The amazing growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web has been due in large part to the genius of Marc Andreessen. His browser software, Mosaic and Netscape Navigator, made using the Internet easy and more popular for both businesses and home users. The company he helped found, Netscape Communications, made Andreessen an instant millionaire and industry icon.

Andreessen was born in Iowa in 1972. He grew up in the small town of New Lisbon, Wisconsin, with his parents, Lowell and Patricia. Marc Andreessen's father works as an agriculturist and his mother works for Land's End, a catalogue retailer. Andreessen was not the typical New Lisbon boy. He spent his early years reading and learning about computers to alleviate the boredom of small town life. In sixth grade, he wrote his first computer program --a virtual calculator for doing his math homework. But the program was on the...