The Outsider 94
merge Zip2 with Altavista to compete with Yahoo.^319
But Elon was angry at the investors. He thought they
sold the company way too early. Zip2 could have been
worth ten times the amount they sold the company for. The
software Zip2 had was as good as the software the much
larger companies Yahoo and Excite had.^363 Elon wanted
to help build the Internet, but he had just built software
for newspapers likeThe New York Times. And in 2013, the
company is almost forgotten. “After Compaq bought my
company, it was merged with Altavista and the combined
entity was rather poorly managed by execs whose main
background was making PCs in Texas,” Elon said.^259
After just a few years in the Internet industry, Elon had
the option to retire. “I guess it’d be really easy for me to
spend the next 40 years doing absolutely nothing, hanging
out, buying an island,” he said. “The idea of lying on a beach
as my main thing sound horrible to me. I would go bonkers.
But I like to go to the beach for a short period of time, but
not much longer than a few days.”265,363Elon didn’t buy an
island, but he bought a large house and a McLaren F1.