12/18/95 NOTHING BUT NET

NOTHING BUT NET

As phenomenal as Netscape Communication's stock market rise is, it's nothing next to the ascent of its 50-year-old founder, James H. Clark. He grew up in poverty in rural Plainview, Tex. Suspended from high school for antics such as sneaking in whiskey on a band trip, he dropped out to join the Navy. There, he discovered electronics.
Armed with a PhD in computer science, he eventually landed a professorship at Stanford University in 1978 and threw himself into research on computer graphics. The result: a set of chips that made computer graphics come alive. But he had a tough time selling to computer companies, so Clark started his own company--and Silicon Graphics Inc. went on to become famous for creating the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park.
He butted heads with managers who opposed his desire to make lower-cost machines. So he left, giving up $10 million in SGI stock options. Then he struck gold again after meeting Marc Andreessen--inventor of the pioneering Mosaic software for browsing the World Wide Web--and bet on the Internet. Clark and Andreessen came up with a radical new strategy: Give away Netscape's browser and make money from software that gets companies on the Net. Within months, Netscape's software ruled 75% of the Web, leading to its triumphant initial public offering last August. ``Ultimately, the Internet will even subsume the phone network,'' he says. Arrogance? Maybe. But that's what has made Clark the rarest of entrepreneurs: a two-time winner.
By Robert D. Hof in San Francisco