Hacker News Reader

> To the downvoter(s): I'm genuinely curious, can you name any significant software companies that launched during that era? I've not done an exhaustive search, but I've looked for them and have had a much harder time finding software companies with launch dates of 1996-2005

Have you heard of Google or Facebook's origins? They were both in that window and pretty significant. Valve, LinkedIn and Netflix have also done okay...

View on HN

Thanks these are great names to fold into the mix Google, Netflix, and LinkedIn are great tech companies but their presence on the list actually supports the idea that traditional software companies had a hard time launching during that window as two of them are server-based subscription products and the third is a server-based advertising product. Valve's a bit more complicated, largely because GabeN is a genius, but I think it's fair to say that their pivot from game company business model to server-based distribution company further backs up the argument that 1995 marks the end of the old school boxed-software/downloadable-software business model.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com