Hard to believe that as recently as 1999 the lack of ubiquitous camera-phones meant that images like this are rare / remarkable.
You can see in the photo properties several are taken with a Sony Cybershot - eg somebody had to have the forethought to drag out an actual, gasp, camera to document these events.
In the context of this photo essay that means that many of the photos are either posed or around "events" where a camera would likely be welcome - IPO celebration, work parties, etc.
So what's mostly missing here - and everybody's photo albums of that era - are much of the unexpected, the spontaneous, etc.
This post makes me really bittersweet, bordering on emo. During that period I was just a wee lad that couldnt get ENOUGH of the computer... I was programming and doing all sorts of things.
Stupid stupid stupid me never even thought to try to do online advertising or making a website that catered to an idea. Instead I dicked around with video game websites (which actually got a huge following but died off when the game did), small game development and 3d design.
I regret that to this day, I would undoubtedly be in a different spot had I used my very good talents with the end goal of making a profit in mind. Now all these years later it seems like I'm in the same position as everyone else, whereas then I realized the insane potential of the internet yet my idiot brain never put 2+2 together with the idea of money.
This is like regretting having enjoyed jogging when you could have been a competitive runner. Or growing up near the beach and learning to surf but never becoming a professional surfer.
Enjoying technology is not the same as starting a business. And when you start seriously considering starting a business, you'll quickly realize that you're rarely the first to think of something. Especially in the tech sector where only real idiots believe it's a simple as internet + idea = business.
I often have the same reaction to stories like this. It's easy to see the nostalgia in the story, and thinking about what you have missed.
Unfortunately, starting a business from the ground up, whether it was 20 years ago or today is not easy. What people always miss in the nostalgia is how incredibly hard it is to do this. It takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears to have something like this be successful.
Even looking at the tech industry today, your choice of game development and game design seems spot on. The gaming industry has been growing like crazy the last ten years.
I should have clarified -- I was younger at the time, so I'm not talking about "startups", hiring a mass amount of people, getting funding. I'm talking about building a website to fill a niche that is now massively popular, or pursuing advertising or other ways to make money besides trying to buy an office building and a lot of employees.
I ALREADY had the pieces in place, I had connections to get things done (not like "oh I have connections", im just saying for being a young lad I knew a lot of people that would help me that knew what they were doing). Thinking back I actually impress my current day self with what I did. I already had the knowledge, I already had 90% of what I needed, I even had a successful starting place with a successful site... instead I dicked around with 3d models instead of putting my mind into media buying or ANYTHING having to do with making money. It just didnt OCCUR to me that yes, you could be making money right now.
I suppose as a concrete example -- I didnt start doing online advertising until about 3 years ago, where my best days were $4k profit per day for about over a month straight. Ive had other similar campaigns. This is going from zero experience to a year or two of trying different things. Its MUCH harder now then it was back then, and I know beyond all reasonable doubt I would be sitting on a lot larger bankroll had I played things differently 10 years ago.
I wouldnt say black hat, moreso grey hat or trying to game the system. I probably wouldn't have pursued anything like cookie stuffing or anything malicious.
Edit: If youre talking about the campaigns within the last 3 years, most were whitehat.. one of them on the way seedier side of things though, but still nothing that would harm a users computer, or had anything to do with fraudulent traffic.
Well they were obviously good choices for john carmack and others. For just me though, being a solo person, developing 3d models didnt really help me make money. Granted, it gave me a huge understanding of complex topics at a young age which saturated my interest and allowed me to pursue my obsession and do a number of successful technical things later, but my focus just wasn't quite there. It was 90% there, but not the 10% that it needed. It is difficult to explain..
For example, I used to do media buying. Back then, it was too easy to make money via online advertising. Any halfwitted idea would yields you tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. I actually owned a site dedicated to games that had a HUGE amount of visitors, and yet it never occured to me to put ads on it (not just putting ads on my site either, but pursuing online advertising ventures).
I also could have easily made and promoted some sites to fill certain niches given certain circles I was a part of (back then there were so many ideas not yet put into place). Instead it just didn't occur to me.
I have a lot of friends that started half-assed ideas back then in that era and now have millions of dollars. Thats not to say no skill was involved, it was just the chances then were MUCH higher than now, almost to the point where if you started then you probably would have something to show for it by now, if you were even halfway tactful with your strategies and implementation - which is something I know I could have been.
EDIT: I'm not talking strictly about the paypal era I suppose, my mind is drifting to a bit earlier, in the days of google being new, etc.
Interesting. How were you holding up the bandwidth costs on the gaming site without ads? Donations? Are you allowed to say the domain?
Although it looks like any idiot could have made money back then, and relative to today I would agree, their is some survivor bias in play when talking to those who made it back then. It wasn't that easy.
Lastly, any examples of those half assed ideas that hit big? Even the niches if you can't name particulars. I'd argue the chances of success in a single field were much higher back then, but the breadth of opportunities and ease of getting started is higher in the modern day. Domain and cloud server for $20 and you're in the game.
My site is long long gone. I think about a year ago I tried to find anything related to it and all I found was a gif logo I made hosted somewhere. I can't even find it on my harddrive anymore.. so who knows maybe my site is 100% vanished into the ether.. maybe theres a copy of it somewhere in a dark corner of the world on a dusty unix box, but who knows.
And yes I'm probably biased, but at least if I would have tried back then and failed -- I would have had lessons to learn from and would still be better off. Without never having tried during those early golden years though I just feel like a fool.
As for examples of other ideas...
I know a few domainers who bought up a whole slew of domain names back then and now are sitting on a fortune.
Look at any affiliate marketer that is well known and chances are they started during that period when you could keyword stuff, game SEO extremely easily, buy ads on a site and making a fortune, etc. Lots of blood sweat and tears is required with online marketing (which is why I no longer pursue it), but compared to now, back then was a cakewalk.
Have you got a source on the whole plastic surgery thing? The difference between the two photos just looks like a man who grew into his looks and got took onboard some style advice.
up-vote for the fair question. I was under the impression that information was common knowledge among SV elites. The person who initially told me was close to paypal people. How this came about it went something like this:
me - Hey I noticed earlier photos of Musk and he looks so different.
the other person - oh yeah, this whole surgery thing was known among some paypal people I know....
Ignoring the above conversation. His facial changes are sort of going against the pattern of aging.
That said, I'm rather embarrassed for posting this and reply to your comment. But I find it intriguing what you need to do as a visionary since image is everything and there is probably something we can all learn from this.
As I understand it, Elon had massive plastic surgery and was never happy with his looks so you rarely see old photos of him, and if you do you can't tell it's him
That kind of thing is usually prefaced with something like "here's some other interesting discussions on this." But maybe I'm wrong and webmonkeyuk had good intentions.
Elon Musk is being amazing again. He's not busy enough with Tesla and Space X, he's working on bullet-train in a vacuum tunnel tech: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop
That's insane, this guy has his hands in everything. I believe he's also had his hand in solar energy (SolarCity), and was involved in PayPal.
Just reading his wiki and apparently he can even beat Russia's Putin in Judo. I usually take everyone's success with a grain of salt but this guy seems to have it all. Real Life Tony Stark?
Years ago I made the mistake of using them. Never again. Their habit of screwing users, followed by complete opacity as to why they're screwing a particular user at a particular time, makes them evil.
Which is really too bad: they provide what could be, in other circumstances, a useful service.
I remember it well. It seemed like such a solid idea - be able to send money to anyone with only both parties responsibility for what it was, just like handing cash over. I pushed it hard at the time, figuring it was the best bet for being able to finally do transaction freely. Three years later, yeah. You can send cash to anyone. Except, you know.. anyone dealing in drugs. Or porn. Or gambling. Or potentially illegal electronics. Or hebs. But anyone else. Well, not you personally - we dislike you already so for you, no one, but other people might..
I remember creating my account and linking my bank account to my paypal account. Seemed like the future, then ebay had to buy it. Now I don't have any of my bank/credit cards linked to it and actually put in my credit card info for each thing I purchase or subscribe to on the internet.
When my cousin Kenny told me about how he was starting Paypal, I was fresh off the boat from high school in Nigeria and had barely begun using the internet, so this sounded very magical. And it truly was, because it really felt futuristic when college friends would pay each other back by giving cash online. When I proudly told them my cousin was at Paypal, it impressed the non-geeks just as much as the geeks because it was so easy for everyone to sense the impact of this technology.
Yea, eventually eBay finally paid attention and that was how David Marcus was hired from the startup world (I was thinking this was a good idea for a while now):
if neither of you picked it out, steve chen (of youtube fame) used to work for Paypal before starting youtube and you can spot him on this slide: http://www.levchin.com/paypal-slideshow/3.html
Can someone explain something for me? Elon Musk made approximately $110m from the purchase of PayPal from eBay in 2002. His Wikipedia page states that he is worth $2.4B.
You can see in the photo properties several are taken with a Sony Cybershot - eg somebody had to have the forethought to drag out an actual, gasp, camera to document these events.
In the context of this photo essay that means that many of the photos are either posed or around "events" where a camera would likely be welcome - IPO celebration, work parties, etc.
So what's mostly missing here - and everybody's photo albums of that era - are much of the unexpected, the spontaneous, etc.