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Well, according to ex-mozilla employee list one of the coders was:
- Driving an Alfa Romeo Spider, inspired by Dustin Hoffmans drive across the San Mateo bridge in "The Graduate", with a Netscape sticker
- Drinking 8 cans of soda a day and building a freakin replica of the golden gate bridge
- Doing bbqs at 5 Eden Avenue, Sunnyvale
- Kegs of guinness at above address
- Having the police turn up at above address - not to stop the party, but to check out Mike McQues Hummer
- 'Video conferencing' with parents back home in Ireland by sitting in front of Fish Cam!
- Heading with netscapees Tom Pixley and Rob Larrubio to Vegas to see U2 perform on the opening night on the Pop Mart tour, and getting more wasted than he has ever been in his life at 'Manhattan' in the New York New York hotel!
- Nerf gun wars.
- Duke Nuken wars.
- Mario Super Kart wars.
- Being interviewed or filmed once a week, and getting annoyed by it
- Writing a script that spat out random numbers on the screen for the film crews to get excited about
- Touring Be when they had 10 employees - and then getting a BeBox
- Taping up PABs monitor when he screwed up
- Beer Busts, and then going on the piss in Palo Alto with the cute admin girl from his building

Coding not included.

Failed in the sense that it never dug Netscape, as a browser and company, out of the hole. But I'm sure glad to see that Mozilla rose out of all that effort.

As to what they were doing, you should check out ex-mozilla, a list of all the ex-employees that have accumulated over the past --- decade? --- and a little description each wrote up of what they did and what they're now doing. Bittersweet.

The Ex-Mozilla site has a self-maintaining list of people who have fled Netscape. Ironically, there is also a My Netscape Network channel which lists the most recently changed entries on Ex-Mozilla.

There's been alot of talk about "inevitable clash of cultures," regarding the AOL-Netscape story, but it didn't have to be that way--it wasn't inevitable. Steve Case and his cronies bear responsibility for driving off some of the best and brightest software developers in the country.

The reason I say this was avoidable is the way that AOL has managed acquiring Mirabilis and Nullsoft--essentially it has taken a "hands off" approach to both ICQ and Winamp/SHOUTcast. Someone there finally did the right thing and recognized that the users of those products were skeptical of AOL's influence and were worried that AOL ownership would alienate the user bases of each product.

Maybe the same micromanagement goes own behind the scenes at Mirabilis and Nullsoft but we don't hear about it, but I doubt that's the case. Each of these product lines retains a huge user following that's growing and both are pretty much devoid of AOL branding.

I wonder how different things would have turned out had AOL seen the catfight with M$ over instant messaging on the horizon. With everyone else out of the way, Billgatus of Borg's newest target for destruction is AOL in the IM arena, and ICQ and AIM are winning the day for AOL so far. If AOL had had the foresight to see a hurculean battle against Microsoft, maybe they would have given the resources and stability to leave Netscape alone and let it do what it did best--make browsers.

The big question that remains unsanswered is how does AOL's management feel about these departing people? I've always believed that you can replace machines or technology but you can't replace people. Talent, especially in today's hot economy, is a valuable asset that you can't squander or drive off. Okay so it's America and the victor gets the spoils and all that good BS...but I bet there's some relocated Netscape employees that are really making a difference with some other companies out there and are very satisfied with their new endeavors. Ex-Mozilla.org is a good place to find out where they are now.

There's been alot of talk about "inevitable clash of cultures," regarding the AOL-Netscape story, but it didn't have to be that way--it wasn't inevitable. Steve Case and his cronies bear responsibility for driving off some of the best and brightest software developers in the country.

The reason I say this was avoidable is the way that AOL has managed acquiring Mirabilis and Nullsoft--essentially it has taken a "hands off" approach to both ICQ and Winamp/SHOUTcast. Someone there finally did the right thing and recognized that the users of those products were skeptical of AOL's influence and were worried that AOL ownership would alienate the user bases of each product.

Maybe the same micromanagement goes own behind the scenes at Mirabilis and Nullsoft but we don't hear about it, but I doubt that's the case. Each of these product lines retains a huge user following that's growing and both are pretty much devoid of AOL branding.

I wonder how different things would have turned out had AOL seen the catfight with M$ over instant messaging on the horizon. With everyone else out of the way, Billgatus of Borg's newest target for destruction is AOL in the IM arena, and ICQ and AIM are winning the day for AOL so far. If AOL had had the foresight to see a hurculean battle against Microsoft, maybe they would have given the resources and stability to leave Netscape alone and let it do what it did best--make browsers.

The big question that remains unsanswered is how does AOL's management feel about these departing people? I've always believed that you can replace machines or technology but you can't replace people. Talent, especially in today's hot economy, is a valuable asset that you can't squander or drive off. Okay so it's America and the victor gets the spoils and all that good BS...but I bet there's some relocated Netscape employees that are really making a difference with some other companies out there and are very satisfied with their new endeavors. Ex-Mozilla,org is a good place to find out where they are now.

Us ex-mozillans were truly frightened by that commercial. Has it found its way onto the Net yet?