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The Browser (with Brendan Eich, Chief Architect of Netscape + Mozilla and CEO of Brave)

15 Feb 2022 23 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Brendan EichBen Gilbert

Claim mix

belief 8evaluation 7recommendation 2commitment 2preference 2uncertainty 1observation 1

Evidence policy

Every row below preserves an exact excerpt. Identified speakers are linked; unresolved voices are labeled and excluded from people counts.

Claim ledger

The useful parts, with receipts.

23 published records

02 / uncertainty

You're going to see more wallets and maybe you'll see them in big browsers, but I don't know if they're going to get into the system that we're getting into early, which is the Frontier.

“You're going to see more wallets and maybe you'll see them in big browsers, but I don't know if they're going to get into the system that we're getting into early, which is the Frontier.”
Speaker
Brendan Eich
Publisher
Acquired

03 / belief

When I was thinking about Brave, I realized not only had Mozilla become captured by its search partner, it was probably going to die because it couldn't compete, not just on Chrome intrinsic qualities, but on distribution, which really matters at scale.

“When I was thinking about Brave, I realized not only had Mozilla become captured by its search partner, it was probably going to die because it couldn't compete, not just on Chrome intrinsic qualities, but on distribution, which really matters at scale.”
Speaker
Brendan Eich
Publisher
Acquired

05 / belief

There's a real trade-off there that I think is part of the browser's immortality, but the web content is also sticky and accretive, and that's important too.

“There's a real trade-off there that I think is part of the browser's immortality, but the web content is also sticky and accretive, and that's important too.”
Speaker
Brendan Eich
Publisher
Acquired

10 / belief

I think there's an unbelievable arc to everything that you've built over the years in deciding to approach this problem the way that you have now at this point in your career.

“I think there's an unbelievable arc to everything that you've built over the years in deciding to approach this problem the way that you have now at this point in your career.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

11 / belief

I got there in April 1995, on April 3rd I think, and the IPO was sometime in August. It was a huge rocket and it was to me a little bit scandalous because in the '80s SGI had to have three profitable quarters before it could IPO, whereas Netscape just went on forward speculation, forward multiples, and it was not profitable.

“I got there in April 1995, on April 3rd I think, and the IPO was sometime in August. It was a huge rocket and it was to me a little bit scandalous because in the '80s SGI had to have three profitable quarters before it could IPO, whereas Netscape just went on forward speculation, forward multiples, and it was not profitable.”
Speaker
Brendan Eich
Publisher
Acquired

12 / belief

I would like to see us get to that scale because then, I think, distribution could go in directions that right now is harder to do organically and will cost you a lot if you have to pay for it, but that's kind of a mundane business thing.

“I would like to see us get to that scale because then, I think, distribution could go in directions that right now is harder to do organically and will cost you a lot if you have to pay for it, but that's kind of a mundane business thing.”
Speaker
Brendan Eich
Publisher
Acquired

13 / belief

Like I mentioned, Apple gets fair credit for privacy concerns that I think came directly from Steve Jobs in Safari private windows and third-party cookie blocking.

“Like I mentioned, Apple gets fair credit for privacy concerns that I think came directly from Steve Jobs in Safari private windows and third-party cookie blocking.”
Speaker
Brendan Eich
Publisher
Acquired

14 / evaluation

This is a strong evolutionary force, this gradient forcing compatibility on the web. This is something a lot of people in computer science, especially programming languages, just hate because it means you really can't make incompatible changes, except very slowly or through new runtimes that you can download.

“This is a strong evolutionary force, this gradient forcing compatibility on the web. This is something a lot of people in computer science, especially programming languages, just hate because it means you really can't make incompatible changes, except very slowly or through new runtimes that you can download.”
Speaker
Brendan Eich
Publisher
Acquired

15 / preference

You have to say we are more private, we are better, or you should use us because we're faster or more complete, we block these threats that the other doesn't.

“You have to say we are more private, we are better, or you should use us because we're faster or more complete, we block these threats that the other doesn't.”
Speaker
Brendan Eich
Publisher
Acquired

16 / evaluation

That's the Basic Attention Token system for users who choose to participate in private ads that are anonymous but that pay them 70% of the revenue and that let them support their creators directly through the Basic Attention Token. That was something we wanted to do because we saw the privacy protection, which is I think every user's right, good, and necessary as nevertheless, harmful to the current system of ad tech that publishers do depend on.

“That's the Basic Attention Token system for users who choose to participate in private ads that are anonymous but that pay them 70% of the revenue and that let them support their creators directly through the Basic Attention Token. That was something we wanted to do because we saw the privacy protection, which is I think every user's right, good, and necessary as nevertheless, harmful to the current system of ad tech that publishers do depend on.”
Speaker
Brendan Eich
Publisher
Acquired

17 / preference

Maybe Mozilla is trapped, but I didn't want Brave to be trapped, and I certainly didn't want myself or my children to be trapped because these monopolies can last a lot longer than they should.

“Maybe Mozilla is trapped, but I didn't want Brave to be trapped, and I certainly didn't want myself or my children to be trapped because these monopolies can last a lot longer than they should.”
Speaker
Brendan Eich
Publisher
Acquired

18 / evaluation

Meanwhile, they were bundling it with Windows 95 and then 98, and they got convicted in the USU Microsoft case for this because it's not illegal to acquire monopoly through, let's say, merit or a sweetheart deal with IBM to be the OS for the PC.

“Meanwhile, they were bundling it with Windows 95 and then 98, and they got convicted in the USU Microsoft case for this because it's not illegal to acquire monopoly through, let's say, merit or a sweetheart deal with IBM to be the OS for the PC.”
Speaker
Brendan Eich
Publisher
Acquired

19 / evaluation

We started growing Mozilla even before Firefox in a way that I think kind of shamed and threatened Netscape, but Netscape was also getting these annual decapitations.

“We started growing Mozilla even before Firefox in a way that I think kind of shamed and threatened Netscape, but Netscape was also getting these annual decapitations.”
Speaker
Brendan Eich
Publisher
Acquired

22 / evaluation

I picked on them because they became the biggest but—and buying DoubleClick was an earlier sort of Rubicon they crossed because—I think Sergei told a friend of mine in 2003, oh, we would never do like tracking for ads on publisher pages that tied into our search ads.

“I picked on them because they became the biggest but—and buying DoubleClick was an earlier sort of Rubicon they crossed because—I think Sergei told a friend of mine in 2003, oh, we would never do like tracking for ads on publisher pages that tied into our search ads.”
Speaker
Brendan Eich
Publisher
Acquired
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