(re: TSN Board Meeting Agenda Sheet) Hmmm….
Not too many comments on this – I don’t remember this exact document, and it’s not my handwriting. I wish it had a date on it.
This was from a presentation I did to the board of our TSN multiplayer games service. Reading this, in 2004, it is impossible to comprehend how revolutionary TSN was. You need to understand that when we launched TSN I had never heard of the Internet. The Internet did, I think, exist – but it was several years from being something that anyone outside of a few colleges, knew anything about.
Our board was being asked to vote for a HUGE amount of spending, on something that had never been done, and that we couldn’t guarantee could be done. Over the first few years, Sierra invested about $29 million in TSN! This wiped out our profits – but thanks to demos like this one, the board stuck with me.
Ultimately, TSN, later renamed INN, was a huge success. Several large corporations, including Microsoft, IBM and AT&T offered to partner it with Sierra. Bill Gates personally tried to persuade me to partner TSN with Microsoft. Ultimately it was partnered with AT&T, and what happened after that would require more time to describe than I have time for today.
As I write this, I’m racing to pack. Roberta and I in Seattle for a couple of days, for Doctor appts, Dentist Appts, Hair Appts, etc, and then are doing a quick vacation in South America – and, then return to our home in Mexico. I have no idea what internet connection I’ll have in South America — so, if you don’t hear from me for a couple of weeks — my apologies…
-Ken W
