Network Solutions

So I had an epiphany that generic words that are in the classified advertising would be very valuable one day.

So there happened to be a little government contractor called Network Solutions in Herndon, Virginia, that somehow wrangled the exclusive right to give out these domain names.

And they weren't getting paid per domain name because they were free.

They were getting paid by they would add up their costs and add 20% and charge the National Science Foundation for it.

And in April of '99, imageCafe went live.

And, um, by November, we were acquired for $23 million by Network Solutions.

So it felt like an overnight success story that was 10 years in the making.

[laughs] I think all, all success stories are like that, right? Um, so then you went on and you started another company soon after?

Yeah, well, you know, so when imageCafe was acquired by Network Solutions, part of that deal was for me to go, you know, join Network Solutions, become a VP, and continue to run imageCafe as a separate P&L.

So I did that for three years, and then ultimately I thought about raising a fund to invest in tech startups, um, but ultimately created another company in 2006.

Uh, it's still around today.

Right, so Cohen drafted a forged letter claiming that Kremen's company had fired Kremen, was abandoning the domain name, and was authorizing its transfer to a company controlled by Cohen.

Cohen sent this fraudulent document to Network Solutions, the entity holding the monopoly on domain registrations at the time.

And Network Solutions, acting with staggering bureaucratic negligence, accepted the forged letter at face value.

They didn't even contact Kremen to verify.

They simply altered their database and handed the domain name to Cohen.

Cohen won a $40 million judgment, but Cohen fled jurisdiction, hid the assets offshore, and sparked actual international bounty hunting.

Yeah, it's wild.

Because Cohen was essentially judgment-proof, Kremen targeted the deep pockets, Network Solutions.