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Marc Andreessen
Marc Lowell Andreessen (/ænˈdriːsən/ an-DREE-sən; born July 9, 1971) is an American businessman, venture capitalist, and former software engineer. He is the co-author of Mosaic, the first web browser to display inline images; co-founder of Netscape; and co-founder and general partner of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He co-founded and later sold the software company Opsware to Hewlett-Packard; he also co-founded Ning, a company that provides a platform for social networking websites. He supported presidential candidates of the Democratic party until 2016. In 2024 he became an advisor to Donald Trump. Andreessen's net worth is estimated at $1.9 billion as of January 2025.
Andreessen was born in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and raised in New Lisbon, Wisconsin, which he considered "the sticks". He is the son of Patricia, customer service operator at Lands' End, and Lowell Andreessen, who worked as a sales manager for the seed producer Pioneer Hi-Bred International. He has a younger brother named Jeff. In 1998, Bloomberg reported that Jeff was a history major at the University of Wisconsin. Andreessen stated that he had problematic relationship with his parents and brother, and that he did not like to talk about them. Andreessen discovered programming at age 12. In December 1993, Andreessen received his bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC). As an undergraduate, he interned twice at IBM in Austin, Texas. He worked in the AIX graphics software development group responsible for the MIT X implementation and ports of the 3D language APIs: SGI's Graphics Language (GL) and PHIGS.[citation needed] He also worked as a programmer, earning $6.85 per hour, at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois. At that time, he became familiar with Tim Berners-Lee's open standards for the World Wide Web, but the World Wide Web browser required advanced programming skills to use. After being shown the graphic web browser ViolaWWW in late 1992, Andreessen and full-time salaried co-worker Eric Bina worked on creating a browser with integrated graphics that could be ported to a wide range of computers, including Windows. The result was the Mosaic web browser released in 1993. The new web browser led to a 342,000 percent increase in web traffic in a year. Before Mosaic, there had only been 50 websites on the Web, but the number now increased to 10,000, while the percentage of internet users who surfed the Web increased from 1% to 25%.
In the Web's first generation, Tim Berners-Lee launched the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and HTML standards with prototype Unix-based servers and browsers. A few people noticed that the Web might be better than Gopher. In the second generation, Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina developed NCSA Mosaic at the University of Illinois. Several million then suddenly noticed that the Web might be better than sex.
— Bob Metcalfe, InfoWorld, August 21, 1995, Vol. 17, Issue 34.
Mosaic is often referred to as the first successful web browser. It was also the first browser widely used for both Windows and Mac.
The NCSA though refused to give the Mosaic team credit for their contribution, so Andreessen, disillusioned, decided to leave the center in 1994.
Andreessen has worked at Netscape, Opsware, founded Andreessen Horowitz, and invested in many successful companies including Facebook, Foursquare, GitHub, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
After graduating from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1993, Andreessen moved to California to work at Enterprise Integration Technologies. Andreessen then met with Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics, who had recently exited the firm. Clark believed the Mosaic browser had great commercial possibilities and suggested starting an Internet software company. Soon, Mosaic Communications Corporation was in business in Mountain View, California, with Andreessen as co-founder and vice president of technology. The University of Illinois was unhappy with the company's use of the Mosaic name, so Mosaic Communications changed its name to Netscape Communications, and its flagship Web browser was the Netscape Navigator. Netscape was the first successful commercial web browser (offered for free). It offers a wide variety of clients, servers, development tools and e-commerce applications. It also simplied the interface, increased speed and provided tools to prevent financial transactions in comparison with its predecessor Mosaic.
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Marc Andreessen
Marc Lowell Andreessen (/ænˈdriːsən/ an-DREE-sən; born July 9, 1971) is an American businessman, venture capitalist, and former software engineer. He is the co-author of Mosaic, the first web browser to display inline images; co-founder of Netscape; and co-founder and general partner of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He co-founded and later sold the software company Opsware to Hewlett-Packard; he also co-founded Ning, a company that provides a platform for social networking websites. He supported presidential candidates of the Democratic party until 2016. In 2024 he became an advisor to Donald Trump. Andreessen's net worth is estimated at $1.9 billion as of January 2025.
Andreessen was born in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and raised in New Lisbon, Wisconsin, which he considered "the sticks". He is the son of Patricia, customer service operator at Lands' End, and Lowell Andreessen, who worked as a sales manager for the seed producer Pioneer Hi-Bred International. He has a younger brother named Jeff. In 1998, Bloomberg reported that Jeff was a history major at the University of Wisconsin. Andreessen stated that he had problematic relationship with his parents and brother, and that he did not like to talk about them. Andreessen discovered programming at age 12. In December 1993, Andreessen received his bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC). As an undergraduate, he interned twice at IBM in Austin, Texas. He worked in the AIX graphics software development group responsible for the MIT X implementation and ports of the 3D language APIs: SGI's Graphics Language (GL) and PHIGS.[citation needed] He also worked as a programmer, earning $6.85 per hour, at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois. At that time, he became familiar with Tim Berners-Lee's open standards for the World Wide Web, but the World Wide Web browser required advanced programming skills to use. After being shown the graphic web browser ViolaWWW in late 1992, Andreessen and full-time salaried co-worker Eric Bina worked on creating a browser with integrated graphics that could be ported to a wide range of computers, including Windows. The result was the Mosaic web browser released in 1993. The new web browser led to a 342,000 percent increase in web traffic in a year. Before Mosaic, there had only been 50 websites on the Web, but the number now increased to 10,000, while the percentage of internet users who surfed the Web increased from 1% to 25%.
In the Web's first generation, Tim Berners-Lee launched the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and HTML standards with prototype Unix-based servers and browsers. A few people noticed that the Web might be better than Gopher. In the second generation, Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina developed NCSA Mosaic at the University of Illinois. Several million then suddenly noticed that the Web might be better than sex.
— Bob Metcalfe, InfoWorld, August 21, 1995, Vol. 17, Issue 34.
Mosaic is often referred to as the first successful web browser. It was also the first browser widely used for both Windows and Mac.
The NCSA though refused to give the Mosaic team credit for their contribution, so Andreessen, disillusioned, decided to leave the center in 1994.
Andreessen has worked at Netscape, Opsware, founded Andreessen Horowitz, and invested in many successful companies including Facebook, Foursquare, GitHub, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
After graduating from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1993, Andreessen moved to California to work at Enterprise Integration Technologies. Andreessen then met with Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics, who had recently exited the firm. Clark believed the Mosaic browser had great commercial possibilities and suggested starting an Internet software company. Soon, Mosaic Communications Corporation was in business in Mountain View, California, with Andreessen as co-founder and vice president of technology. The University of Illinois was unhappy with the company's use of the Mosaic name, so Mosaic Communications changed its name to Netscape Communications, and its flagship Web browser was the Netscape Navigator. Netscape was the first successful commercial web browser (offered for free). It offers a wide variety of clients, servers, development tools and e-commerce applications. It also simplied the interface, increased speed and provided tools to prevent financial transactions in comparison with its predecessor Mosaic.
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