --> 00:38:55.730 or even ten years. It's very possible, yeah. 00:38:55.889 --> 00:38:58.710 So my question is this. Did the commercial pressure, 00:38:58.969 --> 00:39:01.309 the sheer aggression of Netscape trying to kill 00:39:01.309 --> 00:39:04.030 Mosaic and dominate a market, did that force 00:39:04.030 --> 00:39:06.130 the world to accelerate into the digital age 00:39:06.130 --> 00:39:09.110 before it was really ready? Did Netscape inadvertently 00:39:09.110 --> 00:39:11.750 cause both the dot -com bubble and the modern 00:39:11.750 --> 00:39:13.909 ubiquity of the internet just by being so impatient? 00:39:14.250 --> 00:39:17.280 That is a fascinating question to ponder. They 00:39:17.280 --> 00:39:20.340 absolutely forced Microsoft to wake up and take 00:39:20.340 --> 00:39:23.239 the Internet seriously. They forced the telecom 00:39:23.239 --> 00:39:25.840 companies to start building out better infrastructure 00:39:25.840 --> 00:39:28.000 because suddenly millions of people wanted to 00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:30.900 get online. They forced Wall Street and the entire 00:39:30.900 --> 00:39:33.380 business world to pay attention. Without that 00:39:33.380 --> 00:39:36.519 aggressive hyper -commercial push, the 21st century 00:39:36.519 --> 00:39:38.889 might look very different. Maybe a little slower, 00:39:39.010 --> 00:39:41.789 maybe a little safer, but certainly different. 00:39:42.010 --> 00:39:44.329 It's something to think about. The next time 00:39:44.329 --> 00:39:46.849 you're browsing and you look up at your URL bar, 00:39:47.050 --> 00:39:49.789 look for that little lock icon. When that annoying 00:39:49.789 --> 00:39:52.449 banner pops up, look for the words, except cookies. 00:39:52.829 --> 00:39:55.449 Those are the ghosts of Netscape still haunting 00:39:55.449 --> 00:39:58.170 your browser every single day. They are indeed. 00:39:58.449 --> 00:40:00.829 Still with us. Thanks for diving deep with us 00:40:00.829 --> 00:40:02.530 today. We'll catch you on the next one. Goodbye.