JIM CLARK Digital Entrepreneur
The world changed on Aug. 9, 1995, and not just because Jerry Garcia died. That was also the day the initial public stock offering for Netscape Communications, a company that had yet to turn a profit, instantly garnered an astonishing $2 billion on the strength of one idea. The idea was the World Wide Web, and its gatekeeper, for the foreseeable future, is Jim Clark.
Conquering the light-speed computer industry means leaping ahead one cognitive generation and landing in the right place. Few entrepreneurs turn this trick even once; at 52, Clark has done it twice. In...