So you helped launch the Web. What have you done lately?
Thus was Marc Andreessen dissed on the very medium he helped create, moments after word got out that he was being replaced as AOL's chief technology officer.
See also: AOL, Andreessen Part Ways- - - - - -
"What has Andreessen really done?" posted one surfer on the Slashdot message boards. "Anyone who has used Netscape knows it's a complete pile of garbage, programming-wise. He has always seemed like somebody who was in the right place at the right time... Has he done anything else worthwhile?"
That was a nasty slap at the man earmarked as the next Bill Gates just four years ago. Posters took similar swipes all over the Web.
"I'm so glad that useless kid is out and AOL is finally getting a real CTO and being serious ... [about being a] real company. Compared with [Yahoo's] Jerry Yang, Andreessen is just a dumb, but lucky, jester," was one quip on the Silicon Investor message boards.
There were kind words spliced in amongst the grousing on the message boards, but not many.
Majority opinion of the rank and file? He hasn't lived up to the hype.
Not fair, said a prominent former Netscape co-worker.
"Marc is a brilliant fellow. It's not that Marc isn't living up to Bill Gates, it's just that they're very different people," said Eric Hahn, a friend of Andreessen's and the exec who followed Andreessen into the CTO slot at Netscape. "By any measure, he's been wildly successful in a professional sense and a material sense."
"Marc's figuring out what he wants to do. It may not be 'Start another Netscape and be on the cover of Time Magazine.' Could he do that if he wanted to? Sure."
Analysts agree that the knocks are unfounded.
"He's been very influential ... [in] evolving the browser technology he created -- he helped build it out," said Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies in San Jose.
Bottom line, his place in history is secure, no matter what he does next.
"He gave the graphical interface to the Web and made it accessible to mere mortals," said Bajarin.
