#28 The Fight of Your Life Was In 1998

Here’s two interesting facts that’ve been lost to the rounding of time:

Fact 1: In 1995 Bill Gates wrote a book that he subsequently edited the reprints of. He changed the words and story of his “original vision” for the internet. 

In the first version, the actual original, Bill predicted the Internet would not be a popular technology. Only companies and scientists would use it. But, he said, it would be a foundation for a product that he—along with Larry Ellison—called “the information superhighway.” 

Microsoft and Oracle were already big companies then. They sold software by keeping it proprietary and charging high prices for it. So in their view of the new “information superhighway,” the same would be true.

(Bill’s edits in subsequent reprints tried to meld the two terms and imply the Internet had been his vision all along, instead of something that is clearly way stupid.)

Fact 2: Meanwhile, a small startup called Mosaic had the opposite vision. They invented what we now know as the "browser.” 

Like a lot of tech founders, they were insanely smart yet completely oblivious to concepts of language and trademark. So they had to change their name to Netscape.

Netscape was a remarkable invention at the time. This can’t be overstated.

In their vision, contrary to Bill and Larry’s, everyone would have regular, open, and free access to all of the internet. 

Most importantly, the Netscape founders were also proponents of a then-niche ideology in software development called “open-source.”

At the time this was more of a fringe thing than say, the entire underpinning of your complete existence, digital and physical.

(Unless, that is, you’re currently in a record store you drove to with a paper map, and happen to be reading this in Mad Magazine.)

So it’s not just technologies Netscape created, it’s the philosophy of freely opening them for decades of developers to come. Here’s a few tiny highlights: Netscape created and gave away JavaScript, cookies, and SSL. 

These might seem trivial, but that’s exactly the point: so is a glass of water. 

Some things are so fundamental to our lives that we cannot help but underestimate them. 

This is all to say that your entire life as you know it, from the hospital you visit, to the burger you buy, to the entire operational infrastructure of our planet—is all made possible because Microsoft lost this fight.  

In Microsoft’s vision, they predicted that all connectivity and software would be a closed system. And they (along with Oracle) would charge people to use it, in a unique currency they invented and named “vigorish.” 

I am not kidding. That really was someone’s actual idea.

This would be like if every time you turned on your kitchen sink or flushed your toilet you had to pay Coca-Cola a fee, and to insult you a little extra they made you pay it in CocaCash or Faucetreon.

Except Mike Homer and Netscape stopped it.  

The rest is mostly known:

Microsoft made a direct copy of Netcape called Internet Explorer and bundled it into Windows, making it the default option on almost every computer in the world.

They aimed a big corporate bazooka straight at the tiny team who had dared to make the internet open and free to build on.

Meanwhile at Netscape, looking straight into the barrel of that bazooka, cool heads took action. It was a coordinated resistance. And Mike Homer was drawing battle maps.

Homer wasn’t just the head of marketing—he was the heartbeat. He crafted their first business plan. He raised the money. He built the messaging, the brand, the why behind Netscape.

He understood, way before most, that this was more than a product war. It was a philosophical one, with generational effects.

And he wasn’t afraid of a fight.

First, he pushed a one-click download button called “Netscape Now” that beat Microsoft’s clunky install process. Then he went toe-to-toe with Gates in the press. He handed reporters the receipts.

His internal memos became antitrust evidence. He moved Netscape to an open-source model—launching Mozilla—before “open source” was even a LinkedIn keyword.

And when Netscape was on its back foot, when even its best engineers were dazed by Microsoft’s relentless pummeling, it was Homer who kept swinging.

He made the case that Microsoft wasn’t just competing—they were strangling. He helped the DOJ understand how bundling Internet Explorer into Windows wasn’t innovation; it was annihilation.

He showed regulators what was at stake: not a browser market, but a future where one company would own the pipes, the faucets, and the water.

But here’s what Homer knew better than DOJ and I suspect some of his colleagues: He didn’t need to win in court.

Netscape only had to hold the line long enough for the open web to take root. And it worked.

Mozilla survived. Firefox thrived. Developers around the world took the baton and ran.

Google launched Chrome, built Android on Linux, and normalized open source as the foundation of modern software. AWS, GitHub, Docker, Kubernetes, React—this is why there are so few books and so much internet.

Netscape believed everyone should have access to the printing press, while Microsoft wanted to own and control the only one, all to itself in Vatican City Redmond, Washington.

Here’s an easy way to think of it: literally everything we eat is grown in garden that Mike Homer tilled, watered, and defended. It is sad to see this forgotten by history.

Even sadder, Mike passed away in 2009 from a rare brain disease, CJD, at only 50 years old. No memoir. No movie. No Twitter thread. (Yet?)

But every time we open a browser tab, look for something on our phone, or even change the thermostat—we’re harvesting the abundant crop of Mike Homer’s garden.

I would love to write the biography of Mike, for no other reason than someone needs to. But in the meantime, here’s an announcement.

One reason I've been reading a lot about Mike Homer is that the AI race today has more than a lot in common with the dawn of Internet in 1995.

There's two big conclusions to draw from the above that I think everyone–whether they care about tech or not–should really keep their eyes on. 

One, it's REALLY important to remember that Bill Gates literally edited his own book to have all of us forget that almost all of the leading technologists of the time were wrong. 

All of that “thought leadership,” the 90’s equivalent of your LinkedIn feed or sit-downs with Oprah: their vision was WRONG.

And not only was it wrong, it was arrogant. So I can't help but get this exact same feeling when I see Bill Gates Sam Altman and every investor with a blog podcast talk about AI today. 

We should remind ourselves of this and wonder—who will be editing their history later?

Second, Microsoft was going to win. That’s kind of a big deal.

The Fed was concerned about their anti-competitive behavior in the browser wars. But the open internet we enjoy today–the technology that underpins literally EVERY facet of our lives–was fought for you and won by a man with no book.

Mike Homer cared about technology, cared about the future, and fought for it.  

Why fight?

Because Microsoft wasn't just wrong, and it wasn’t just monopolistic. If they won, the outcome would have been worse than just keeping world-changing technology from anyone who couldn't afford the “vigorish” (seriously wtf) to use it.

Much worse. It would have kept any development on the internet (aka innovation) gated by them.

There would be no Internet. No cloud, no iPhones, no nothing. The internet would be nothing more than a Walmart where you pay to park, pay for a shopping cart, and pay again to stand in the checkout line for all the epically shitty stuff you were forced to buy.

Which is to say, they weren't just wrong, they were assholes!

And now? They now own 49% of the current market leader in artificial intelligence, OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT.  It could be a real crummy 3 decades without Mike Homer here. 

And this has been Part 1 of the announcement that I've officially been persuaded to be a c-something DOING something in the great AI race we are all watching unfold.

I'm really excited.  And next week I'll share more detail, along with how it affects this newsletter (spoiler: it gets way shorter).

As for the AI race we are watching like it's 1996?  If history is our guide, then three things are true right now whether we want them to be or not:

1. The stakes are much higher than we think.

2. Somebody famous is lying to you. And/or themselves.

3. Anyone can win. 

It’s anybody’s book to print at this point.

Let’s write it,
Jesse

PS: LINKZ! 

• A $100 bill now weighs more than $100 of gold. Thanks Reddit!

• Fifteenish years ago, when Kickstarter was new, I was the first "investor" in an artist who makes mugs with tiny feet. This week the artist announced she'll be closing down her shop on April 24. I admire every business owner who gives something their all–and Dylan is no exception. It’s been a good run.  If you want to buy some of her fun pottery here, I recommend it.

• I like weird mugs because one of the MOST IMPORTANT parts of my coffee ritual is the daily reminder not to take myself too seriously. I can’t possibly tell you how valuable that is. So here’s my newest mug if you want one too.

• In case you caught the Lebowski reference above, here’s the clip of Bill Gates getting into a car with the world’s 27 million software developers.

• SONG OF THE WEEK: And here is some soundtrack footage of Mike Homer going to the courthouse to testify in US v MSFT. Epic.

PSSSSSSS:  Share link. Share this one with your friend who writes biographies. I have a project for them.