Science & Tech Quote by Jim Barksdale

“Well, another market is being created now out of Internet technology” is the kind of plainspoken prophecy only a business operator would dare deliver without dressing it up. Jim Barksdale isn’t selling poetry; he’s selling inevitability. The casual “Well” does a lot of work: it frames the statement as a continuation of something already in motion, as if arguing would be as pointless as debating the weather. That rhetorical move turns uncertainty into momentum, which is exactly how new industries get financed, staffed, and taken seriously.

The phrase “being created” is key. Barksdale doesn’t describe the internet as a tool that improves existing commerce; he treats it as a factory for entirely new demand. That’s a late-90s/early-2000s mindset when the web wasn’t just a channel, it was a frontier: new intermediaries, new customer expectations, new rules for speed and scale. Markets, in this view, aren’t discovered like continents; they’re engineered through standards, platforms, and network effects. Saying it this way flatters builders and investors: the winners won’t be those who adapt politely, but those who shape the terrain.

There’s also a quiet warning embedded in the optimism. If “another market” is forming, incumbents aren’t safe; they’re merely early candidates for disruption. Barksdale’s intent is to normalize upheaval as the price of progress, making the turbulence feel like opportunity rather than threat. It’s a CEO’s way of translating technological change into a mandate: move, or become yesterday’s market.