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> He has never really created anything of long-term value

if the question is 'value' vs 'dollars'. Netscape was the enabler to the creation of trillions of dollars. That's value. He saw the opportunity and created it.

I don't think he needs to be an innovator to be a VC. He needs to be smart and recognize opportunities when they come to him. He's shown a knack for that.

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And as for " I’ve never met anybody who thought that Netscape was a good acquisition for AOL": Netscape could have been a great acquisition for AOL if we had any idea how to properly acquire a company. It brought years of true, native Internet experience at a time when we were just starting to transition away from being a proprietary thick client.

Sadly, we made the classic mistake: Let's acquire this brilliant team that works well together, and then let's split up the team and sprinkle the individuals around our existing organization in the hope they'll influence our old-school thinking.

That's like trying to get a vaccination from a homeopath.

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