brands that many may have never hear of, like Northgate and Swan of which I owned both. I saw Dell rise from the ashes of the pages of Computer Shopper Magazine, and IBM and Compaq fall by them. I owned an online store when listservers were popular, and the commercial internet was just an idea. I saw Netscape rise and fall. I watched as companies exploded and then burst in the "bubble". I laughed when someone told me a bookseller was going to try to make money on the internet. I cringed when a computer maker nearly went bankrupt, and contemplated buying in at $2 a share, right before an "angel" came in and saved them. I laughed at an IPO that started at $200+ a share during the height of the hysteria. One thing I have learned from all of this is certain. Technology companies are like wisps of wind. They come and they go. It is the nature of the very word that describes them. The time for companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google have come, but I take solace in the fact that they, too, will not last. There will be something better that comes along, and they will be replaced. Any company that presumes that they will be forever only has to look to the past, and the mistakes that great companies and institutions made, and realize that this is where they currently stand in their evolution. This I have no doubt.