Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, presented his plan to embrace and extend the new open technologies and allow Microsoft customers to interact with the Web through the integration of new versions of Microsoft desktop applications with Microsoft Explorer, a proprietary Web browser. Jim Clark, Netscape's chairman, envisioned a new era of communications engendered by the development of telephone and communications technologies. He believed the battleground would not be just content but also context and community. Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, viewed the Internet as example and extension of his dictums that the network is the computer and the network is the business. This is perhaps another way of saying that we have grabbed the tail of an electronic beast so large that we can't begin to imagine its size or the impact it will have.
All approaches reveal a different aspect of the beast.
They are, I believe, representative of a much larger group of the cyber elite, and as a group they constitute a critical mass of the doers, thinkers, and writers, connected in ways they may not even appreciate, who have tremendous influence on the emerging communication revolution surrounding the growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Although they all happen to be Americans, their activities have a worldwide impact. They are usually a group of people who are good at what they do, have gotten into a meritocracy with others like themselves and force each other to get better. They are open to new members, provided entrance is based on merit. They may not be the elite in five years.