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Netscape’s Barksdale: Microsoft’s Worst Enemy

3 minute read
Josh Quittner

When he was just a ruddy-faced lad newly graduated from Ole Miss, Jim Barksdale applied for work as a salesman for the first monopoly of the info age, IBM. Barksdale had an in: his elder brother and mentor, Jack, was already employed by Big Blue. Alas, the advantage proved to be short-lived. “I don’t know if I can have two Barksdales working for me,” said the sales manager who interviewed him.

“Well, then,” shot back Barksdale, “fire Jack.”

Today, 33 years and more than a billion dollars later, that quick wit and peculiar go-for-the-jugular charm are still predominant in the man who was hired to pilot Netscape through Microsoft-infested waters–and who, on the witness stand, is proving to be Bill Gates’ worst enemy. John Doerr, the venture capitalist and Johnny Appleseed of Silicon Valley who helped recruit Barksdale, refers to him as the “gold standard of CEOs.”

With good reason. The man has seen capitalism from all sides. His first job at IBM was selling mainframe computers to banks in Mississippi. He was so good he graduated to a big-picure gig in IBM’s finance-industry division. But, entrepreneurial at heart, he quit to start a company that bought, sold and leased used IBM equipment. The company was soon taken over by Cook Industries, a conglomerate headquartered in Memphis, Tenn., that had interests in everything from hardwood floors to termite-terminating. “Bark” ran the data-processing operation for the entire enterprise.

Cook soon fell on hard times, and Barksdale was forced to lay off half his 110-person staff. He scrambled to find a way to save the rest. One Sunday in church he collared an old pal who worked at a Memphis start-up called Federal Express that was trying to figure out how to automate the transportation unit–getting computers to route the couriers, trucks and airplanes. Barksdale’s pitch: FedEx could buy Cook’s data-processing department lock, stock and mainframe and sell services back to Cook. Within a few years, Barksdale was chief operating officer of FedEx, overseeing a staff of 90,000.

He jumped in 1991 to McCaw Cellular, a $4.9 billion-debt laden Seattle firm that was trying to build a national cellular network. He was second in command to Craig McCaw when AT&T bought the company for $11.5 billion. Not ready to call it quits, Barksdale needed one last bite of the apple: he wanted to finally be top dog somewhere. That’s why, when a headhunter called to see if he was interested in applying for a job as fourth man out at nearby Microsoft, he declined. And that’s why, when Doerr called to see if he was interested in running a company that was building a piece of software called a browser that just might change the world–or at least the World Wide Web–he jumped.

Now the easy-talking, homily-spinning Barksdale–think of him as the anti-Gates–is the DOJ’s dream witness and Redmond’s biggest nightmare. His blarney is irresistible. Too bad there’s no jury to hear it.

–By Joshua Quittner

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