Tuesday, August 09, 2005

NSCP - 10 years later

Today is the 10th anniversary of the Netscape Communications IPO. (see link for great set of Fortune articles).

16 month-old Netscape Communications went public on August 9th, 1995. The stock priced at $28, peaked at $75, and closed that day at $58 valuing the young company at a cool $3.3bn.

1995 also brought us Verisign, Yahoo, and Amazon, among others.

1995 represents a seminal year in technology innovation. In many ways it parallels 1959, the year Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce independently invented the integrated circuit and gave birth to the digital age.

Reflecting on the staggering impact NSCP, VRSN, YHOO, and AMZN have had on our lives, economies, and careers reinforces the promise and excitement of innovation, while reminding us how hard it is to appreciate non-linear developments, and harder still to foresee their ultimate impact.

As investors and technologists, let's all hope that 1995 is a spring board for changes still to come, and let's us also hope that we have the foresight to recognize "it" when/if we see it.

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