Startup like it’s 1999

Found this post by Meg Hourihan, circa 2000. She says:

There are dot-com people and there are web people. Dot-com people work for start-ups injected with large Silicon Valley coin, they have options, they talk options, they dream options. They have IPOs…. Web people can tell you the first site they ever saw, they can tell you the moment they knew: This, This Is It, I Will Do This. And they pour themselves into the web.

I started out a web person. I remember the first website I ever saw (HotWired). I remember the moment I knew I wanted to be part of this new thing (reading this article, two years before I got on the net the first time).

But I got sidetracked in '99. I joined a startup. I got distracted by the business. I was tempted by internet millions. During my entire dot-com career, I never had a personal site. I always told people that I was too busy doing real work, but really I didn't have anything to say.

Blogging has changed all of that. Turns out I really like having a personal site. I've found that I do have something to say — more than I actually have time to write. Participating in the conversation has become important to me. And it raises the stakes on what happens here.

As all the new money rolls in to fund Web 2.0, I hope that we can remember why we started doing this. I hope we can learn from the lessons of recent history. I hope we can see the difference between those who build and those who exploit. And I hope that I stay on the right side of the line this time.