One Of The Earliest Internet Websites

Marc Andreessen

I was reminded yesterday that I had one of the first ever email address and website, 19 years ago. In 1995 I was working at Stanford University re-architecting their internal IT systems and stumbled on this new thing called a browser. It was absolutely fantastic and I focused my work on understanding this new internet world. I organized the first widely attended “internet day” seminars at Stanford to introduce it to the entire campus. I did a personal website (www.beal-net.com/richard) and then created a website for the San Francisco Ballet. They thought I was nuts, who’d ever view that?

The introduction of Marc Andreessen’s Mosaic browser in 1993 – one of the first graphical web browsers – led to an explosion in web use. Andreessen soon started his own company, named Netscape, and released the Mosaic-influenced Netscape Navigator in 1994, which quickly became the world’s most popular browser, accounting for 90% of all web use at its peak.

I left Stanford in 1995 and became Vice President of IT at the internet pioneering company Netscape Communications. The most fantastic job in the world working with an outstanding team, every day inventing new ways to use and view the internet. Even then I didn’t comprehend how fundamentally it would change the world.

It was a fun ride but today I’m prouder of my ability to sort cattle with my quarter horse Summer Soda. We’re really great at that. Life is good.

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