What's good and bad about the web at the moment? Everything about the web is good from an underlying trend standpoint. The better websites such as Yahoo and Amazon did survive more than others. Two or three years on, a lot of businesses have figured out that their customers are looking to the web as a primary channel. On top of it was this cycle of hype, and the boom and bust cycle. That was an economic phenomenon. But even as the economy is in recession, innovation continues at a very rapid pace. Consumers continue to use the internet. Expectations are coming radically down at the same time as the reality is getting better and better. Bad? Not much. Broadband is not rolling out as fast as anyone would like. The internet is a tool and, like every tool, can be used for good or bad - and it is disturbing that terrorists use it.
Netscape was king, and then dethroned. Would you do it differently second time ? The important qualification is whether you would have the same information you had at the time. Without hindsight, I would do exactly the same things. It created for investors more than $10bn of value in five years. Netscape people are now operating all kinds of companies. It's been like Apple was in its day or Intel. They include Loudcloud, founded in late 1999, with a lot of talent from Netscape. We have 50 out of 400 employees from Netscape.
Microsoft: saint or sinner? Microsoft is a very powerful company. I'm largely out of the business of commenting because we work closely with it. Netscape was a direct competitor of Microsoft but Loudcloud ( is a partner.)
What's happening in the Valley now? The companies that are going to succeed in Silicon Valley are hardcore technology companies. We are in the mother of all shakeouts. Where two or three years ago you would have had 30 or 40 companies in a market, now the numbers are down to two or three and rapidly going to one. The companies that survive trial by fire are going to come out at the other end highly successful.
Which computer do you use for pleasure? Replay. It is a digital video recorder like TiVo. It is not a PC but a computer with a big hard drive. It makes TV something you watch when you want to watch it. It is TV on demand. When you come home you could have 100 or 200 hours of video waiting. It automatically skips commercials. You need never see another commercial if you don't want to.
websites? I'm a huge fan of Amazon and read all the major media sites including USA Today. Yahoo Finance in the US is the reference site for business news.
Favourite gadgets? It's a showdown between the Replay and the Blackberry but the one I can't live without is the Blackberry. I could live without a PC and a Replay. If I had to give one up I'd give the PC up first.
