The Education Of Marc Andreessen

It was like a slow-motion train wreck. Marc Andreessen, 26-year-old co-founder of Netscape Communications Corp., was basking in last December's post-holiday glow when troubling reports began trickling in from Netscape's sales force. Instead of the big numbers he had hoped for, each report was more discouraging than the last. Corporate customers just weren't buying Netscape software fast enough.

By late January, the full extent of the damage was clear. Because of a huge fourth-quarter revenue shortfall, the company that had nearly turned the computing world upside down would report an $88 million loss and fire 400 of its 3,200 employees. The news was so bad that analysts began to question the Mountain View (Calif.) company's ability to survive.