This week we are officially starting work on the Network Solutions book. We have much material from interviews and articles accumulated over the past two years. The interviews were conducted with some of the most prominent early pioneers of the Internet, and many key figures in the Network Solutions/SAIC story. We will complete our work within a year. I have included our draft table of contents for your review and comment. Please make your suggestions as you did with the first book, The SAIC Solution. If you have any personal stories or anecdotes from that time you would like to bring to my attention, I invite you to post them on this blog. I suspect there are many interesting stories that I have not yet heard.

1+1 = 3: The Network Solutions Story

Introduction

PART I: THE EARLY DAYS OF THE INTERNET AND NSI
Chapter 1: A $20-Billion IPO
Chapter 2: ARPA, NSF and the Growth of the Internet
Chapter 3: Network Solutions, Inc.

PART II: THE SAIC YEARS
Chapter 4: Tracking and Acquiring NSI
Chapter 5: The SAIC Solution
Chapter 6: Development of the Domain Name Business
Chapter 7: At War with Congress—and Internet Purists
Chapter 8: The Dot-com Bubble and Sale to VeriSign

PART III: LESSONS LEARNED
Chapter 9: Build an Entrepreneurial Culture
Chapter 10: Leverage the Power of Employee Ownership
Chapter 11: Keep Up with Technology Trends
Chapter 12: Create Extreme Value

Afterword

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This past week we met for dinner my good friend Gilbert Binninger, his wife, and son Matt. As it turns out, Matt has chosen to establish his embryonic law firm in San Diego. He is a criminal attorney and is doing very well — he seems very astute. I was glad to hear that his parents have decided to buy a condo in a downtown San Diego high rise, and they will be moving here from the East Coast this summer. No more snow for them.

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I have included a couple of photos with this post. The first photo is of Craig Venter’s ocean sampling team visiting us at Cave Street. The second photo is of the sampling going on below decks on Solutions. The weather is beautiful here this week, and I’m looking forward to some great days on the water.