April, 1994

Two weeks after we had decided that starting our company called "Downtown" was a bad idea, I was leaving the MIT student center when a short guy with sideburns and sunglasses came up to me and said, "You're Matthew Gray, right?". I didn't quite know how to react, but I agreed that I was, indeed, Matthew Gray. He told me his name was Matthew Cutler, and he and some friends of his were thinking of starting a company, doing web stuff. He contacted me because he knew I was the webmaster at MIT. I told him that I might be interested, but had already thought about it a lot. So, we said we'd meet all together and see.

So, I met them. In addition to Matt, the short guy with sideburns and sunglasses, there was Raj, a rail thin Indian guy, Wiz, a freshman heavy into the alternative music scene, and George, a Cypriot with a big leather wide-brimmed hat who said "Heeeey" a lot. Quickly, it became apparent that these guys were not SIPB types. It also became clear that they had a lot of the business knowledge and skills that we in Downtown were lacking. So, I signed up with them. The company was called net.Genesis.