“(Fortune Magazine)—Ben Horowitz was toiling as an unheralded product strategist at Netscape Communications when he opened a scathing e-mail from his boss, Marc Andreessen. It was the winter of 1996; Netscape’s public offering, several months earlier, had ignited the dotcom craze, and co-founder Andreessen had just appeared on Time’s cover, sitting on a throne, feet bare—the very portrait of a cocky 24-year-old tech wunderkind.
But Horowitz was irked to learn that Andreessen had leaked news to a trade publication about an upcoming software release Horowitz’s team had been working on. So Horowitz sent the Netscape co-founder a note that simply said, “I guess we’re not going to wait until March 7”—the date of the planned announcement.”