[hvs]

I was at UIUC shortly after he graduated and the general impression was that he basically just stole Mosaic from the University to create Netscape. Not sure that bestows him with any tech legitimacy. He's certainly a good businessman.

[lettergram]

Having worked directly with several of the people involved and spent many years at UIUC.

My impression has been that UIUC is/was jealous and wanted the IP / recognition. They admit he built it, but wanted a cut.

[breck]

Evidence refuting this, and showing him very actively involved:

http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1993q1/0182.ht...

[fsckboy]

he could have been actively involved in creating Mosaic as a university project, and still be accused of leaving the university and stealing the software to create a new commercial product.

[kevin_thibedeau]

The source code was public so not much to steal other than the knowledge he already had.

[trhway]

Well, Page/Brin's BackRub was basically a science citation index, yet here we're. Add FB into that collection too. Ideas are nothing (we all have a lot of them), execution is everything.

[paulryanrogers]

...and timing, and connections, and money, and education, and mental health

[olivermarks]

exactly @paulryanrogers

[specialist]

Marc named the image tag. 'IMG'. Even better, it's standalone! No closing tag!

So simple. And yet sublime. Given a million years, I'm not sure I could have come up with that solution.

[jjtheblunt]

this made me smile