I really believed in that concept. I guess Larry saw that and believed I could do this. She knew it was sink or swim. She could never go back to journalism. She'd be tainted.
Journalists can be that way.
It's like, you can't be a Catholic priest, then decide to quit for a while so you can have a romp with the organist, then ask to come back. It worked out. NIC is a real company and is so far a survivor in a niche that has recently seen almost all competitors fizzle, including Netpliance's iOpener and 3Com's Audrey. The NIC device, which runs on the Linux operating system and uses a CD as a cheap hard drive, has gotten decent reviews in PC Magazine and other industry publications. NIC keeps costs tight and gets by on a tiny profit per machine, another tiny profit on shipping charges and a little bounty for promoting a handful of Internet service providers.