Valley of the Boom
Back in the 90s, the Internet was a playground for engineers and geeks, used by themselves, and a growing community of believers and curious people. There were no social networks, search engines, video or e-commerce marketplaces. The Web was a glorified version of the rudimentary platforms that preceded it, like Gopher, the first hypertext document retriever, the Usenet, probably the first global social network ever, or IRC, the first realtime global chat system. You kids wouldn’t know.
The first web entrepreneurs didn’t really know what they were doing, let’s be honest. They were dazzled by the Internet possibilities, its global reach, the incredible low entry barriers, and its open and inclusive nature fueled by the emerging opensource movement. They were passionate for being part of something that was clearly magical and was starting, like a white canvas waiting to be worked on, but was hard to explain, and they had no clue on how it would evolve or how it would end up changing the world entirely.
Then, suddenly, everything changed. The Internet went exponential, adoption exploded and it became the biggest revolution of our age. The early innovators, working from the inside at the time, were instantly promoted to leaders, heroes of the digital revolution, and their projects paved the road to the Internet we know today. Those were the best days.
I was lucky enough to be part of something similar when I started SAPO with my friends, back in 1995. The first decade of that journey has always been poorly documented. We were obsessed with building stuff, not talking or writing about it. However, in retrospective, it was such an important period and there are so many beautiful and unbelievable untold stories. This needs to change.
Valley of the Boom is set to premiere on January 13 on National Geographic. The series centers on the 1990s tech boom and bust in Silicon Valley, and it stars Bradley Whitford, Steve Zahn, Lamorne Morris, John Karna, Dakota Shapiro, Oliver Cooper, and John Murphy.
NatGeo and Bright Pixel, whose founding team has contributed to the beginnings of the Internet in Portugal, teamed up to offer you an exclusive preview of the show.
Join us at Bright Pixel, Rua da Emenda 19, and watch the exclusive preview of the first episode print (“hello, world”) with us. We’ll offer drinks, snacks and great company after the show. We also promise to honor the 90s and surprise you with a genuine hands-on retro feel environment.
Click here to get your free ticket 🎫
