Peter Currie (businessman)

Netscape was a key player that "fueled the Internet revolution," according to a report in "The New York Times," and Currie was an executive vice president who worked under its CEO James L. Barksdale and founder Marc Andreessen.^[10][11] Netscape developed the Secure Sockets Layer Protocol or SSL for securing online communication which is still widely used as well as JavaScript. Currie became its chief financial officer in 1995 ^[6] when the company went public.^[12] He was Chief Administrative Officer at Netscape from July 1997 until March 1999.^[6] In addition to financial management, Currie was responsible for human resources, information technology, facilities, and operations departments.^[6]

Currie owned at least 37,500 shares of stock in Netscape which he sold in 1996, according to one report.^[13] Netscape was valued at $5 billion in November 1995.^[14] In 1999, Netscape was bought by America Online and became a holding company.^[6]

Netscape was seen as the first Internet superstar which had a meteoric rise but the firm was undone by numerous forces including well-established software firms such as Microsoft. In a conference in 2005, Currie described how "hectic and crazy things were" during the tumultuous years in the mid 1990s.^[15]

In 1999, Currie and Barksdale and others formed a venture capital firm called Barksdale Group to invest in business start-ups, and raised at least $180 million according to one report.^[16] As an investor and consultant, he focused on the enterprise software sector of the business.^[6] Currie invested in an Internet start-up called Flipboard in 2010.^[5] Currie claims affiliations with Corsair Communications, Critical Path, Inkling, Listen.com, Kodak Imaging Network, Kontiki, IPVALUE Management, Oracle America, Tellme Networks, Zantaz, InfoSpace.com, Clearwire, CNET, Safeco, and Palamon Capital Partners.^[6] He serves on the board of directors for oilfield services giant Schlumberger.^[17][18] In 2016, Twitter released Currie from its board.^[19]

Currie's advice was sought by Facebook co-founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg in 2010.^[3]