Mark, Inkt and Dclk?? Don't you own any P&G? How come your 60% in cash, when you could have it all in your above?
>>Business Week: September 27, 1999
Cover Story -- e.biz -- The e.biz 25
David C. Peterschmidt
If you wanted an exciting career and had to pick between being an Air Force pilot, working on the original B-1 bomber project, or running a software company, which would it be? For David C. Peterschmidt, 52, who has held all three of these jobs, the answer is easy: software. He's now piloting Inktomi Corp., one of the hottest Internet startups around.
The Berkeley (Calif.) fledgling isn't nearly as well known as Yahoo!, America Online, or Excite@Home, but all three online megastars depend on Inktomi's Net speedup or search technologies to power their Web sites. In fact, more than 50 large Web sites rely on Inktomi's products to stay competitive--making it a key technology arms dealer for the Web. Peterschmidt's goals are as grand as they get: He wants Inktomi to provide the technology foundation on the Net, much as Microsoft's Windows operating system is the crucial software for personal computers. The software may reside largely behind the scenes, but ``we're supplying a unified operating system for getting information on the Web,' says Peterschmidt. ``This is about dominance.'
That strategy is paying off. Inktomi reported revenues of $19.2 million for the quarter ended June 30, up 212% from a year earlier. It's still racking up losses ($6.3 million last quarter), but investors have pushed the company's market value above $5.5 billion. Inktomi recently added Web-shopping software, which could boost sales growth even more. If so, Peterschmidt will drive Inktomi as fast as he does his mint-condition 1967 270 GBT Ferrari.<<
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Four years ago, Kevin J. O'Connor helped revolutionize an industry he knew very little about when he started DoubleClick Inc., the first Internet advertising network. To his way of thinking, ignorance was an advantage. Being a tech guy who had already launched a communications software startup, he wasn't stuck in traditional ad-think. Instead, he and co-founder Dwight A. Merriman were able to spot something that the Web--unlike TV, radio, and print--was uniquely suited to do: instantly deliver ads to the right customers at just the right time.
O'Connor's creativity didn't stop there--and that's why he stands out as the leading architect for the burgeoning Web advertising business. Instead of starting a company that simply created ads or bought banner ad space for a handful of clients, the 38-year-old entrepreneur focused on bigger game: building a brand new kind of advertising company tailored to the Web. Today, DoubleClick represents a network of 490 Web sites, including AltaVista, and serves as a middleman between them and 3,100 advertising clients, such as General Motors Corp. and Visa International. On top of that, it provides powerful technology used within the network and by other sites to measure ad performance.
O'Connor's new ambition is to achieve the Holy Grail of advertising--true one-to-one marketing. He plans to match up the company's huge collection of consumer shopping data with the latest ad-targeting techniques. If O'Connor accomplishes that, advertising might finally live up to its promised potential on the Web.<<
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