Stephan Paternot & Todd Krizelman - interview with theglobe.com owners - Interview

Interview, Feb, 1999 by Amy Harmon

Interview by Amy Harmon

Meet the guys who might just hold the keyboard to the future

Four years ago, as juniors at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Todd Krizelman and Stephan Paternot began to build what they called an online community in their dorm room. In November, the pair became worth about fifty million dollars each when their company, theglobe.com, went public, setting a record for the steepest first-day price gain for an initial public offering. As is the case with many of the young men carving new businesses out of cyberspace, Krizelman's and Paternot's wealth still exists only on paper. So now the two twenty-somethings, whose standard-issue metal desks are lined up one behind the other in a cramped room at the company offices in New York City's Chelsea, are figuring out how to make their success stick.

AMY HARMON: When did you first have the idea for the company?

TODD KRIZELMAN: In the fall of 1994. We had always joked about starting our own company, and with the Internet appealing to a broader audience, not just your typical geek, it seemed like the moment. Here was an opportunity to get involved on the ground floor.

STEPHAN PATERNOT: I'm from Switzerland and the U.K., and Todd's from California, and this project allowed us to cross all sorts of geographic boundaries. We wanted our Internet site to be a global event - an online community - that would bring people from around the world to a common location. That's why we called it "theglobe."

AH: How did you cope with the demands of college while starting a company?

SP: We spent a lot of time negotiating with professors about why we were absent for weeks and missing tests and finals and . . .

TK: I can remember being in California at an expo, flying back to Cornell for a Spanish test, and then getting back on a plane again to catch the end of the convention.

AH: Why do you think growth in this field has been dominated by young men?

SP: When I was at Cornell taking computer-science classes, they were made up of only 20 percent women. Since then, though, the field has had to reinvent and remarket itself. People no longer think of it as this weird programming thing - it's been glamorized somewhat by the 'Net and the media, and it's attracting, even among men, less geeky types and more entrepreneurial business types. So in that sense it's starting to attract more women. Things are balancing out.

TK: There was a time in our company where we were probably 70 percent male, and where our users were like 90 percent male; today it's 50/50 on both scores. In terms of hiring, that's happened purely because the right person was a woman - I don't know when a company gets to a point where it can start making decisions about hiring on a gender basis.

AH: Are there any women who have had a particular influence in the creation of your company?

SP: My mother, actually. She's probably been one of the most encouraging people - she invested in the company even though she knew nothing about the computer industry.

AH: Did you grow up in households where men were expected to choose different paths than women?

SP: In Europe things are just a tad more backwards. Yes, men are pushed in a very different way than women.

TK: I had the opposite experience. My parents only had one criterion for us, which was simply to work as hard as you can and if you fail, that's fine, as long as you tried your best.

AH: Is it easier to be a man in today's culture?

SP: I feel like they're more opportunities for everybody. At least in the U.S., I really do feel like it's the land of opportunity - you have the chance to do anything here.

AH: What is it like to be so much younger than a lot of the people you do business with?

SP: We basically have to prove that we aren't two completely naive guys who have no clue what they're doing. That's the perception when we walk into practically any meeting with bankers or prospective investors.

AH: Are there advantages to your age as well?

TK: Well, maybe our bodies allowed us to push ourselves given the hours and stress involved in getting the company to this point.

SP: And we were blind to the risk - that's been a huge thing. For a CEO of a big, stable company to quit his job and start an operation like this would be a huge leap. But Todd and I walked blindly into this. I think if we had realized at the start how chancy this was going to be, we might never have done it.

AH: What do you say to people who attribute your success to Wall Street's infatuation with Internet stocks?

TK: We've been busting our asses for four years straight. It is not accidental this company is where it is today; it has nothing to do with luck.

SP: It just so happens that the field we've been busting our asses in represents the biggest socioeconomic change that has ever hit this planet. The printing press was a pretty revolutionary thing when it came out, and like it the Internet has the power to absolutely change the way people live. Some people spend half their day online. They're no longer bound by their cities, neighborhoods, or countries. We're only just now seeing the first five seconds of the infancy of the 'Net. The first hundred million people have just barely begun using it. There're six billion more to go.