Monday, July 22, 2002

20 Over 20

Davis stands as success symbol of the dot-com era

By Dyke Hendrickson

When historians begin writing the definitive history of the dot-com era, they might conclude that Lycos founder Bob Davis was among the most successful of all high-end entrepreneurs.

In 1995, he executed the fastest IPO in Nasdaq history to that point. His company thrived under his energetic tutelage and developed from a so-so search engine to a premiere Web portal with significant opportunities for e-commerce.

Through the mid-'90s, he served as one of the Web's most vociferous proponents. "I don't think the Web is overhyped," he often said. "Just the opposite. It's underexposed.

"In years to come, all of us will be doing amazing things through the Internet."

Perhaps because Davis emerged as such a successful symbol of Web success, he eventually became at odds with onetime mentor David Wetherell.

Wetherell was chairman of CMGI Inc., which had a controlling interest in Lycos.

Davis in 1999 wanted to merge with USA Networks, a Hollywood media group with "hard revenues" of more than a billion dollars per year.

But Wetherell did not see the merger as a "pure Internet play." He withdrew his support for the proposal, and the deal never got done.

Davis continued looking for merger mates, and in 2001 finalized a $5.4 billion merger with Telefonica, Spain's largest telecommunications corporation, to form Terra Lycos.

Thus Davis emerged as one of the few executives of the era to produce a successful IPO, scale a business into a world-class operation and sell the result for billions.

Many Net entrepreneurs dreamed of such milestones, but few achieved them.

"The Internet is one of the most powerful communication tools in human history," Davis said. "It has an extraordinary reach, but its greatest strength is speed.

"(It has) the ability to cull and disseminate information at the click of a mouse."

Davis, 46, is a local product. He was born in Dorchester and attended local parochial schools and Boston College High School.

He chose Northeastern University to be close to home. Its work-study program prepared him for sales positions, and he worked at General Electric and Wang before pursuing a job opportunity to run a new company called Lycos.

Through his association with Dan Nova, a veteran Wang executive who was funding companies through CMGI, he landed the job as chief executive of the fledgling Lycos Corp.

In his recent book, "Speed is Life," he summed up his life at Lycos.

"The Lycos experience was a dream come true. In less than six years, we built a worldwide consumer brand and created billions in value. I saw the first of a medium that has affected more social, political and economic change than perhaps any in the history of humankind.

"The Terra merger left the company in good hands and rewarded those employees and shareholders who had worked so hard to build the business.

"Maybe not completely a storybook ending but also not very far from it."

Davis has since left Terra Lycos and is a partner at Highland Capital Partners, a Lexington venture capital firm.

This is the 16th in a 20-week series profiling tech leaders in New England over Mass High Tech's 20 years of publication.