Some things never change.
When Jane Metcalfe and I first carried our business plan around to publishers and investors in 1991, we were met with looks of incredulity and pity.
Digital Revolution? Most publishers were barely aware of the Industrial Revolution. Magazine? All the venture capitalists knew the next big medium was going to be - CD-ROMs? And, oh, weren't we in the midst of the worst publishing recession since World War II?
Call us optimists or dreamers, but we persisted. As did the crew of a dozen really talented fanatics who launched our first issue five years ago.
What we were dreaming about was profound global transformation. We wanted to tell the story of the companies, the ideas, and especially the people making the Digital Revolution. Our heroes weren't politicians and generals or priests and pundits, but those creating and using technology and networks in their professional and private lives - you.
Today we still believe you're the most powerful people on the planet because you're making positive change happen.
And a lot has changed in these five years. The Internet has mushroomed from an obscure academic mail system into the fastest growing medium, marketplace, and community in history. Genetic engineering is conquering disease, and new energy technologies promise to save our environment. The global financial network has created a force for change more powerful than the nation-state. And digital citizens are reinvigorating democratic discourse and reinventing civil society.
Some things haven't changed. We at Wired remain obsessed with authoritatively reporting on the new economy, new media, crucial technologies, and the digital nation. With providing context for a community overwhelmed by data. With not just telling the story of the modern, but visualizing the excitement of our times.
One other thing hasn't changed: Wired's critical optimism. After a century of war, oppression, and ecological degradation, we've entered a period of peace, increasing prosperity, an improving environment, and greater freedom for a growing proportion of the planet.
As we note later in this special fifth-anniversary issue, thinking positively about the future isn't Panglossian utopianism, but seeing the world as it really is. It's also a strategy for making a better world. Because if we believe that a better world is possible for ourselves and our children, then maybe we'll actually step up and take responsibility for making it happen.
