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that was really hot,” Parker said. “The Net was just breaking.” At the time, many were writing about software “agents” that would sift through the Web and return information to users based on their interests. Parker figured he could capitalize on the hype, and he wrote two simple algorithms, one that searched the Web broadly and one that searched deeply, showing that the former worked best to get information to people with low-bandwidth connections. More important, Parker learned that the same broad-and-shallow approach worked best in conversation. Most people in America, investors included, aren’t technical experts. They are like the science-fair judges were, appreciating someone who could synthesize concepts and explain in English how they fit together. Years later at Napster, Parker’s e-mail signature would append to each message a similar conclusion from science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein: “Specialization is for insects.” Parker won $5,000, the first science-fair winner in years who didn’t attend a magnet school for science. He got job offers on the spot and plowed the prize money into Crosswalk. The team there “bit off more than we could chew,” Parker said, and Crosswalk burned through a couple thousand dollars before folding. “It failed because we didn’t have a cohesive organization. It was hard to keep a bunch of sixteen-year-olds all over the country motivated and focused.” Parker later recovered the money by selling the domain name “Crosswalk.com” to a Christian portal.

One day in 1996, Parker attended a local job fair and walked up to a booth set up by Freeloader, at the time part of northern Virginia’s pack of hot Internet companies led by America Online and smaller Internet service providers like UUNet. Freeloader sold programs that “pushed” content to computer users with techniques like those Parker had worked up for his science-fair project. He found Freeloader’s most senior employee at the booth, Jamie Hamilton, and bragged that he could have knocked off a version of Freeloader’s flagship program by himself. Hamilton was more amused than offended. He offered an internship, during which Parker wrote Perl scripts and generally distracted other employees, Hamilton recalled. Rob Hoadley, then Parker’s office mate, remembered him as more interested in Linux and hacking than in doing what he was supposed to. “He was a smart kid,” Hoadley said, but Parker was tagged with the nickname “Sprout” all summer.

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