Silicon Valley Visionaries

Cable World, Sept 11, 2000 by Barry Henderson

Nine months ago, the thought of coming up with a list of 10 visionaries in Silicon Valley would have seemed absurd. After all, with the gold rush of new ideas and business plans in the Valley, who could pick just 10?

It got a lot easier after the Nasdaq cracked in March. All of a sudden, it seemed worthwhile to identify the Silicon Valley pioneers with real vision and staying power.

Any list like this is subjective, and we readily admit this one is far from perfect. That said, we tried to assemble a group representative of the different cross-currents in technology in the Valley over the past two decades.

At the same time, we also steered clear of creating a list that only includes pure technologists. For every supergeek like Linus Torvalds or David Ditzel, there's a Steve Jobs or Larry Ellison right there, as well. After all, sometimes the promoters and the missionaries are just as important as the technology innovators in the rarified world of visionaries. Sometimes the marketing frontman eclipses the technology specialist.

"What happens is that the advocate for the technology -- someone like a Steve Jobs -- focuses a klieg light of interest on the technology, and ultimately some of that interest spills over onto him," says Stephen Unger, an executive recruiter who specializes in technology recruiting at Heidrick & Struggles in Los Angeles. "In the meantime, the original creator of the technology -- Steve Wozniak, for example -- stays behind the scenes."

Unger says that, with very few exceptions, these two qualities -- technical prowess and an almost evangelistic zeal for the product -- don't exist in the same person. (Marc Andreessen is one person on our list who might be the exception.)

Despite the differences, it's clear both qualities usually have to be there to make a new venture a success.

"It's almost like a mutual dependency," says Unger. "If you're missing one or the other, the enterprise won't be a success."

Just because you're a visionary, there is no guarantee you'll create a money-making machine that can satisfy public shareholders. Steven Witt, a principal at Firsthand Funds in San Jose, Calif., says a "visionary" has an advantage when wooing venture capitalists, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything once the company goes public.

"Being a visionary means you can get your idea funded pretty easily, but that's about it," he says.

With that in mind, here's our list.

Shawn Fanning, founder, Napster

Shawn Fanning is the 19-year-old college dropout the music industry wishes it never heard of. He's singlehandedly changed the way content providers think about the Net. Why? Because he created a way for computer users to exchange information directly with each other, making it easy to swap music files and allowing users to bypass record companies altogether.

The music industry argues this is copyright infringement. Fanning and Napster say this file sharing is covered by "fair use" rights, which allow someone to tape a TV show and share it with a friend without violating copyright laws.

Right now they're trying to settle the question in a California U.S. District Court. The court granted the Recording Industry Association of America an injunction against Napster July 26, which would have forced it to shut down until after the trial. Napster appealed this decision, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave them a temporary reprieve. The Appeals Court will issue a final ruling in September.

Although the legal outcome of this case is unclear, there's no doubt Fanning has changed the face of the Internet.

His programming efforts have produced a new buzzword -- "peer-to-peer," or P2P -- to describe the kind of connections Napster users make with each other. The new PC-to-PC connection his software creates reduces the need for Internet servers and dramatically changes Net traffic patterns.

Even more importantly, Napster's system seems to have broad implications for all entertainment companies -- not just the record business. Once the technology improves, who's to say this same approach won't work for movies? So far, 20 million users have tried it for music.

Like most visionaries, Fanning, who left Northeastern University as a sophomore to work for his uncle's computer game business, doesn't seem to have set out to become one. He created Napster as an alternative to looking for MP3 music files on the Internet with search engines. Nothing more, nothing less.

What does the future hold for Fanning? It's hard to say, but he and his company appear to be trying to negotiate a settlement with the music industry in which they might pay some kind of a license fee to record companies or even sell off some ownership of the company to the RIAA. Stay tuned.

Linus Torvalds, creator, Linux

Linus Torvalds, a native of Finland, is a reluctant poster boy for Microsoft's opponents. In their mind, Torvalds is Luke Skywalker to Bill Gates' Darth Vader.

Torvalds, 30, is lionized by Gates-haters because about 10 years ago he created a computer operating system based on an open architecture. That means the source code of the program -- the blood and guts of the software -- is accessible to anyone who wants to improve or tinker with it. Better yet, the software itself is free, which warms the hearts of most techies.