Mosaic had only come to life through the tireless efforts of Jim Clark and another talented programmer, who had spent 18-hour days for three straight months crafting a 9,000-line demo.
The official version 1.0 took even longer—months of additional work by a growing team of researchers. Even now, they're still patching bugs and refining it.
As the Mosaic team expanded, it was only natural that the senior researchers at NCSA began to resent the fact that a 22-year-old kid was leading the development.
That's exactly why Jim Clark had recruited Marc Andreessen as co-founder. Andreessen had already stormed out of Illinois in a fit of anger, leaving before he even graduated—fed up with the unfair treatment he received from NCSA.
The moment he arrived in Silicon Valley, companies swarmed him. Everyone wanted the young genius who had helped create the revolutionary Mosaic browser. Offers rolled in—positions, titles, salaries. Recognition was everywhere.
