Chapter 28

THE SKEPTIC

Cliff Stoll

THE SOFTWARE DEVELOPER (Bill Gates): There's certainly a need, as people get caught up in the excitement of all this stuff, to have someone who can take the opposing viewpoint and point out, in some cases, correctly, how, 'hey, it's still all fairly hard to use and still fairly expensive. Let's not use sight of what was good about the previous ways of doing things.' There's definitely a role there and I think he's done very well positioning himself for that devil's advocate-type role. Sometimes I think he underestimates how, over the next few years, the industry will do a very good job getting rid of some of the limitations he criticizes. His book, Cuckoo's Egg, was my favorite of his two books.

Cliff Stoll is an astrophysicist and the author of Silicon Snake Oil (1995) and The Cuckoo's Egg (1994).

Chapter 26

THE ORACLE 

Paul Saffo

THE SCOUT (Stewart Brand): Nobody in the business gives better quote than Saffo. Every journalist who calls him gets someone who is familiar with the news flash of the day and its deeper significance. Paul speaks with succinct eloquence.

Paul Saffo is director of the Institute for the Future, a twenty-nine-year-old research and forecasting foundation located in Menlo Park, California.

Chapter 24

THE CITIZEN 

Howard Rheingold

THE CYBERANALYST (Sherry Turkle): Howard Rheingold sees things that others simply hadn't noticed before. And he knows how to explain why they are important and why you need to pay attention to them.

Howard Rheingold is the author of Virtual Reality (1991), and The Virtual Community (1993), and was the editor of Whole Earth Review and the Millennium Whole Earth Catalog (1995). His weekly column, "Tomorrow," is syndicated by King Features. His new webzine, Electric Minds, can be found at www.minds.com. 

Chapter 22

THE PUBLISHER

Jane Metcalfe

THE CATALYST (Linda Stone): In so many ways Jane is the heart of Wired. She's the president, and she's an effective businessperson. Her energy has been core in building that organization.

Jane Metcalfe is the president and cofounder of Wired Ventures. She is also a board member emeritus of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 

Chapter 20

THE FORCE

John McCrea

THE WEBMASTER (Kip Parent): John McCrea has been a tremendous force at Silicon Graphics. He was able to rally the engineering and marketing people in the company around the Web, and he managed to build the WebFORCE product line into a rapidly growing business within the company. It is a tremendous success. John is definitely someone who sees the big picture and has a vision. He rallies people around him and makes things happen. 

John McCrea is the manager of Cosmo, Silicon Graphics's next-generation Web software product line.