by Doug Menuez
The Mission.
Redwood City, California, 1998.
NetObjects CEO and cofounder Samir Arora, who today heads mega-successful Glam Media, delivers a personal and moving talk to motivate his employees prior to a crucial board meeting with his investors. An inspirational leader, Arora was himself inspired by Steve Jobs and came from India to work at Apple as an engineer in 1986. He wrote a white paper with profound insights into the future of computing and rose quickly to work directly for Apple CEO John Sculley, where he helped develop Knowledge Navigator. He left Apple and with influential graphic designer Clement Mok (seated, top left), David Kleinberg (seated, lower left, profile to camera), and Arora’s brother Sal Arora (not pictured), he cofounded NetObjects, which became the first company to create software that allowed anyone to make his or her own web pages. In short order they were a hot start-up with a mission to make the internet widely accessible, a smart product idea, decent funding, relatively cheap offices complete with foosball and Ping-Pong tables, and a brilliant, deeply dedicated group working long hours for low pay, with the hope of a big payoff someday for their shares in the company. They also believed in their product completely, unlike the employees of a lot of dot-coms of the era. But the pressure from competition such as Microsoft’s FrontPage, and from their investors to do an IPO, was increasing. Arora’s message to his employees that day: they just had to work even harder than they already were.
Remains of an All-Night Programming Session.
Redwood City, California, 1997.
At the headquarters of NetObjects, morning finds empty Chinese-food cartons left by engineers working all night to finish an important updated version of the company’s software. Other source material for programmers can include pizza, soda, and Ho Hos.
New Employees Are Requested to Wear Balloon Hats.
Redwood City, California, 1998.
Samir Arora (at right in soft focus) is pushing his team at NetObjects in their attempt to continue to dominate the market for web-page design software during a staff meeting at company headquarters. New employees were asked to wear balloon hats as a mild hazing ritual. This was believed to improve bonding of team members, so crucial in high-pressure work environments (or on battlefields).
A True Believer.
Redwood City, California, 1998.
Victor Zaud, NetObjects’ director of product design, set up their six-person product design team with Clement Mok in 1996 and won awards for NetObjects’ Fusion software interface design. Here he’s talking with colleagues about his philosophy about NetObjects design as they update the software. He tries to evoke emotion in visual design and says that things can either be “horsey/clunky” or “tasty.” He was particulaly taken with the icons that Susan Kare, former Apple designer and NeXT creative director, designed for the NetObjects navigation bar. Today Vic and Susan work with Samir Arora at Samir’s new company, Glam Media. This movement of people from project to project is typical of Silicon Valley. It is home to a pool of extraordinarily talented people who come together to build a company, move on, bump into each other again, and start another cool company. Futurist and thought leader Paul Saffo says that this pinball-machine-like movement and proximity is one of the most significant factors that makes Silicon Valley unique as an engine of innovation.
Many Ways to Skin a Cat, Invent New Technology, or to Sit.
Redwood City, California, 1998.
Laura Zung, NetObjects’ engineering director, was known at work for her unusual chair posture. Here she’s discussing with a colleague the product launch schedule and marketing strategy for NetObjects Fusion’s update. She often got up on a chair with her papers spread out on the floor, looking at everything while spinning slowly around in a circle. One of the critical engineering decisions NetObjects faced was whether to incorporate HTML, the universal programming language for assembling content into web pages, into their software or to remain a closed, proprietary system. They chose the latter.
The Creative Process Never Stops.
Redwood City, California, 1996.
We can’t get inside the head of the veteran graphic designer, author, entrepreneur, and visionary Clement Mok, but if we could, I imagine we’d see an endless flow of new ideas rushing by in giant 3-D, Technicolor imagery. Here he is seen lost in thought during a meeting at NetObjects, which he cofounded, about the company’s Fusion software. Clement was Steve Jobs’s creative director at Apple, helping to launch the Apple IIc and Macintosh.
Riding the Dot-Com Wave.
Redwood City, California, 1998.
At NetObjects Greg Brown watches Moneka Hoogerbeets react to a demonstration of NetObjects software.
Cofounder Sal Arora working chairless.
Steven Boye, senior director of engineering.
An employee frozen midstride by conflicting demands.
Samir Arora Facing Down His Investors.
Redwood City, California, 1999.
At 4:00 p.m. on a Friday, a contentious board meeting was getting even more so as the investors insisted that CEO and cofounder of NetObjects, Samir Arora, resign along with his president. The investors were unhappy with Samir’s strategy in the face of increasing pressure from Microsoft and other issues. The entire roomful of board members cleared, leaving Samir alone in a shouting match with his two main backers. An enduring archetype of Silicon Valley has the innovator and founder pushed aside by the investors, sometimes for lack of management skills or conflicting strategic goals. Almost every company goes through this. Samir Arora broke the tradition, shockingly refusing to quit or to relinquish his vision, instead heatedly asking the investors to leave. They were furious and immediately cut off his funding, forcing Samir to stand an hour later before his 125 employees that Friday afternoon and announce that after four brutal years of blood, sweat, and tears they were in deep trouble. Samir declared he would not close the company and would find funding somehow. As Vic Zaud recalled, Samir asked those who believed in him and who could temporarily work without pay to stay on, and those who could not to leave. Vic stayed, as did most of the team. Samir began calling every investor he knew, and by noon Monday he had $10 million in the bank. Miraculous. NetObjects was saved. A short time later, he engineered a sale of the company to IBM, netting his investors a 1,000 percent return on investment. The astounding success was tempered later in March 1999 when NetObjects’ initial public offering received a decidedly lukewarm response. Still, the IPO raised enough money, and NetObjects carried on a few more years until it was sold again. As employees quietly drank champagne, a TV played the news about the IPO. An anchor on CNN asked, “Is this the beginning of the end of the dot-com bubble?” It was.
End of the Dream.
Silicon Valley, 2000.
Whatever rises up must eventually falter and sink: that’s the natural cycle of life. Knowing that things were bound to end was a constant worry and discussion point in Silicon Valley during my time there, but few noticed the exact moment when things began to unravel. The dot-com bubble collapse was such a slow-motion disaster at first, unfolding hesitantly through late 1999 into 2000, then accelerating with neck-snapping g-forces as it spread from local VCs, to Wall Street, to the big retirement funds and mom-and-pop investors. By 2001, trillions of dollars of shareholder value had washed away. It felt as though a toxic cloud had descended and hung over everyone and everything in the Bay Area, suffocating jobs and dreams. But soon Web 2.0 would boot up, with Google already growing fast and soon to be joined by Facebook, Twitter, and others to disrupt and burn new pathways, luring yet another generation to the Valley. While the hangover from the dot-com crash lingers, making investors shy of funding big-bet change-the-world ideas, an even newer batch of kids are poking their heads up and looking around for something perhaps more meaningful than short-term apps. A new wave of innovation is coming that could make the digital revolution pale by comparison. To catch that wave, innovators will no doubt have to be as passionate, hungry, and willing to sacrifice everyth
ing as those whose work is documented in these pages. Since the beginning, the pathfinders of Silicon Valley have always found that success was gained through fearless risk-taking and years of struggle. Failure often preceded success. Many also discovered meaning in their lives as they changed ours, through their quests to invent the impossible.
Acknowledgments
Since this project began twenty-eight years ago, so many people have helped me that it’s impossible to acknowledge everyone who had an impact. I thank you profoundly and deeply regret any omissions.
Fearless Genius is a visual memoir and my personal interpretation of events I was allowed to witness. Many experts and friends in Silicon Valley patiently answered my questions but any errors, technical or otherwise, are mine alone.
I’d like to especially thank Steve Jobs for taking a chance and allowing me into his world with generosity and grace; to all those brilliant people in Silicon Valley and elsewhere who allowed me into their lives, my deepest gratitude; extreme awe and appreciation to my patient, funny, and diplomatic editor at Atria Books, Peter Borland, who gently but firmly brought cohesion to the whole, and to my elegant, risk-taking, and inspiring publisher, Judith Curr; and to designer Julian Peploe, who brought his exquisite eye, thoughtful discipline, and experience to create a superb presentation; to the rest of the hardworking team at Atria, including Daniel Loedel, Dana Sloan, Jim Thiel, Isolde Sauer, Jeanne Lee, Kimberly Goldstein, Kristen Lemire, David Brown, Hillary Tisman, Dan Cuddy, and Lisa Keim, it’s been an honor to work with you all.
My everlasting thanks also to Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt for long years of friendship, timely advice and also to Rick for suggesting I call Susan Kare in the first place; to Susan Kare for cheerfully opening the door to my future, along with her colleague and stalwart cofounder at NeXT, Dan’l Lewin, whose advocacy was crucial and who advises me still; special appreciation to John and Diane Sculley, John Warnock and Chuck Geschke, Marva Warnock, Russell Brown, Bill and Shannon Joy, Susan Rockrise, Eddie Lee, John Ison, and Samir and Rebecca Arora for taking so much time to listen, advise, and support the project; to Peter Howe at Life for his instant belief in the concept and long assignment that started it all; to Elliott Erwitt for taking time to review my pictures and spark me way back in the nineties to continue the project; to Jefe Supreme Karen Mullarkey for her sharp eye, wise counsel, and encouragement, her judicious and careful editing of the images and actually counting the 250,000 negatives by hand; to Jonathan Breiter, Tricia Chan, and David Mauer who bring the bright, clear light of friendship and razor-sharp business acumen every day; to Ann and L. John Doerr for their enthusiasm and steady faith, especially to Ann for bringing my archive to the attention of Stanford University; to Mike Keller, Assunta Pisani, Andrew Herkovic, Roberto Trujillo, Henry Lowood, and Tim Lenoir, who together, with the crucial guidance of Bill Gladstone and Surj Soni, were instrumental in bringing my work into the permanent collection of Stanford University Libraries; to the entire staff of Stanford University Libraries, in particular Glynn Edwards, Lauren Scott, Stuart Snydman, Bill O’Hanlon, and Leslie Berlin; to David Elliot Cohen for patiently kicking my ass in the right direction over the years; to dearest Elodie Mailliet and everyone at Getty Images for years of nurturing enthusiasm and strategic effort; to Brian Storm for his early conviction and hard work; to Tom Walker for channeling Sisyphus over decades of uphill thinking on this from the start; to Susan White for great gusts of much-needed enthusiasm at just the right moment; to David Friend, a champion when few were willing to listen; to Jay Miller for crucial legal and moral support when times were toughest; to Jean-Jacques Naudet and Shiva for fiercely advocating my work to the world; to Dave Mendez, who gave several years selflessly to the project; to David Whitman for many reasons, but mostly because he loves Basenjis; to Kristen Galliani and Chris Holmes for their powerful friendship and magic powers; to Suzie Katz for being a diamond-tough and selfless guide to all photographers; with profound thanks to Bill Hunt, Howard Greenberg, and Ariel Shanberg for simply taking the work seriously; to Susan and Dennis Stock for deep camaraderie, long debates, and important insights; to Devyani Kamdar and David House for their buoyant good cheer and much-needed guest room; to Jennifer Fearon for her tireless efforts; to Michelle McNally for her priceless picture editing; to Mary Virginia Swanson for dreaming this could be a book and for pursuing that end; to Paul Foster, his lovely family and partner without whose patient generosity we could never have produced the scans; to my business manager, Joseph McNulty, and Emily Chao, who keep us fed and housed; to National Geographic Imaging, who did the exquisite scans under the supervision of Jeff Whatley with Howard Hull; to Eric Luden, Christopher Bowers, and the team at Digital Silver Imaging, who figured out how to make magnificent digital gelatin silver prints from my old analog black-and-white negatives; to Josh Marianelli and Molly Peters, who labored mightily over the years in my studio, and to all the other studio managers, photo assistants, and interns who lent their talents; to my veteran agents, Bill Stockland and Maureen Martel, and the extraordinary team at Stockland Martel; to Anette Ayala for getting me from A to B effortlessly; and of course to my dear wife, Tereza, and my son, Paolo, who worked so hard while putting up with the obsession and travel, and to whom this work is dedicated; to all the Machados: sisters, brother, cousins; and to my sister, Stephanie, who sacrificed so much to help me; to my parents and entire family, who were there for me from beginning to end, my continued love and gratitude.
I’d also like to thank:
Thiana Anderson
Kirk Anspach
Ekaterina Arsenieva
Michael Ash
Mary K. Baumann
Steven Beer
Gene Blumberg
Amy Bonetti
Chris Boot
Clive Booth & Mari Morris
Ruby Boyke
Steve Broback
Dan Broder
Joe Brown
Charlotte Burgess-Auburn
Tom Byers
Maryann Camilleri
Marc Carlucci
Rupa Chatervedi
Joshua Cohen
Kate Contakos
Michael Costuros
Gilles Decamps
Jim Demarcantonio
Maria Diehl
Jeff Dunas
Kent Dunne
Marten Elder
Ellen Erwitt
Rai Favacho
Mariana Fedalto
Kristina Feliciano
Demetrius Fordham
Caitlin Frackelton
Keith Gemerek
Gillian George
Dr. Paul Gilbert
Martin Gisborne
Tamika Harold
Michael Hawley
Polly Hopkins
Simon Horobin
Holly Stuart Hughes
Ekaterina Inozemtseva
Geoff Jarrett
Quinton Jones
Reese Jones
Daisy Jopling
Jon Kamen
Michael Keller
David Hume Kennerly
Douglas & Francoise Kirkland
Harlan & Sandy Kleiman
Julia Korotkova
Markos Koumalakis
Bill Kouwenhoven
Emily Leonardo
Jean François Leroy
Susan Lewin
Ellodie Mailliet
John Markoff
Lesley A. Martin
C. J. Maupin
Dan McCabe
Michael McCabe
Michele McNally
Phoebe Mendez
Jesse Miller
Alice Monteil
Eugene Mopsik
Martin O’Connor
Silvia Omedes
Khadijat Oseni
Andy Patrick
Nora Paul
Bob Peacock
P. J. Pereira
Jason Preston
Serena Qu
Joe Regal
Sascha Renner
Roger Ricco
Tom
Rielly
Cat Ring
Tim Ritchie
Jeff Roberts
Andrew Rockrise
Marcel & Jean Saba
Michelle Sack
Paul Saffo
Doug Scott
Karen Sipprell
Alicia Skalin
Phoebe & Jesse Smolan
Urs Stahel
Leonard Steinberg
Brent Stickels
Michael Strong
Jeff Summer
Olga Sviblova
Sina Tamaddon
Jay Tanen
Michael Tchao
Daniel Terna
Kathryn Tyrrel O’Connor
Kelsie Van Deman
Helena Velez Olabarria
David Walker
Thomas K. Walker
Ada Walton
Jill Waterman
Andy & Angela Watt
Debra Weiss
Jerrett Wells
Lauren Wendle
Olga Yakovleva
Duan Yuting
DOUG MENUEZ is an award-winning documentary photographer whose varied career over thirty years began in 1981 at the Washington Post, then as a freelancer for Time, Newsweek, Life, Fortune, the New York Times Magazine, and other publications. His many awards include honors from Communication Arts, the Kelly Awards, AOP London, and Photo District News. He has been exhibited in solo and group shows in the US and Europe. Stanford University Library acquired his extensive archive of more than one million photographs and created the Douglas Menuez Photography Collection. He is based in New York City.
ELLIOTT ERWITT is the author of nearly thirty photography books and has had one-man shows at the Museum of Modern Art, the International Center of Photography, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Smithsonian Institution, among many other venues. Born in Paris in 1928, he was invited to join Magnum Photos in 1953 by Robert Capa, one of the agency’s founders. In 1968, he became president of Magnum for three terms. Erwitt remains one of the leading figures in contemporary photography, and his essays and images have been featured in publications around the world for over half a century.
