Well, you need a lot of attention to make a lot of money. Trying to sell the browser didn't work, but companies were keen to buy Netscape web server software because Netscape had become synonymous with the Web in the mid-1990s. Through website links, e-mails, newsgroups and ordinary conversation, word quickly spread about this witty site where you could 'learn good design by looking at bad design'. It's 'open source' software, which means that anyone can use, amend, and improve the code. All of these examples are about people who start off with attention-grabbing content, but no money.
Money flows to attention.
Meanwhile, there are many examples of companies who have thought that their money would translate, on the Web, into attention and success. But they made boring websites, and failed. Attention doesn't just flow to money. The number one rule is obviously that you need brilliant content. Then you need to get people to look at it.