It was this invitation to basically do anything.

It was this kind of great moment where you just kind of felt like the future was like in front of you.

It's very important to know that at this point and all the way up until really 1994,

the overwhelming uniform, universal expectation was the internet

would never be a business. I at the time completely lacked the skill set and the

perspective to navigate I would say interpersonal and in particular bureaucratic

situations I had no clue how to do any of it. I would say interpersonal and in particular bureaucratic situations.

I had no clue how to do any of it.

So much of computer science at that point

was about optimizing scarce resources

because that was all you had at that time

and they had spent decades figuring out how to do that.

And we collectively decided to just break that rule.

You've probably heard of the browser. In fact, billions of people use browsers as their gateway to the internet.

And you might even be using one right now

to access this very podcast recording.

Now in today's episode from the Ben and Mark show,

Mark Andresen and Ben Horwitz share the real story behind the creation of Netscape,

a web browser co-created by Mark that revolutionized the internet and quite frankly changed the world.

As Ben notes up top, until today, this story has never been fully told either in its entirety or accurately.

In this one-on-one conversation, Mark and Ben discuss Mark's early life and how it shaped his journey into technology, the pivotal moments at the University of Illinois that led to the development of Mosaic, a renegade browser that Mark developed as an undergrad, which is widely referenced as the first widely used browser, and the fierce competition and legal battles that ensued as Netscape rose to prominence.

Ben and Mark also reflect on the broader implications of Netscape success, the importance of an open internet, and

...