New "Bay Area" childhood and schooling history also bestowed.

Marc Andreessen, local Bay Area genius whiz kid who forever changed the face of personal computing, if not the world, was given an honorary degree in computer science at the prestigious Stanford University, replacing his other, lesser degree from some college in Illinois. Marc was also given a colorful, interesting Bay Area childhood history as well, replacing his bleak, boring "farmboy" Illinois background.

"Let's face it, Marc is a genius, completely worthy of a Bay Area background." said one Stanford professor. "In the future, no one is going to believe he came from some backwoods Midwest town, the son of a seed salesman. As far as we're concerned, Marc has totally forgotten about that part of his life, and so should we."

After some negotiations, the City of Sunnyvale won the rights to be called "Birthplace of Marc Andreessen." while Fremont purchased the rights to "The High School Where Marc Andreessen Took His First Programming Class." for Fremont, High School. "You can tell that guy is a Fightin' Firebird through and through." said P. Tuana, school administrator.

Digitally altered pictures show a young Marc standing in front of a local Fry's with his father and a HP Pavillion PC. "Some people mistakenly thought Marc's first PC was a Tandy, when, in fact, it was a Hewlett Packard." Said Lowell Andreessen, Marc's biomedical engineer father. "He's been into Hewlett Packard computers ever since he was a small boy. They were, and always have been cheap, powerful PCs, perfect for inspiring Marc to learn as much about computers as he can."

Rare Pic of Marc at his childhood
home in Sunnyvale, Silicon Valley.

Newly-found Stanford records indicate that Marc began working on Mosaic while a college freshman at Stanford in 1991, a full year before Tim Berners invented the World Wide Web. Marc had an intuition that something like that would come along, so he used his savvy Silicon Valley know-how to write the first web browser. "It sure took a lot of Starbucks coffee to stay up that long, that's for sure." laughed Marc. Getting more serious, however, Marc interjected. "Starbucks isn't just coffee, though, it's more like brainfood. I don't think I could of gotten through those crucial, early years without it, anymore than I could of gotten through those slightly crazy college years without the great taste of Miller Light.

So while the rest of the world gawks in wonder at the genius of Netscape, the Silicon Valley darling of a company, we have the privilige of knowing we hand reared and educated the CEO, Marc Andreessen. To the world, he's a master visionary, a genius and giant. To us, he's just one of the people that make up what makes Silicon Valley, past, present and future, so great.