Month: October 1999

“I think up to $3-4 trillion is the potential maximum size of the information marketplace.”

MIT computer science research director Michael Dertouzos, conveniently ignoring recent projections that MIT donor Bill Gates is on track to become a quadrillionaire in the decades to come, ABCNews.com, 14 October 1999

“When Microsoft first announced its Hotel Price Matcher copycat service, we were, quite frankly, stunned by its blatant disregard for our prior relationship and our property rights.”

Priceline CEO Richard Braddock, explaining that his company was surprised by erstwhile partner Microsoft’s behavior in launching a competing hotel-room bidding service, News.com, 14 October 1999

“My vision of the future is that we become an equity economy. Here in Silicon Valley you can start a business, you can get your ads, your public relations, your lawyering, your banking with equity. That’s cool.”

Venture capitalist Tim Draper, inadvertently raising questions about why stock- and credit-card-equipped entrepreneurs would need his old-school cash, Salon.com, 13 October 1999

“I’ve seen a lot of products but I think I’m more in love with this product than any other product since the original Macintosh.”

Apple cofounder and interim CEO Steve Jobs, showing his fickle side again in introducing a new DVD-capable iMac, Wired News, 6 October 1999

“I was the first person to see that the Internet would be the greatest information medium of all time.”

Internet.com chairman Alan Meckler, who started an Internet-oriented newsletter for librarians a full three years after Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, and well after Net visionaries like Jon Postel and Vint Cerf realized the potential of the Internet for information exchange, CBS MarketWatch, 11 October 1999