Netscape Communications

Netscape Navigator was the internet's front door. Marc Andreessen, fresh from creating the Mosaic browser at the University of Illinois, co-founded Netscape with Jim Clark in 1994. The company's IPO in August 1995 was the starting gun of the dot-com boom. The stock doubled on its first day. Andreessen appeared on the cover of Time, barefoot and on a throne.

Microsoft saw Netscape as an existential threat. If the browser became the platform, Windows wouldn't matter. Bill Gates wrote his famous 'Internet Tidal Wave' memo in May 1995 and launched Internet Explorer. Microsoft bundled IE for free with every copy of Windows. Netscape charged $49 for Navigator. It was not a fair fight.

By 1998, Netscape's market share had cratered from 90% to under 50%. AOL acquired Netscape for $4.2 billion, primarily for its web portal. The browser team was eventually disbanded. Netscape's legacy lived on through Mozilla Firefox, an open-source descendant of Netscape's code. The Department of Justice's antitrust case against Microsoft, which Netscape's destruction helped trigger, was the most significant tech antitrust action until Google's case two decades later.