High Stakes, No Prisoners

Charles H. Ferguson founded Vermeer Technologies in 1993. He consulted for the White House, agencies in the US government, and leading high-tech companies. He has an M.A. and Ph.D. in Theoretical and Computational Physics from Boston University. He has written for the Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, and Foreign Policy. He is a member of the Council on Foreign relations. He lives in Cambridge, MA.

1. Starting the company 2. The Internet awakens as the giants sleep, 1990-94: The invention of the web and mosaic, Netscape's first browser, Vermeer gets a strategy, and much, much more 3. First-round funding 4. Vermeer, fall 1994-summer 1995: Making a beautiful machine and preparing it for war 5. The industry, January-August 1995: Netscape lights its roman candle, Bill Gates wakes up, and AOL rolls with the punch 6. Wins and losses; or, no more Mr nice guy 7. Wins and losses, continued; or, things get really complicated 8. The making of a deal 9. Speaking ill of the dead: A strategic analysis of Netscape's failure and the future of Internet software 10. The Microsoft question 11. The future, and some large questions