Hard Knocks, Age Transform Marc Andreessen

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Marc Andreessen, the brain behind Netscape, has spent the past several years engaged in an old-fashioned pursuit: rebuilding a traditional software company, Opsware, and trying to make it profitable, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'That he is making progress will be evident next week when the company expects to report a hefty quarterly revenue increase. In the process, he has settled down personally, morphing from technical whiz kid into serious businessman — the kind who delegates authority, makes sales calls in suits and dabbles in philanthropy. His experience helping bring Opsware back from the brink of financial disaster — in 2001, the company, then called Loudcloud Inc., staged a disappointing IPO and later had to completely overhaul its business to stay afloat — also has been formative, those who know him say.'"

Comments

making sales calls?

[Anonymous Coward]

morphing from technical whiz kid into serious businessman -- the kind who delegates authority, makes sales calls in suits and dabbles in philanthropy.

fuckin' sellout. If all you're doing is taking calls and delegating, you ain't doin shit. You're just a check-cashing oxygen thief.

he has a new company?

[User 956]

He has *another* company? What the hell happened to his last company, LoudCloud?

Re:Mr. Andreessen...

[n2art2]

Probably to get a pay check like the rest of us. Leave the guy alone.

Oh how times change

[dedazo]

Adreessen was one of the people who nearly managed to bring Netscape to its knees by completely f'ing up the direction and scope of the products (was it a browser? was it a collaboration tool? was it a dodo? should we call it "communicator" to confuse people?), went to court crying about how Microsoft would not let them ship their unvelievably buggy and unstable piece of crap to the millions of happy people who used (the then vastly superior) NN2 after Microsoft had completely overtaken them in features and quality, and was more than happy to unload the whole mess on AOL for a few million and walked away. He was also known for going on TV to explain how he and his associates had essentially "invented" this "internet" thing, gladly ignoring all the hard work and actual vision of people like Tim Berners-Lee.

And now good old Marc is a "visionary". Whoopdedo.

I really have no respect from anyone at Netscape, with the possible exception of jzw. If they were in business today they'd be as bad as Microsoft is accused to be, and then some.