Summary:

Bob Davis was not only the founder of the search engine/web portal known as Lycos, he was also the CEO, first employee, and for a time, the ONLY employee. Bob recounts how Lycos took technology from academia, turned it into a viable company, and became one of the "four horsemen" of the dot com era. Today, Bob is a partner at the venture capital firm, Highland Capital Partners.

Summary:

Jane Slade joined Amazon.com's nascent customer service team when it was a couple of people, some computers, and one phone line. Over the coming years, she helped to build the customer service operations at Amazon into the enormous team it is today. Jane recalls for was what it was like in the early days and why keeping customer experience central to everything Amazon does is probably the key driver for the company's success.

Summary:

Christina Warren is the Senior Tech Analyst for Mashable.com. She came on the podcast to talk with me about Amazon’s place in the tech universe, Jeff Bezos as an entrepreneur, and to break down what might be the four or five main business models for the internet. Be sure to look for Christina’s work on Mashable.com. You can also find her on Twitter at @film_girl. She also co-hosts a terrific podcast called Overtired.

The two articles we discuss on the episode are:

Amazon Bought This Man’s Company. Now He’s Coming for Them

Facebook is the New AOL

So, I ran across this quote from Star Trek television producer Rick Berman. He said, “Without porn and Star Trek, there would be no Internet.” That’s a notion that I have to say really kind of rang true to me, in a tonge and cheek sort of way. I mean, it’s something you hear all the time. The idea that pornography leads the way with any new technological innovation. That Porn is some x-large percentage of the overall internet Do you ever wonder how much of the internet is actually porn? If it’s such a large amount then wouldn’t it be worth investigating how porn has shaped the web and the internet generally? That’s sort of the thinking that led me to begin thinking about this episode.

Bibliography:

•  The Erotic Engine: How Pornography has Powered Mass Communication, from Gutenberg to Google
•  Obscene Profits: The Entrepreneurs of Pornography in the Cyber Age
•  EroticaBiz: How Sex Shaped the Internet
•  The Unsexpected Story
•  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat
•  https://tidbits.com/article/5833
•  http://internetlaw.uslegal.com/pornography/
•  http://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm
•  http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
•  http://www.itworld.com/article/2729780/enterprise-software/10-fascinating-facts-about-internet-porn.html
•  http://blog.cytalk.com/2010/01/web-porn-revenue/
•  http://metro.co.uk/2013/07/21/david-cameron-online-porn-will-be-blocked-by-default-3891620/
•  http://nymag.com/news/features/70985/
•  http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-sections/10471/siri-piracy-pay-for-your-porn/
•  http://www.thewrap.com/media/article/internet-piracy-killing-porns-profits-1394/