Internet History Podcast 16. Internet Explorer Team Member, Hadi Partovi @hadip
15 snips
May 14, 2014 AI Snips
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Joining The Original Nine On Internet Explorer
- Hadi Partovi joined Microsoft as a full-time employee in 1994 after interning in 1991 and was assigned to the nascent Internet Explorer team after IE 1.0 shipped.
- He joined when the team was about nine people and worked on IE 1.1 and IE 2.0 while the product was still largely Spyglass code integrated into Windows.
Rewriting Windows To Make Browsers Embeddable
- Early IE teams prioritized catching up to Netscape by adding missing web features like tables, iFrames, Java, and plugins to gain developer credibility.
- IE 3.0 rewrote large parts of Windows to make the browser object-oriented and embeddable, enabling plugins like Shockwave/Flash and apps like AOL to embed IE.
Motivating With Netscape Quotes And Startup Intensity
- The IE team used competitive quotes and a startup culture to fuel extreme urgency, sleeping under desks and working through the night.
- Hadi posted Netscape execs' quotes in hallways to rally the sub-100-person team to 'rescue Microsoft' from the perceived threat.