At the time, the company I worked for (DSW) sold AT&T’s NCR computers (fridge-sized boxes running a Unix-derivate operating system). One day, an AT&T representative called the owner of the company, and said AT&T was asked to talk about the “Internet” at the huge Eastman conference, in front of thousands of commercial visitors; but nobody at AT&T had any clue about it, and if he (my boss) possibly knew anyone who couold fill in? I just happened to be in his office at the time – pure coincidence – and my boss (a Mr Frank Mogavero – the elder) told the AT&T guy “sorry … I don’t know anyone, either”. Undervalued as always, I at least tried to let him know that I could easily do that, so he interrupted the phone call for a second, and asked me “are you sure??” (doh!), and then was happy to be able to tell AT&T “yes of course we can handle it” :)
Do I did, set up a very rudimentary SCO Unix Webserver on a PC, and a very simple client PC running an early Netscape browser, plus set up a very simple Webpage, with a picture and text saying something like “Welcome to the Eastman Conference”.
The talk was meant for 20 minutes and another 20 minutes of Q&A in front of 400 people. In fact, the room was packed with at least double as many, and for the vast majority, it was the first time they ever saw an Internet webserver and a browser accessing it. The whole gig lasted nearly three hours – they would not let me go :) Back then, it was the big hype, as the consumer invasion of the Internet was just about to happen. For me it was old news, I had been an ISP back in Germany for over 7 years, found my job at this company through the Internet, applied for it via Internet, and has two other offers from California companies at the time the same way.
This is the story behind that letter, which I received a little later from Eastman. Boss was very happy for the company to shine to AT&T and to Eastman.
That did not change the fact they were billing me out at $250 an hour (in 1994!) and paying me barely more than minimum wage. So shortly afterwards I quit, and moved up to San Francisco to work for Macromedia, and change the world (with Shockwave & Flash). Getting a new H-1B visa for Macromedia was a breeze, and took less than 30 days (always use a lawyer specialized on immigration law!).
Side note: for decades, this company held my no 1 spot for being the cheapest and most petty I had ever encountered – until 2019, when I encountered another one – a German company based in Berlin – which beat DSW in both pettiness and vindictiveness.
A 2005 piece on Frank Mogavero, when he was 75:
https://www.crn.com/features/channel-programs/174907207/frank-mogavero-founder-data-systems-worldwide.htm
His son Phil, who was also active at the time in the company:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/philmogavero/