In the early days of the Web, CMGI made a name for itself in Silicon Valley as a savvy VC investor and startup founder. It made profitable early investments in Lycos and GeoCities, and rode the IPO wave through the headiest days of the bubble. But it also managed to reinvent itself -- not once, but twice. In this installment of Where are they now?, we'll review the history of CMGI and find out where its top executives ended up.

Founding: Decades before computer scientists created the World Wide Web, CMGI (which stood for College Marketing Group Information) got its start as a direct mail firm. Founded in 1968 by Glenn and Gail Matthews, CMGI underwent a significant transformation in the 1980s under the direction of CEO David Wetherell, who had launched software development company Softrend in 1982 and assumed control of CMGI in 1986. Wetherell sold a browser division to America Online in the early 1990s for $70 million in stock and used the proceeds to launch the world's first Internet-only venture capital firm, @Ventures, in 1995. CMGI went public in 1994, selling 1.2 million shares at $8 each.

History: If the Internet startup scene has a granddaddy, it might just be CMGI, which invested in and founded dozens of the largest and most well-known Internet companies in the early days of the Web. Current president and CEO Joseph Lawler, who came to CMGI in 2004 from global printing firm RR Donnelley, explained the company's strategy in an email interview with The Industry Standard.

"CMGI and @Ventures were buying, investing in and starting Internet companies across a wide range of disciplines," says Lawler. "They had search engines, retail sites, entertainment, and other websites. Their strategy with these was to start them or buy them early, grow them and go public with them or sell them to a larger Internet company such as Amazon or AOL."

Lawler references CMGI's "aggressive" strategy, which involved scooping up scores of Web-focused startups in the 1990s. At its peak, CMGI's operations and venture fund spanned nearly 70 Internet companies. According to Lawler, the best-known investments included Lycos, which CMGI nabbed for a mere $2 million in 1995, and CMGI's 38 percent ownership stake in GeoCities. Lycos eventually went public, and Geocities was acquired by Yahoo for $4.6 billion. Another major acquisition was search engine AltaVista, which it bought from Compaq Computer for $2.3 billion in June 1999.

CMGI also founded Engage Technologies, which specialized in profile-driven marketing, and e-business outsourcing company NaviSite, both of which went public in 1999.

CMGI's acquisition strategy throughout the 1990s was clear: It wanted to reach into every nook on the Web and draw in page streams -- and revenue -- from a broad range of consumers, and reap the financial rewards. CMGI's boosted profits by using shared infrastructure, which drove down costs. As one Forrester analyst told The Standard in October 1999, "The infrastructure is really expensive. Separately funded, they couldn't scale; they couldn't afford to build first-class sites".

The venture capital arm fueled the run-up of CMGI's stock in 1998 and 1999, when Wall Street snapped up shares from a string of its investments that went public.

But CMGI couldn't dodge the fallout from the bubble. When the IPO market for Internet companies tanked, CMGI's stock went into a tailspin. It was time to cut losses and develop a post-bubble strategy.

What Happened: In 2000, CMGI began exiting money-losing businesses, shelving expansion plans and cutting its work force. In early 2001, the company said it would reduce its stable of majority-owned companies from the then-current 12 to about five. It also used a fire-sale approach to unloading AltaVista, Engage, NaviSite, and other companies.

Following the carnage, CMGI