How a $6.7 Billion Tech Giant Imploded and Changed the Internet Forever

Excite@Home was born from a high-stakes merger between two ambitious companies—At Home Network, which sought to deliver broadband via cable lines, and Excite, a pioneering web portal. Backed by major players like TCI, John Malone, and Kleiner Perkins, the 1999 deal valued the new entity at $6.7 billion, positioning it as a one-stop shop for fast internet and engaging online content. At its peak, Excite@Home connected over a million homes, transforming how people accessed the internet with always-on broadband that freed up phone lines and revolutionized speed. But behind the scenes, integration issues, clashing corporate cultures, and unsustainable spending plagued the company. As competition from DSL emerged and cable partners turned rivals, Excite@Home found itself caught in a perfect storm. The dot-com crash hit advertising revenue hard, while Google's rise made Excite’s portal obsolete. The final blow came when AT&T, its largest investor and customer, withdrew support in early 2001, triggering a financial death spiral. On October 1, 2001, Excite@Home filed for bankruptcy, leaving millions of users fearing a sudden digital blackout. Though the company collapsed, its legacy lived on: it proved the viability of cable-based broadband, paving the way for modern internet access. Its failure also served as a cautionary tale about overreach, poor integration, and the dangers of relying on hype over sustainable business models. Former Excite co-founder Martin Eberhard later helped launch Tesla, showing that even from spectacular failure, innovation can emerge. For millions of customers, employees, and investors, however, the fall of Excite@Home was a painful reminder of how quickly fortunes change in tech—and how deeply we had already come to rely on the internet as an essential part of daily life.

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