Bill Foster

Foster led the group at excite.com in 1997 that pioneered large scale sponsorship of content, creating the multimillion dollar deals that translated impressions into licks into customer revenue. These were the first significant non-banner search engine ad revenue deals. By late1998 Foster's group was responsible for monetizing both Netscape and Excite branded search and channels. Excite's monthly revenues jumped from $2.5 million to $25 million over this period. The stock went from $6 to over $400. The keyword auction model the group developed is still in use by search engines today. Foster left Excite in 2000 after eleven consecutive quarters of exceeding the street's revenue goals. Foster has two degrees from Penn and one and a half from Chicago. He commutes to work from Santa Fe, NM.