Early in 1996 as our workforce at HotWired expanded, we outgrew the original office, which was adjacent to Wired magazine, and moved a block south to another converted warehouse at 660 Third Street.
On a personal level, if the parallels from my time at Rolling Stone two decades earlier weren't already in my mind, now they became unavoidable. From the window next to my desk at HotWired I could look directly into the small office across the street at 625 Third where Howard Kohn and I had written our three-part series about Patty Hearst and the SLA back in 1975.
One of many similarities between the two offices was the almost constant stream of celebrities who wanted to visit us when they came to San Francisco. At Rolling Stone, it had been rock stars, of course, but also journalists, professors, actors and politicians.
HotWired was no different, but the visitors now included rising stars in tech like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, as well as virtually every other aspiring Internet entrepreneur. Also there were tech-savvy musicians like Brian Eno and politicians like Bill Bradley, a former Olympic basketball player and a Democratic senator who wanted to run for president.
Among those who wanted to speak with me specifically were journalists from the Washington Post, Newsweek, the L.A. Times, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, tech magazines, business magazines, NPR, the TV networks. They marveled at the scene of hip young people at desk after desk of computer screens spread over two floors connected by a spiral staircase, music playing, and miles of pink ethernet cable snaking around everything.
I was a comfortable interview for mainstream journalists since I was just technically literate enough to translate for them what was going on, though I was still a newcomer to this world. Basically I sprinkled web terms liberally into my sound bites, which made me sound like an expert.
The reporters confided to me that this whole scene made them nervous because the implications of the digital revolution seemed likely to deep-six a lot of journalism jobs.
They were right about that.
What made these HotWired visits especially newsworthy was the stock market frenzy that was making Internet millionaire out of 26-year-olds right and left, plus the fact that it was widely known that Wired, too, was preparing for its own IPO -- an initial public offering later that year.
One of the documents I carried around was the Wired prospectus for potential investors. It described how Wired Inc. would ride the rise of an Internet economy to become a global media empire.
No small part of the vision hinged on the efforts of our team at HotWired, since the kinds of multiples envisioned in the prospectus were unlikely to be generated by an analog magazine alone.
But we were experimenting with a wide range of content strategies, including a search engine (HotBot), advertising models (the banner ad was a HotWired creation), the earliest web blogs (like Suck), interactive bulletin boards, audio programs (presaging podcasts) and digital video, which included a fledgling TV program called Netizen TV.
For the first time in my career, I held options to purchase shares in the company that would vest over time. And as a vice-president, my holdings were large enough to potentially make me wealthy -- a prospect that had never before even occurred to me.
But this was early 1996, when pretty much anything seemed possible...
(To be continued.)
***
THE HEADLINES:
(The firsts one deserves special attention)
* The Internet Is Rotting -- Too much has been lost already. The glue that holds humanity’s knowledge together is coming undone. (Jonathan Zittrain/The Atlantic)
• Election to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom set for September 14 (CNN)
* U.S. Supreme Court gives states more leeway to restrict voting (Reuters)
* Trump Organization charged with ‘scheme to defraud’ government; CFO charged with grand larceny, tax fraud (WP)
* ‘Not a healthy environment’: Kamala Harris’ office rife with dissent -- There is dysfunction inside the VP’s office, aides and administration officials say. And it’s emanating from the top. (Politico)
* The House voted to create a select committee to investigate the pro-Trump mob's Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Still unanswered is whether GOP lawmakers conspired to aid the insurrection. All but two Republicans — Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — opposed creating the panel. [HuffPost]
* Majority of Florida condo board quit in 2019 amid conflicts over repair plans (WP)
* Since When Have Trees Existed Only for Rich Americans? -- Trees protect cities from extreme heat. But in most places, only the rich enjoy them. (NYT)
* More than 100 people have died in climate change-fueled record heat scorching the Pacific Northwest, and extreme temperatures may persist until mid-July. No place in North America is ready for this heat. Workers say it's too damn hot. [HuffPost]
* No one was prepared for the Northwest heat wave — especially not the animals (WP)
* Forest fire guts small western Canada town after days of record-breaking heat (Reuters)
* As Western Wildfires Worsen, FEMA Is Denying Most People Who Ask For Help (NPR)
* Underpaid firefighters, overstretched budgets: The U.S. isn’t prepared for fires fueled by climate change -- Fire experts say the escalation of wildfires demands an equally dramatic transformation in the nation’s response. (WP)
* Biden Pledges Money for Firefighters as a Heat Wave and Wildfires Roil the West -- The president cautioned that the United States was years behind in developing a strategy to combat the worsening fires and their underlying causes. (NYT)
* Exxon Lobbyist Caught On Video Talks About Undermining Biden's Climate Push (NPR)
* U.S. companies spend billions on stay-at-home tech, boding ill for office properties (Reuters)
* U.S. Wins Backing for Global Minimum Corporate Tax-- Officials from 130 countries agreed to broad outlines of a wider overhaul of the rules for taxing international companies. (WSJ)
* Putin Pushes Vaccinations as Russia Faces New Coronavirus Wave (AP, Reuters)
* China is building more than 100 new missile silos in its western desert, analysts say (WP)
* The number of immigrants detained by ICE has risen significantly under President Joe Biden, swamping detention centers and private prisons. The influx raises questions about whether detaining so many people is the best way to handle immigration. [BuzzFeed]
* Rincon Island, an artificial island built during the 1950s just off the coast of Ventura County, once pumped oil from 50 wells. But after the company that owned it went bankrupt, taxpayers are on the hook for the cleanup costs. (The Desert Sun)
* Willis Johnson, billionaire founder of a global junkyard company called Copart, lives in Tennessee. But he sent a large donation to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to fund her deployment of National Guard troops to the Texas-Mexico border. "I believe in her state and Texas," he said. [Politico]
* A Microsoft executive told Congress the company gets thousands of federal law enforcement secrecy orders for customer data each year, "a sea change from historical norms." [AP]
* NSA discloses hacking methods it says are used by Russia (AP)
* John Cox, a Republican candidate for California governor, said he would force homeless people into mental health or addiction treatment before providing them with housing. (AP)
* Police officers and an accompanying bulldozer dismantled a Sausalito tent encampment where 35 people lived. (San Francisco Chronicle)
* Los Angeles considers stricter limits on homeless camping (AP)
* Pandemic Surges Again in Many Parts of the World, Fueled by Variants -- The highly contagious Delta variant is on the rise, and countries that hoped they had seen the worst of Covid-19 are being battered again. (NYT)
* Another Respiratory Virus Is Spreading as U.S. Gets Back to Pre-Covid-19 Life -- Cases of RSV, which are typically more common in winter months, are rising in Southern states. (WSJ)
* How fires get their names. (Sacramento Bee)
* Britain's William and Harry put feud aside to unveil Princess Diana statue (Reuters)
* Expected to Be Demure, Japan’s Girls Face Steep Hurdles to Athletic Dreams -- The Tokyo Olympics offer a chance to crown a new set of heroes to inspire budding female athletes. But once the spotlight dims, Japan’s rigid gender norms will still limit opportunities. (NYT)
* A Historic Nashville Music Venue—Now Open—Is Fighting to Survive (WSJ)
* Knocked down by a pandemic, baseball gets back up in America (Reuters)
* A Monument To Journalist, Civil Rights Activist Ida B. Wells Is Unveiled In Chicago -- The Light of Truth Ida B. Wells National Monument is unveiled a year after Wells was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the lynching of African Americans. (NPR)
* While there may be a genetic component, most twins are the result of one or both parents saying, “We’re just gonna have the one and then see how things are looking financially in a few years.” (The Onion)
***
And here's a HotWired playlist, courtesy of Mary, John & Scamp:
* Orbital - Are We Here
* Talvin Singh - Butterfly
* TLC - Waterfalls
* Cocteau Twins
* Sun City Girls - Space Prophet Dogan
* Boredoms - Molecicco
* Lush - Desire Lines
-30-
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