An Internet Design Company Is Born

It's all Mark's fault.

January '96: A Suggestion, A Reply
Jeth Odom came down to San Francisco from Seattle to attend MacExpo96 and hang out with some old school buddies. He went down to Mark's new business pad, Construct, to see what the heck he was up to. While hanging out in his office, Mark spoke of his desire to put Euclid's Elements on the Internet in 3D. Then came the pitch: "You move down here for a month and put Euclid up on the Web, and I will give you the tools and support to do it." Jeth sat there staring at Mark, contemplating what he had just heard. Mark was going to give him the opportunity to use cutting edge technololgy, learn the latest protocols, and have support from the leaders in the front lines of development, and in turn, he had to produce something from what he learned, with just a 30 day commitment. It took about two seconds to respond. "Sure, I'll do it."

May '96: VESPA Unites
Jeth put everything in storage, and came down to begin VESPA, or the Virtual Euclid Site Project Agency. During email conversations over the previous months, VESPA fleshed out to five volunteers: Jeth, Josh Draper, Tim Riley, Pat Mahoney(who all happened to be old school chums), and Kari Friedman. Mark, Lisa and Todd at Construct rounded out the team. They set to work. VESPA recieved attention from the science and education communities from Lisa's efforts to reward the volunteers for the work they had been putting in. One day Jeth recieved a phone call recommending VESPA stick around after the Euclid Project was over because there were all sorts of other opportunities to do VRML-based sites and the like. Jeth told VESPA.

June '96: Chaos Ensues
VESPA promptly fell off the face of the earth while the volunteers tried to wrap their brains around the opportunity that had arisen. The Construct staff cheered and supported the creating of a company that the volunteers could call their own. They settled on dFORM: Draper, Friedman, Odom, Riley, and Mahoney.

July '96:The Dust Settles, Reality Sets In
dFORM moved in across the street from Construct and began work on VESPA again. After fourteen hour days seven days a week, and many a delivered dinner, the VESPA volunteers finally sent the Euclid Project over to Construct, and had become an internet design company focused on science and education.

Go figure.