If you liked Michael Lewis' book, The New New Thing, about Jim Clark,I think you will like Jim Clark's ruminations even more in this bookabout what he learned at Silicon Graphics and how he helped createNetscape. I also recommend this book as a superb case historyconcerning key lessons about entrepreneurship in the Internet age.If you don't know Clark's and Netscape's story, here's a quicksummary. Jim Clark uncovered a software approach to creating 3Dgraphics while an academic. He left to found Silicon Graphics, andeventually suffered from conflicts with his hand-picked CEO.Frustrated by the inability to redirect the company towards a low-endworkstation and PC-based business, he resigned at age 50 with stockworth about $15 million. Looking around for something to do, one ofhis SGI colleagues suggests he meet Marc Andresson, the 23 year oldwho had primarily co-written Mosaic, the first browser (along withEric Bina). Clark's first use of Mosaic was to e-mail Andresson.They quickly decided to do something together, and Clark agreed tofund it up to three million dollars. After two false starts on aconcept, they decide to create a "Mosaic Killer." Thestrategy then becomes to hire all the people who had worked on Mosaicat the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at theUniversity of Illinois. That, too, is quickly accomplished.Theyoung men except for Bina have to wait to graduate from college, andthen a company is built around them as "rock star"developers under Andresson's technical leadership. Within months, thefirst release of what will become Navigator is up on the Web for freedownloading. Netscape quickly begins to sell licenses to majorcompanies, Jim Barksdale is hired as CEO, and the company goes publicto an astonishingly positive reaction. The company soon decides toconcentrate on software as its business rather than becoming a contentprovider. Microsoft soon notices a new competitor, and the allegedlyanticompetitive actions now being ajudicated in the courts take place.Netscape is sold to AOL. Clark later goes on to found his thirdcompany, which is the subject of The New New Thing.But, youprobably knew all or most of that. Why read this book then?Tome, the value of what I found here was that Jim Clark seemed to bepretty candid about why he decided to do or not do certain things thathad a very large impact on SGI's and Netscape's success. As a result,this is an excellent study in entrepreneurship that considers how theInternet changes everything. Whether your business is in the old orthe new economy, I think you can learn many valuable lessons from thisthought process and its consequences.Here are the successes:First, one important thing he did right was to fund the start-upinitially with his own money. His purpose was to get a bigger pieceof the pie for himself and the key developers. As founder of SGI, hehad received only about 1.5 percent of the company's market cap.Early use of venture capitalists had cost him money in his view, andhe was probably right. A software start-up doesn't need tremendousamounts of money. Founders and angels can often fund round one. Thismade it easier for him to work with Andresson to attract thedevelopment team, and reward them properly.Second, his initialstrategy was to focus on getting all of the Mosaic development talentinto Netscape. That also was a good decision. In a new technologyarea, the people are usually more important than the intellectualproperty. Spyglass focused on getting the intellectual propertywithout the people, and did not do very well. This looks like anothergood decision.Third, he began selling software licenses early.This gave him credibility, cash flow, and access to more financings atan attractive price.Fourth, he overcame his error in picking aleader at SGI and chose Jim Barksdale. Clearly, Barksdale was a goodchoice. I suggest you read Clark's thinking about why entrepreneursshould usually find someone else to run the company for them. InClark's case, he just isn't interested in working on all of thedetails and hanging around. But every business needs a CEO who does.Fifth, he went along with Andresson's preferences to "releaseearly and often" and to make the software free. This speeded updevelopment time, and the company's growth. This was a key strategicdecision. Clark quickly grasped that Internet businesses neededfaster action and could provide it than hard asset businessescould.He also made some errors. Here they are:First, and mostimportantly, he knew that he was taking on Microsoft ultimately, butdid not properly prepare. As Sun Tzu suggests, your strategy shouldeither ensure that you do not have to fight or that the fight is undercircumstances so favorable that you cannot lose. Machiavelli suggeststhat you always kill your enemy, because wounded enemies are lethal.Netscape needed more and more powerful allies, and a way to insulateitself from the inevitable Microsoft browser product buried in aWindows package for free. I suspect that the error here was that hedidn't fully realize that he had the potential to create anotherMicrosoft.Second, he focused the company on browser software to theexclusion of content opportunities. All of the later Web successeslike Amazon, Yahoo and eBay could have been innovated by Netscape atthat point. Clark didn't want to split the company's focus, and thebrowser product was hot. In retrospect, he probably left 99 percentof the opportunity on the table. In this case, he probably did notfully appreciate the future potential of the Internet. A bettersolution would have been to start-up new companies with partner and VCfunding to put these operations together. They would have beenoutside of Netscape and had their own focus and funding. Netscapecould have been an even more successful version of CMGI.Third, heruffled the feathers of the people at the University of Illinois. Hewaited until they were annoyed before making peace. This disagreementwasted a lot of time and money, and slowed down corporate acceptanceof Netscape. He needed a diplomat on his team earlier on.As youcan see, that's a lot to think about in one book.After you havefinished absorbing and applying these lessons, I suggest that you askyourself where your pursuit of opportunities and examination ofpotential risks may be too limited. Learn from Jim Clark'sexperiences to take full advantage of the potential of where you are,and then you will not need a new new thing.Lead others and yourselfinto greater prosperity!