of the interim management. So people weren’t worried where the Internet was
going; they were just looking for something interesting to do, and joining Yahoo
qualified.
The Internet really started to take off in July ’95. Netscape went public, and
that set off a chain reaction of PR. Not only was the Internet cool, but, all of a
sudden, people could make money. The press was all over Jerry and Dave, so
we spent a lot of time handling the press. We hired a temp PR firm that didn’t
work all that well. We didn’t even need it because people were just calling in,
and Jerry was so naturally good with the press, so things just kind of happened.
Then when Tim came in, he hired Jeff Mallett within a month, and then Jeff
hired out his staff within 2 to 3 months.
Livingston: What were you personally focused on?
Brady: Product. I worked for Jeff Mallett, who was essentially COO under Tim
Koogle. I became part of Jeff’s staff, running product. There was also business
development, and sales and marketing under Jeff.
Livingston: Did you ever worry about competitors?
Brady: There were a couple of seminal events where we thought we were going
to get crushed by competitors. The first one was the directory button on the
Netscape browser became a search button, and Netscape started selling the
right to be linked from that button. Architext (later called Excite), which was
funded by Kleiner Perkins, was a bunch of undergraduates from Stanford. They
bought the Netscape search button with their venture capital money. Netscape
was also funded by Kleiner Perkins.
Tim Brady 131
Livingston: Did you make a bid for the button?
Brady: We bid up to a certain point in which we felt comfortable that we could
make a return on money. After which point, we knew it became “investing in
the brand,” and I don’t think we felt comfortable investing in the brand at that
point. Because we didn’t know how big the Internet was going to be at
that point. Even though the press was going crazy, the numbers were still pretty
small compared to any other media. I think it was $5 million that Excite paid for
that button.
We definitely worried about Excite, and we were worried about Microsoft.
In the summer of ’95, Bill Gates sent out one of his famous memos on the
Internet. I think this was one of the first ones. It talked about Microsoft needing
to get in the game, and he ended the memo with: “My favorite site: Yahoo.
Cool. Cool. Cool.”
At first our reaction was, “Yeah, cool, cool, cool,” and then our next thought

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• of the interim