Amazon was around, but only selling books in 98, I think. (It might depend on when in 98). Google wasn't really a thing until 99/2000: It existed at the tail en

Amazon was around, but only selling books in 98, I think. (It might depend on when in 98). Google wasn't really a thing until 99/2000: It existed at the tail end of 98 but it wasn't really going after talent yet. They were setting up their strategy and testing the viability of PageRank at that point.