What many folks don’t realize is the majority of the monetization of the Internet originated in Los Angeles but was perfected in Silicon Valley. A serial entrepreneur named Bill Gross founded an incubator in Pasadena called Idealab after he sold an educational CD-ROM software company Knowledge Adventure to Cendant. Idealab was all about the Internet. No one else had the fervor or determination to ratch it up within an incubator like him. Search was highly competitive, fragmented, and experimental. The cost per click (CPC) model was being developed through several companies within the portfolio. They incubated around 50+ companies beginning in 1996. Some came from the outside. There were startups there from online car buying, photo sharing, toys, cookware, bill paying, ticket selling, weddings, etc... I worked for one of their LPs at the time. There was no shortage of skills. The confluence of talent from Caltech, NASA JPL, Pasadena Art Center, UCLA, USC and media companies like Disney, and Vivendi brimmed with talent. We had a separate investment company in our portfolio called Global Crossing, which went public in August 1998.