- 2 days ago
Society's adoption of the Internet; Microsoft, browser wars, and the antitrust case brought against Microsoft; the Apple saga; online commerce and dot-com retailers such as Amazon and eBay; the hysteria surrounding Y2K.
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00In the 90s, we're going to revolutionize human communication using these desktop computers.
00:11You've got mail.
00:12What is the World Wide Web?
00:14In the world of computers, it's kill or be killed.
00:17Please welcome Bill Gates!
00:19Do you agree or disagree that you have a monopoly?
00:21Check out Windows 95!
00:24This is iMac.
00:26It's a technological revolution that's changing the way we do everything, from making friends to falling in love.
00:32When the new millennium arrives, so will a technological tidal wave.
00:36Hey!
00:37Bye!
00:37Bye!
00:56icy.
01:06Bye!
01:07Bye!
01:09Bye!
01:14Bye!
01:16so you've just bought your first personal computer you've brought it home from the store
01:34you're unpacking it and then comes the moment of truth if you've just bought your first personal
01:40computer this show is for you computers were in 1990 a disconnected device it was a brick
01:46right that sat in your house and let you do amazing things that you'd never been able to do
01:50before but it was essentially a productivity tool now that we have all these very powerful tools
01:56we're still islands and we're still not really connecting these people using these powerful
02:02tools together apple was in a period of decline steve jobs quit in kind of a temper tantrum in
02:081985 and he went off and started a company called next after he left there was a sequence of
02:16pretty boring unimaginative corporate leadership that followed him so why did you leave apple
02:22well why did i leave apple oh i was asked to leave yeah i was asked to leave apple i was planning on
02:29spending the rest of my life there but it didn't work out that way steve jobs was a genius but one
02:35of the reasons he got moved out of his job was because he was spending huge amounts of money
02:40on projects that for the most part never reached the market and apple had a crisis of confidence
02:48at a time when major computer corporations like apple are laying off 10 of their workforce
02:52microsoft is the big exception in the computer industry people didn't get how much value there
02:57was to be derived from software that the operating system could be the most valuable piece of real
03:02estate in the whole computing business was something not understood by almost anybody in the computer
03:06industry apart from bill gates
03:08today we're introducing microsoft windows version 3
03:23bill gates part thomas edison part henry ford part holden caulfield from catcher in the rye
03:32at 19 he dropped out of harvard to design computer software with his friend paul allen
03:37they came up with a system that operates 90 percent of the personal computers today microsoft was making a
03:43lot of money then they were charging two three four hundred dollars for say a word processing package
03:50that really was costing him about 50 cents to print on floppies hard-working modest easygoing it would
03:58seem to a fault of course he does have at least one secret but we'll fix that is it true that you can
04:05leap over a chair from a standing position it depends on the size of the chair but this chair probably so
04:11yes i took a step before i did it that's okay bill gates wasn't just one thing he was a brilliant
04:22guy had great parents family values but he was a killer he basically was a ruthless guy and so was
04:30microsoft no no no no somebody's confused somebody's just not thinking i mean there's no way
04:36people figure it out you guys never understood you never understood the first thing about this
04:41a lot of people make the analogy that competing with bill gates is like playing hardball i'd say
04:49it's more like a knife fight i've never heard any of these things you know you're saying like knife
04:54fight that's silliness it's it's childish i mean uh why be a mouthpiece for that kind of of silliness
05:02well i'm done um can i just ask you one one more questions bill no i don't think so
05:11um i remember one time interviewing gates and i said microsoft owns the world right now
05:18you worry about that i worry about it every single night i go to bed thinking what have i not thought
05:24about now it's starting to dial
05:30and now i am in it spans the globe like a super highway it is called internet the net began back
05:42in 1969 it was a tool of the pentagon but nowadays just about anyone with a computer and a modem can
05:49join in the internet was really dorky hard to use and extremely nerdy thing no none of your friends
05:56would have been on this just fellow people in tech the internet really was not a huge factor in the
06:02early 90s but netscape changed things they're calling him the next bill gates 24 year old mark
06:08andresen 15 months ago andresen fresh out of the university of illinois helped start a company
06:14called netscape at 11 a.m this morning the company's stock went public and wall street went bonkers
06:20so what does netscape produce that now makes the company worth 2.9 billion dollars this the netscape
06:27navigator software which makes it easy for people to connect the global computer network called the
06:32internet microsoft has a long history of feeling threatened by hot new upstarts you could easily argue
06:40that bill gates's game plan was world domination these guys can be taken but the only way we're
06:49going to take them is by studying them know what they know do what they do watch them watch them watch
06:55them take every one of their good ideas and make it one of our good ideas microsoft came down and
07:01essentially said to netscape hey you know we can be friends or we can be enemies and if we're going to
07:07be friends that's great you'll get all the advantages of working with microsoft in a million ways and
07:11you'll be on the home screen of a lot of computers or we can compete and if we're going to compete we're
07:15going to basically do whatever is required to kill you some people believe that you have an infinite
07:19appetite for power that you are the embodiment of a button that was around during the 1980s that
07:24said i want it all and you want to eat up your competitors is that unfair
07:28it doesn't ring any bells with me
07:34the first day back
07:44what do president clinton conservative radio personality rush limbaugh and rock star billy
07:51idol have in common they've all got electronic mail addresses on computer systems linked to the
07:57internet who are these other people that are on it other people just like you who but how'd they get
08:02on it who regulates this internet and and who decides who gets on this highway and who doesn't
08:07well the services we're talking about today are commercial services so you spend money to get on
08:11there so there's no real regulation per se you use your phone line and your computer and you get online
08:16cop you serve was for the tech savvy people prodigy was for shopping and aol was the first one that
08:23had a vision to get everyone connected
08:24when i heard that sound i cried a little bit because i knew there was a big adventure waiting
08:34for me welcome you've got mail copy serve charged by the minute so it was like a taxi cab aol's
08:43invention was to forget that and charge $19.95 a month all you can eat and that changed everything
08:48goes now you could afford to be on the internet all you wanted you didn't have to be a researcher
08:52you could dial on to aol aol was specifically designed to be point and click steve case is the
08:59president of america online i interviewed him via computer and george asked what are the most popular
09:05america online features now he responds the real focus for us is on promoting interactivity what's the
09:11very best thing about it i think be able to communicate with just about anyone anywhere one of the things that aol
09:17realizes is that america online can't be all 200 plus million people at once you need little
09:23neighborhoods and so chat rooms become internet neighborhoods where people who share interests
09:29create their own little space you can either click on the chat button up here or go to the people
09:34connection that's what america online calls it and when you get here click on list rooms you'll find
09:38different categories of rooms when i was a kid i didn't know any other black gay people and the only
09:43people i knew were the folks that i met on america online i didn't come out to my mother till much
09:49later but i was out on the internet in many respects aol was you know one of the first social media
09:56companies computer communication is not like human communication there's no facial expression to help
10:03you know which way something ambiguous is meant so the isolated communicators of cyberspace
10:10have come up with little signs made out of punctuation marks they're called emoticons you were using
10:16text to have a conversation that felt like a face-to-face communication you could see the start of this new
10:23online culture it's a technological revolution that's changing the way we do everything from making
10:29friends to falling in love he was nice he never gave me any of the come on lines it was always friendly
10:34and wait wait you're telling me that guys use pickup lines on a computer as the internet grows
10:40i'm finding information i also want to find love i just happened to stumble on michael's address
10:46i picked him out of the blue i read his profile and i was completely floored many of the businesses of
10:53the internet work on connecting for the first time total strangers who have very narrow interests in
10:59common aol was what was called a walled garden picture this you're paying a monthly fee for
11:07something with a limited number of things to do but no matter how many things they put inside their
11:14garden it could never come close to the hundreds of millions of things that would pop up on the open
11:20internet the thing about the world wide web is that it has no central organizing body it's chaotic
11:27if you are running a website how is anyone going to find you stanford grad students jerry yang and
11:35david filo like spending hour after hour discovering interesting places on the internet and that is how
11:41they stumbled onto a fortune their million dollar idea is called yahoo yahoo yahoo came in at just the
11:53perfect time they literally made a list it was just simply a listing it was jerry and david's
12:00web listing and they named it yahoo after rednecks yahoo's yahoo was an exercise in organizing the
12:07internet it quickly became the leading way to find things and it was a directory based system it wasn't
12:13a search based system the idea was to curate the whole web wall street now values yahoo at around
12:19seven hundred million dollars even though the company is barely profitable with the success of
12:25netscape and the growth of these digital upstarts yahoo there was this energy that was not all in
12:33seattle it's not really silicon valley versus what's going on up at redmond washington it's more mankind
12:39versus microsoft so silicon valley is just one outpost against the evil empire to the north
12:46this is silicon valley the heart and soul of the nation's computer business here microsoft is
12:53respected and feared as a powerful giant whose every footstep sends shivers through the entire
12:59industry there's this emerging war basically between the silicon valley culture built up around
13:05the web and the microsoft culture up in redmond and it's not just a cultural clash but an economic
13:11clash technological clash a clash for power bill gates had to turn microsoft like a supertanker
13:18around to have it address the internet and the way they did that was by coming up with internet
13:22explorer which they presented as the world's best browser it wasn't you know microsoft stuff it never
13:29is the best but it was well marketed and it was pushed and they had a lot of money behind it
13:34here came microsoft with its own version of a web browser built into windows 95 their intention was
13:41to kill netscape as the browser and make internet explorer its replacement
13:46five four three two one zero
13:53a consumer feeding frenzy many computer stores like this one in miami opened at the stroke of midnight so
14:00customers could be the first to get their hands on windows 95
14:04it seems like an awful lot of fuss over a single product but the product will have a huge impact
14:12not just on microsoft but on the global computer industry this is jennifer aniston i'm matthew perry
14:18we're here to see mr bill gates about a possible starring role in the video guide to microsoft windows 95
14:23all of the employees of microsoft have been invited to a huge party in a tent over there on the microsoft
14:31campus and guess what song we could hear blaring out of there you got it rolling stones start me up
14:37windows 95 was the most successful software launch to this day everybody whether they really wanted to
14:45or not went out and got windows 95. getting the rolling stones to allow their music to be used in the ad launch tonight
14:52is the sign of a company at the peak of its powers the challenge for microsoft is to stay there
14:58with the race now on to exploit the internet it may soon be microsoft's turn to fear the competition
15:04apple computer a pioneer in the personal computers and software business has fallen on hard times
15:21after reporting a big quarterly loss it decided to lay off one thousand three hundred workers
15:26how do you feel about what's happened to apple did it have to turn out the way it did
15:31it's hard to predict these things i mean you know come out you've thought about this this is not a subject
15:35that's unfamiliar to you yeah it is it's it's sort of ancient history to me right now i have i don't really
15:40think about this stuff anymore and apple and microsoft duke it out and netscape and microsoft duke it out
15:45and to me it's a spectator sport in the mid-1990s apple had a couple more ceos none of whom really grasped the
15:52vision of apple as a result the company just did worse and worse and worse as the decade progressed
15:58with big losses in the last quarter with profit margins shrinking apple seems destined for a takeover
16:07this is a computer that even has fan clubs i just love the apple and i always have it i can't really say why
16:13everyone's rooting for apple to somehow survive but it wasn't at all clear that apple would be around
16:19at the end of the 1990s the troubled apple computer company may return to its core in an effort to boost
16:25sagging sales apple reportedly will name its co-founder steve jobs as its new chairman jobs would
16:31replace a chairman who was ousted earlier this month steve came over to apple sold next to apple for 400
16:38million dollars he had no ambitions at apple at all but steve jobs was watching apple flounder and he just
16:47couldn't help himself and so he remade the company the way he wanted and there was no one to oppose
16:54him because the company was exhausted steve jobs had exactly the abrasive but incisive personality that
17:06apple needed at that point they needed someone to come in to say kill that project kill that project
17:12that's stupid consolidate that and focus the company i'd like to announce one of our first
17:18partnerships today a very very meaningful one and that is one with microsoft
17:27we're very very happy about it we're very very excited about it and i happen to have a special guest with me today
17:33uh via satellite downlink
17:43i don't think steve jobs has ever experienced you know before or after that just people going boo no
17:50microsoft represented everything that these hardcore apple fans hated if we want to move forward
17:58and see apple healthy and prospering again we have to let go of a few things here we have to let go
18:05of this notion that for apple to win microsoft has to lose okay
18:11there was an alliance now between these two former arch rivals and microsoft was going to invest 150
18:18million dollars in apple but more important from bill gates's point of view was that apple would include
18:23microsoft's browser and old macintosh that was the last piece now he had domination of the browser world
18:30microsoft says internet explorer just makes it easier to get around the web
18:34but when you hit a button to access services for travel entertainment news and the like
18:39you find sites owned by microsoft and that's what the government is worried about
18:44over the next few years americans may be buying billions of dollars in goods and services through the internet
18:51and that's a market too important the government says for one company to act as gatekeeper
18:56the u.s justice department asked a federal court today to fine microsoft corporation a record one million dollars a day
19:05the complaint against microsoft came from executives at netscape a fast-growing software company that struck gold with its web browser
19:14but microsoft began giving away its own browser and required computer manufacturers to offer it with windows
19:21what they're able to do is they're able to illegally we believe use that monopoly power to block competition
19:26they're able to pay people to not use our software and they're able to do other things that monopolists are legally not allowed to do
19:31a lot of people were saying the antitrust laws are outmoded technology will enforce competition on its own
19:37the counter argument is that when you begin to get lots of people to use your operating system
19:44it becomes harder and harder for somebody else to break in to that industry
19:49microsoft chairman bill gates goes before congress for the first time today
19:52gates is expected to face tough questions from the senate judiciary committee
19:56i want to if you don't mind ask can i ask the audience one question and get a little quick poll here
20:02how many of you use intel based pcs in this audience raise your hands
20:06all right of that group who use pcs how many of you use a pc without microsoft's operating system
20:14gentlemen that's a monopoly that's a lock that's a hundred percent
20:19it is fair to say that when you compete with people you think hey we're going to have a better product
20:25we're going to win the customer we're going to do a good job here on these things
20:29the hearing makes clear i think to most people like oh huh so that gates guy he's not just like
20:35kind of a good-natured geek in glasses he's another rich rapacious capitalist
20:40police and security guards in belgium were caught flat-footed today by a cowardly sneak attack
20:45on one of the world's wealthiest men
20:47it's been a bad week for microsoft and its cybermeister bill gates yesterday at the chicago
20:55debut of his much-awaited windows 98 system the program dramatically crashed
21:01you'll notice that this scanner bill whoa
21:07shaping up is one of the antitrust battles of the century federal and state governments today sued microsoft
21:13saying the computer software giant is predatory and scheming to crush all competition
21:19microsoft used its monopoly power to develop a chokehold on the browser software needed to access the internet
21:27i don't think bill gates recognized the seriousness of the situation this was a case that simply wasn't going to go away
21:36worst case they'll ask us to create a crippled product and that would be too bad that would really hold us back
21:43so we're quite confident that won't happen the government tried to avoid this trial in every way they could
21:50but once bill rejected every settlement offer the world just changed because it was like okay so now we're going to court
21:57the government might not be good at some things but it's really good at litigation
22:01and when it decides it's going to win a lawsuit
22:04you are going to face a formidable adversary
22:07it's been ten months since a new management team took over at apple
22:22and because of their hard work i'm really pleased to report to you today that apple's back on track
22:27and today i'm incredibly pleased to introduce imac our consumer product this is imac
22:41the imac was a computer that was meant to look like something you would want people to see in your house
22:55it ushered in this new era where design started to matter
23:01the imac was sexy i had a blue one and it had curves it was built like a sports car
23:06when people think of computers they think of boring they think of beige they think of it as utilitarian
23:11apple made it fun you can take it home take it out of the box and be cruising the internet within ten minutes
23:18and that's not something you can do on any other computer we know of
23:21they added software to make it easier to connect to the internet so the i in imac was for internet
23:27it changed how people thought of apple and changed how people perceived what had been a dying company
23:34suddenly people saw that there was a spark here
23:37in the world of computers it's kill or be killed and the original whiz kid was thought to be dying in early death
23:44but guess what mac is back
23:47a year ago nobody would have predicted this
23:50steve jobs the head man at apple computer hailed as the visionary hero who brought the company back from the verge of extinction
23:57in four and a half months imac has become the number one selling computer in america
24:02bill gates ultimately represents that computer genius is entrepreneur steve jobs represents the entrepreneur's artist
24:09you know you can say what you want about steve jobs but he knew how to make people believe
24:15in federal court in washington dc today a case of legal hardball and computer software
24:20the u.s government set out to prove that computer industry giant microsoft tried to bully the competition illegally into submission or out of business
24:31as microsoft and justice department lawyers came to do battle at the federal courthouse
24:35a bill gates impersonator showed up adding a surreal touch
24:38inside the courtroom the real bill gates on videotape under oath in a deposition taken in august
24:44the thing about a deposition is that the only thing that the witness can really do is to sit there and tell the truth simply and directly
24:55the first two hours of the deposition was quite unexpected
25:01from the stuff you've given me here
25:04just to read i'm asking for your present recollection if you have one and i can read the document myself
25:09i don't know what you mean my present recollection
25:11what do you mean by internet software
25:13the full breadth of your question
25:15this person who i know is brilliant and articulate and passionate is withdrawn playing word games being evasive
25:24doing everything that makes him look like he is not confident in his position
25:30you recognize that this is a document produced from microsoft files do you not sir
25:35no
25:36you don't
25:37well how would i know that
25:39david boys the famous litigator
25:41he has a photographic memory
25:43he would ask gates in the deposition
25:46do you ever remember saying this
25:47no i never would say something like that
25:49boys without looking at notes would say would you call up document
25:523021 please
25:54did you know that microsoft people were meeting with netsgate
25:58before they actually met
26:00i don't recall knowing in advance
26:03government lawyer david boys revealed an internal microsoft memorandum written by gates three weeks before that meeting
26:10i think there is a very powerful deal of some kind we can do with netscape gates wrote
26:15we could even pay them money as part of the deal
26:17buying some piece of them or something
26:19when i covered the trial
26:20one of the things the judge said to me is he didn't believe bill gates
26:24and that deposition was very instrumental in shaping the judge's decision
26:29i've never seen a stamp like that i've never used a stamp like that
26:33haven't you seen stamps like that in every single one of the documents that you've been shown during this deposition
26:39can you get get me all the exhibits
26:41just a waste of time
26:43it is a waste of time
26:45technology is hard to understand
26:47their pitch to the judge was trust us
26:51trust us
26:52we're doing
26:53what we're doing
26:54what we're doing
26:55for the consumer
26:56the deposition
26:58made him and the company
27:00look like they were not trustworthy
27:02because this deposition
27:04and the snippets of it that played out day after day on national television
27:08it was an incredibly precipitous decline
27:11in how most people viewed bill gates
27:14he was an environment
27:15that unlike almost every other environment in which he operates
27:19he did not control no witness controls a deposition
27:23no matter how rich no matter how powerful
27:25every witness has to sit there and answer questions
27:27in words surprisingly blunt judge thomas penfield jackson declared microsoft a monopoly
27:33lawyers from the justice department in the 19 states that sued microsoft immediately claimed victory
27:39microsoft is a monopolist and it engaged in massive anti-competitive practices
27:45it drove bill gates crazy that the government was portraying him as some kind of evil force
27:52was he ruthless as a businessman yes
27:54did he see himself as a ruthless businessman no
27:57he saw himself as someone who was advancing the common good
28:02and the government didn't see it that way
28:06there is a lot of chat about technology and business you'd expect that
28:20but some of the conversation might surprise you
28:23it is not just tech talk
28:25they are talking about sex
28:27are you an adult
28:28what she does is she loads pictures mostly x-rated pictures into her computer
28:34and then customers anywhere in the world can call up laura's lair and see on their home computer
28:39this list
28:40fifteen thousand descriptions of photos
28:44in language that's not always suitable for tv
28:46pornography is always the first to make money on any new technology
28:51and not just technology since computers i mean since the beginning
28:57now laura's customers pay to transfer these photos from her computer through the phone lines to their computer
29:03okay here it comes
29:04okay how do i know
29:05okay so they don't have clothes you didn't tell me that
29:08excuse me while i stop sweating
29:10the adult industry was very interested in figuring out how to make credit cards work
29:16that had benefits for online commerce
29:19it boosted consumer acceptance of online credit card use
29:23our little shopping carts that we now use are invented by pornographers
29:28what was unknown was whether or not somebody could set up a website
29:33and actually make money
29:35and the proof of concept of that was pornography
29:39for the most part entrepreneurs have not figured out a way to make profit on the internet
29:43that is until ebay came along
29:45pierre omidyar started the auction site as a hobby
29:49three years later it has a market value of close to six billion dollars
29:53and is a superstar on wall street
29:56ebay makes its money by charging the list an item
29:59then takes a small percentage of the final selling price if it sells
30:03if you've got an item you want to sell
30:06like a 1967 green hornet lunch pail for example
30:09you write up a brief description
30:11add a digital photo and decide on an opening bid
30:15ebay really changed everything
30:17and not because what they were offering was so incredible and revolutionary
30:22essentially what they were doing was they were automating the middleman
30:27it's 600 million hits a month
30:29that's right okay that's a lot of people
30:31how do you stop the unscrupulous
30:33problems like that are really very very rare on ebay
30:37it's all based on trust
30:39one thing ebay pioneered is this idea that we rate each other
30:43so that future transaction participants can see whether you're a good person to deal with or not
30:49it's in your financial interest to be looked up to and respected as a trustworthy transactional partner
30:55on NBC News in depth tonight we're going to talk about the superstars of the stock market
30:59those red hot internet stocks
31:01companies that in some cases didn't even exist a few years ago
31:04are now trading in the stratosphere
31:06the whole dot-com bubble of the late 90s was based on this idea that what counted was not profit
31:14what counted was eyeballs
31:15if you could get enough people using your stuff
31:18you would figure out a way organically from that to make a profit
31:23the daily volume 3.7 million shares we are almost a two billion dollar company
31:31people love these stocks anything that has dot-com or net in its name it goes like hotcakes
31:38it's billed as the earth's biggest bookstore not just the countries but the earth but you can't shop there
31:44unless you have a computer it's a virtual bookstore
31:47books books and more books that's what they do at amazon.com
31:52if you were to print the amazon.com catalog it would be the size of seven New York City phone books
31:57in the early 90s Jeff Bezos looked at what the internet could be and he decided that the internet could be anything
32:05Bezos started amazon.com at this modest ranch home in Seattle in 1994
32:10less than five years later his idea of selling books on the internet has grown into a multi-billion dollar business
32:16the largest physical bookstores only carry about 175,000 titles
32:21amazon.com has two and a half million titles in its online catalog
32:24there's no way to have a two and a half million title physical bookstore
32:28Bezos understood that it would take decades to create this infrastructure of shipping and warehouses
32:34he had this vision of completely upending the retail business
32:38a couple of things we have to get to which is often said about your company
32:41you were losing money
32:43I can tell you that I think it's good that we're losing money right now
32:46it's important to amazon.com someday in the future in the long term
32:51we just like to know what day that is
32:54you can't be the everything store unless you're absolutely gigantic
32:59Bezos's philosophy was get big fast
33:02earning money making a profit that'll come later
33:05for now let's become the 800 pound gorilla
33:08this year I think more and more people are going to do more and more of their shopping online
33:11it's so much more convenient because you have almost unlimited selections
33:14the convenience is going to make this the year that shopping really comes of age on the internet
33:18this was the time that allowed you to make choices as a consumer
33:22without gatekeepers choosing things for you
33:25you could decide I want that and you'd get it
33:28if you don't live in a big city you can still get big city stuff
33:31a worldwide computer network called the internet has inspired more movies than any big deal technological fad
33:38since oh the cv radio boom of the 1970s
33:41the internet itself however is definitely exploding
33:44it hit and within like two years it just it's become so powerful
33:49we're sitting on the most perfect beach in the world and all we can think about is where
33:55can I hook up my bottom
33:57in 1999 we are culturally socially financially quite dependent on the internet
34:04in washington today a special senate committee is preparing to release a fairly alarming report on the y2k millennium computer problem
34:12they call it one of the most serious and potentially devastating events the nation has ever encountered
34:18the brains of most computers the chips that do the thinking have tiny built-in clocks
34:23many register the year with only the last two digits assuming the first two are always 19
34:29the problem was not that the computer would think that it's 1900
34:33the problem was it wouldn't know what to do
34:35it would just break down and go
34:37and can't process this
34:39it could trigger widespread computer failures blackouts and breakdowns of everything from home appliances to the global financial system
34:46if we left things as they are right now
34:49the military would effectively shut down
34:52the pentagon will spend at least four billion dollars to defuse the millennium bomb
34:56and pentagon officials are confident they'll do it
34:58but critics claim they started too late
35:01and those thousands of fixes won't be done in time
35:04many states have not yet updated their computers that run programs such as medicaid and food stamps
35:10benefits that millions of families rely on
35:13on new year's eve 1999 i was prepared for the world to shut down
35:18for a growing number of people the year 2000 is not a milestone as much as it is a sign of some sort of impending chaos
35:25at home i got lots of water generator flashlights batteries canned food
35:30so what do you think is going to happen
35:32i think there's going to be riots
35:33get ready warn the books computer failures will shut down electric utilities
35:38prison gates will swing open at midnight
35:40terrorist attacks will occur in larger cities
35:42and wild dog packs will roam the streets
35:45and many of these books recommend stockpiling weapons as a precaution
35:49i just wanted to be prepared in case anything happens for y2k
36:06now if you are just joining us good morning
36:09and let us assure you all is well
36:11apocalypse is not now
36:13the sky is not falling
36:14the dreaded millennium bug bugged out
36:16for the most part life went on as normal
36:19the sun came up people watched morning television and uh... ate their wheaties
36:24we have spent in this country a hundred billion dollars correcting y2k
36:29commerce secretary bill daly says it amounts to sixty five dollars per taxpayer
36:34part of the reason why disaster didn't occur on y2k was because the government and corporations
36:39realized the problem and spent months in intensive preparation for that moment
36:44it was a big deal a lot of energy spent a lot of fear big nothing
36:51good afternoon
36:53good afternoon
36:56microsoft was founded twenty five years ago
36:59and i've had the same job as ceo during that twenty entire twenty five year period
37:05uh... today uh... steve is going to step up to a new role and he will be ceo of microsoft
37:13by the time this trial was over microsoft wound up settling but microsoft was really really chastened
37:20in the end by that long grueling case
37:23does the government's case against microsoft have anything to do with this change in leadership
37:28no absolutely not uh... if anything this change underscores what a dynamic competitive business we have
37:35but uh... it's not at all related bill gates had been very successful he had an enormous amount of money
37:42he may very well thought that given what he had already accomplished the highest and best use of his remaining years was to spend that money helping humanity
37:52it was just a few months back if your company ended in dot com it was a good thing but at the end of this brutal week
37:59on wall street a lot of analysts think the internet bubble is ready to burst and by this time next year
38:04a huge number of those dot com's might be dot gone a year ago investors were so eager to buy into the internet
38:11they were happily ignoring traditional measures of success sales profits and growth
38:17but reality has now set in these upstarts didn't have any income
38:22they're saying we are worth billions of dollars
38:25where's your revenue they didn't have any
38:27when the venture capitalists stopped putting money in
38:30you could time the bubble
38:32you could say
38:34you know if we all believe this fantasy it works
38:37if some of us stop believing
38:39it's a prelude to its failure
38:42most dot com retail companies will be out of business by next year
38:46eliminating 25,000 out of 30,000 internet companies
38:51what sort of message do you have for all of us
38:54as we look at what's happening to the dot com businesses in the stock market
39:00don't invest in dot coms
39:03the internet opened up a lot of things for people
39:06they made things easier for people
39:08and that didn't change
39:10bubble or no bubble
39:11with more than a billion web pages out there
39:14millions of websites out there on the internet
39:16it's no wonder the most common activity on the web is still searching
39:19trying to find the information you're looking for
39:22it really hadn't been very much new in the search engine field for years
39:25until something called Google came along
39:28a traditional search engine will take your search terms
39:32and say oh what pages have those search terms on them
39:34maybe you know how many times they occur
39:36Google goes way beyond that
39:38Google will say what do other web pages say about this page
39:41Google captured the entire web
39:43and they made a map of what linked to what
39:46and found things with an accuracy that no one imagined would be possible
39:51it turned out that Google rather than Netscape was the one that eclipsed Microsoft
39:55and by the end of the decade Netscape is basically gone
39:58but Microsoft was in fact
40:00completely overtaken by exactly the thing that Bill was concerned about being overtaken by
40:04Netscape and Google are part of the same thing
40:06which was the ascendance of the web
40:08the rate of change in our lives has grown faster and faster
40:12the zeros and ones of computer language are literally transforming every part of our lives
40:18you have the little ones running around
40:20to be able to go to my computer and grocery shop
40:22it's incredible to be able to do that
40:24what I found was another world
40:26a world of caring concerned people
40:29once you become familiar with it it becomes a friend
40:32a companion
40:34you have a sense of possibility
40:38that geography used to deny you
40:41without moving yourself
40:43the world would come to you
40:45any student could instantly call out the text or pictures
40:48from any book in the Smithsonian
40:50or tap into a super computer from NASA
40:53a specialist at a huge city hospital
40:55could help diagnose patients at small rural clinics anywhere
40:59the web is incredibly exciting
41:01because it is the fulfillment of a lot of our dreams
41:04that the computer would ultimately not be primarily a device for computation
41:09but metamorphosize into a device for communication
41:12it is the equivalent to the industrial revolution
41:15it is the equivalent of electricity
41:17the changes are just so profound
41:19when we look back a hundred years from now
41:21this is the point where we're going to say this is where everything changed
41:24I wasn't prepared to translate that
41:27as I was doing that little tease
41:29that little mark with the A and then the ring around it
41:32at?
41:33see that's what I said
41:34Katie said she thought it was about
41:36yeah
41:37oh
41:38but I'd never heard it
41:39around or about
41:40I'd never heard it said
41:41I'd always seen the mark
41:42but never heard it said
41:43and then it sounded stupid when I said it
41:44violence at NBC
41:45there it is
41:46violence at NBC
41:47gecom
41:48I mean
41:49what Allison should know
41:51what is internet anyway?
41:53what do you write to it?
41:54like mail?
41:55no a lot of people use it and communicate
41:56I guess they can communicate with NBC writers and producers
41:59Allison
42:00can you explain what internet is?
42:02we are going to talk about some people
42:03what's going on
42:04and the ones that need to discuss
42:05and see it
42:06well
42:07it's probably quite a bit
42:08that's one of our secret
42:09and you know
42:10if we have some more people
42:11that don't know
42:12or the other thing
42:13are going to talk about
42:14and that's one thing
42:15that is really beautiful
42:16I'm not sure
42:17yeah
42:18nice
42:19I'm not sure
42:20you're going to talk about something
Comments