Introduction

Every second Thursday, six young men meet for dinner in Silicon Valley. They are multimillionaires, all under 30 and at the hub of the internet revolution.

Joe Kraus, Graham Spencer, Martin Rheinfield, Ben Lutch, Mark VanHaren and Ryan McIntyre are the founders of Excite, one of the best-known internet search engine groups. Only Kraus and Spencer remain with the company today, the others are described by their publicist as 'freelance entrepreneurs', involved in funding and managing a variety of internet projects. Yet the story of how the six Californian college friends decided to start a company - any company - together is one to stir the blood of any prospective internet entrepreneur.