Month: June 2000

“I’ve never seen anything as cool as the FireDrop technology. This is the most compelling thing I’ve seen since Java.”

Former Sun executive Alan Baratz, on his joining FireDrop, a new company dedicated to creating user-surly annoyware for your email inbox, Upside.com, 9 June 2000

“In this period that you have to say is the most prosperous the nation has ever been in, we can still look and see some pretty stark divides. The opportunities that are out there are not as equal as they should be.”

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, perhaps alluding to the hard choice his workers will face between working for the boring old OS company and the sexy applications company, ZDII, 8 June 2000

“If you’ve seen one dot-com layoff story, you’ve seen them all.”

Salon tech writer Andrew Leonard, whinging about press coverage of floundering Internet companies mere days before his company closed a Seattle office and laid off 13 of his coworkers, Salon.com, 2 June 2000

“If users are anonymous, then rights holders will have no one to sue. Napster says it’s not their fault, but they should be required to hand over the people whose fault it is.”

Rob Atkinson, Democratic-party technocrat, on the threat of scarier-than-Napster music-sharing software, News.com, 31 May 2000

“The power of government should not be locked away in Washington. You should not have to fill out endless forms or worry about somebody who is having a bad day giving you the runaround.”

Project-manager-in-chief Al Gore, on the features he would add to whitehouse.gov as president, News.com, 5 June 2000