Netscape Documentary

31 Jamie Zawinski Interview

instruction Just walk into the restaurant The first part of the tape is traffic

muffled inaudible voices with interspersed audible speech

Enough traffic

Here it
comes at any time At any time Yeah

Cool so should

Okay cool

.after this white truck..

..Just go ahead and come around-go right past the car

all right

rSc 9q

Sounds of computer keyboard

JZ Ring Hello Hey hows it

going ---Mt1 no tell me about it -- JJnC why

would know anything about this --- Sigh ..UtiC --- Okay Yes that would

kind of bad Yeah --- When you th-but-but also look-look at the other-the other

side what happens if the thing goes out with this bug Well someone comes up

with patch and that gets published couple days later mean dont know this

isnt uh ---JJn5 well yeah and but its problem thats fix
gonna itself right

Because-because if they dont play nice and .. someone else will take their job

away from them --- well mean heres whats gonna happen right Someone-the

source goes out .. and later that day someone on the net mails me bug fix that

makes work And it

gets checked into the tree And if it doesnt get

checked into the tree because the owner of NSPR doesnt feel like taking fixes

yet urn thats not gonna fly --- Yeah Well if-if
you get thc NSPR folks to-to

swear up and down that this is just because theyre trying to stabilize for the release

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Netscape Documentary .L\ L\
31 Jamie Zawinski Interview

and really theyre not gonna operate this day to day then-then would feel okay

cutting them some slack but if you really think that means that theyre going to

operate like this day-to-day and its

gonna be like pulling teeth to get them to take

bug-fixes then someone needs to hit them upside the head --- Yeah --- Yeah

-- Yeah Youre right thats stupid They should just take the fix Right mean

wh- --- If wha- --- If they-if they have good reason for not taking the fix

havent-you havent told it to me yet so ---

Okay well deal right They have to

Does-does that make sense It sounds like-it sounds like what-al-also what you

wanted me to say but also think it makes sense --- Right. .fades out.JJth the

theory is that Brendan is the

guy who signs for the modules --- Oh --- Yeah

maybejjn dont know It-it depends on you know how-I mean how much

ammunition do you need to bring the play to me.. --- Yeah ---JJh9wlt-

Yeah.. --- Fades out.. Yeah understand you but my-I guess-I see the

argument that-that were in little bit of special situation here before the release

and things might oper-be operating differently now than theyll be operating

month from now make

right They can that
argument and it has some plausibility

but you know --- Jn1 yes Id heard that mean I-I havent looked at it or dealt

with it or anything --- Yeah mean sounds of typing.. --- Ual .. um its-

its extremely natural at this stage

Ring Hello --- Hi Yeah theyre going at it right now

Dave asks about what the place was like did he sleep in his office what were the

3o -1c-y -I .4
interactions like

JZ Well it one big dysfunctional We were around each

family othefretty
wat1 j/
much our entire hours and we were working
waking constantly you know more

than hundred hours and hundred and twenty

week at times mean just not

sleeping for stretches on end 3Jm live you know an hour or so

was/-since

away was in Berkeley at the time but it was still long commute would tend

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 Netscape Documentary
31 Jamie Zawinski Interview

to like go to work and would be awake for you know day and half two days

and either then go home or Id be awake for awhile and then catch couple hours

sleep underneath my desk and then stay for another couple of days and-and then go

home and sleep for certain amount of time And-and it

was.um its amazing to

me that we were able to keep that up for such extended periods but we were really

excited about what we were doing pop out of bed and youre like have to
andj

get to work you know and the adrenaline starts going Wehc we fought all the

L1/F time but-but it wasS part of-part of why it worked because-that we were all

you know egotistical and head-strong but respected each other so it might have

we guts and thought we were

\\ looked like just hated each others the morons
biggest

in the world but we did it all-we were getting stuff done that was what mattered

Dave asks is it true of all true of all start-up companies or is it

particularly true of software

ventures that
you go for long periods of time Is that the way to solve the tough

problems Is there something about the work that compels them to do this

JZ think its sort of the other way around um there are people who can have that

kind of obsessive focus about something and those people produce you know in-

in this line of work There-there are alot of those people and um you know

theyre the ones that get things done Its-but dont think thats at all related to the

computer industry think you see that in-in

every aspect of science or art or

anything theyre are people like that um there are people who arent like that too

who also accomplish alot you know its different method of-of doing things to-

another way of looking at it but One of things about Netscape is that-part of

Netscapes trick was do it fat That was one of our goals from the
outswhich

of course just fed on that but you know they-they fed on each other -those two

aspects

Dave asks why the sheer centrality of code writing of code-writing and code writing in all

of our lives

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 Netscape Documentary
31 Jamie Zawinski Interview

JZ Ant its something new Its new world Its new industry in that it hasnt

been Theres se-theres limited number of

urn turned into commodity yet

who are able to do it And theres an incredibly large demand It-its likely
people

dont know of other

to be different in-I mean plc if
you to-look at the beginning

industries like television or movies there were alot of lone maniacs out-out making

films Its not like that

anymore now its a-its an enormous business there are

enormous companies in it and youll never see something really-thats the work of

one person that kind of distribution mean it

happens rarely So think
gets any

its just the same type of situation its new industry thats why pM its also

the case the sort of-the sort of hacker culture is little different than things other

people have seen but it-its not the way it is for any particular reason its just

thats where its roots were and thats how it

happened-how it came about

Dave asks about the clichØ of the anthropology and demography of Netscape

JZ Ne-The folks at Netscape are-are pretty

well socialized as far as hackers go litti

dont know why that is but you know theyre all potty trained IJJT In a-in

environment end up seeing alot more of the sort of stereo-typical

university youll

VP
it hacker whos you know eird and gds to science-fiction conventions and-and

cannot talk to member of the opposite you know all the clichØs think those

people really exist in-in every line of work you know mean physics you

know basically that-thats just sort of the whole bookworm thing its just another-

another instance of that same old stereo-type thats been with us forever the idea

that-that people who pursue intellectual careers or-or goals or areas of study just

cant deal with the other side of their life But on the other hand its true that alot

of people at Netscape dont get out much because theyre at work all the time but

these days alot of-most peoptes social interaction would expect is-revolves

around work just because so many people spend so much of their time at work

1-
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Netscape Documentary
31 Jamie Zawjnski Interview

that because takes alot of energy and

Dave asks about the impression young people it

make the kind of intellectual leads that loss of short-term

theyre more able to

allow older Is that true or is it another

memory doesnt you as you get really

clichØ Are there with families

good engineers

that have families and have lives and

JZ There are-there are definitely good engineers

put in 40 or-you know a-a reasonable 60 or 80 hours week Um but when

in situation where have alot of work to do and no time to do it

youre you really

what you want Some to have

you know you can pick people pick wanting

Some to some software done And you know

family people pick wanting get

to different at different times of

its-its fair guess that people are likely pick things

their life Another thing thats probably factor is burn-out you can only do this

for so long before you just get tired Im not tired of it

yet

Dave asks if there is another life for JZ above and beyond code writing or is it something

that keeps going and changing

JZ definitely
find the work interesting thats why Ive been doing it for so long nd

work so hard at it rather than just settling down into nice simple job Theres-

theres certainly other stuff Id like to do you know lots of things Im interesting

do alot sort of on the side is just writing text you

in One-one thing actually

know writing prose rather than-rather than code JJRI you know thats actually

of the great about you know the fact that won the start-up
one of the-one things

not have have ajob Its not like-I

lottery is-is Ive got this opportunity
to to

Th
7. mean

aspirations
wha-what

as far as
want out of

like you
that

know
is time

physical
dont-I

belongings
doiiuf really

and stuff
have very

like that

that
high

go

just its-its not having to work for the man you know its so-something

fuck Which is-which is where

Pensuin described it as gettiriM your you monex
here You know that-that freedom
you can say hey tuck you rdont have to be

is the most Important part dont know if youre going to be able to use that but-

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Netscape Documentary
31 Jamie Zawinski Interview

Dave asks about the world that is accessed by the computer how seductive and appealing

it is and where the internet is going to lead us in good and bad ways

JZ At the end of the day its all about people and communication Thats whats so

fascinating about it Thats why people care about it at all Its not because you

know you can do your taxes on line or whatever its-its all about interacting with

with
people you wouldnt otherwise come into contact with jim finding people

similar interests thats whats driving the whole thing Theres convenience

aspect too being able to find out the movie times without having to go through

complicated voice mail system being able to order tickets being able to-you know

the commerce thing is why businesses are interested but think the entertainme

indust is going to be much bigger part of it eventually theyre already usin

for advertising in really huge wayy.nCalot of people are afraid of it and thats

expected but ridiculous When-when uh remember when the Sony Walkman came

out- there were-there were these people wothed that it was going to create like this

whole society of introverts who were in their own universe and never talk to each

other

cripple
and

the
that didnt happen

minds of Americas
you

youth
know

right
video games were gonna-were

Its paranoia The-the-I think one

gon
the most important things about the Net is that it-it breaks down barriers its

gonna the-these attempts that the government is making to keep control to sensor

to invade peoples privacy just arent going to succeed they cant succeed you

know theyre obsolete dinosaurs and they havent realized it

yet

Daves last question when JZ first saw the first mosaic code or browser

JZ Well when first heard about Mosaic the-the thing that you know wasnt any

hack but it wasnt-it wasnt anything new to me mean its nice user interface

on top of stuff that

already existed and it was good thing you know The whole-

there was no really obvious state change that happened the Net had been getting

larger and becoming more useful for long time up until 19-I dont what the

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Netscape Documentary
31 Jamie Zawinski Interview

numbers are like now but up til 94 the number of computers connected to the

internet had doubled every year So it was obvious that it was-it was going

somewhere Something big was going to happen eventually and it

just all

coagulated at one point and here we are

Dave asks question

JZ Well he was He hasnt written line of code since 19-early 1994 but yeah he

was good Its-part-part of the reason for the success of Mosaic was that the code

was good and the interface was nice and clean Im-Im not all that clear on what

the division of work was between Andresen and Thena but urn one of things

that-that was really valuable out of Mark in the early days was he really cared about

the user interface on-on the code we were writing he was really picky about it

you know that doesnt line up right and he saw that as being really important

and 1-1
agree and-and so but it was good to have someone else here saying that

you know it
was

Dave says Great

JZ Anytime

Conversation between Dave and cameraman

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