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The first stage of the Internet revolution has come and gone. It was certainly one helluva run. But with the NASDAQ flat on its back, with one high-profile dotcom after another dead and buried, and with more and more executives in big companies wondering what it means to have an e-commerce strategy these days, almost everyone recognizes that the Internet economy has arrived at an inflection point.

Is the new economy dead? Hardly. At times, though, what seemed like breakthrough strategic thinking about the Internet in 1998 and 1999 now feels like a path to ruin. Even so, the Web-driven opportunities for growth and innovation remain as tantalizing as ever, and doing nothing is a guaranteed ticket to obscurity. Somehow, there must be a way to digest the unpleasant lessons of the past year and then pick a wiser, sounder course.

Enter Marc Andreessen. Of all the entrepreneurs and executives trying to figure out Act II of the Internet economy, no one brings a more intriguing set of credentials. Andreessen will forever be famous as the 22-year-old engineer who cofounded Netscape Communications in April 1994 -- attracting millions of users and a frenzy of Wall Street interest as his company distributed the first widely available, easy-to-use Web browser. Many commentators think of the day of Netscape's IPO (August 9, 1995) as the shot heard 'round the virtual world -- the event that triggered the first Internet revolution.

During his five-year tenure at Netscape, Andreessen, now 28, was at first idolized, then severely tested in an all-out battle for market share against Microsoft. He emerged from that showdown with hard-earned knowledge about what it takes to hire well, build a team, keep strategic momentum going, and adapt to drastically changed circumstances. Andreessen is now chairman of a second-generation Web company, Loudcloud Inc., which manages Internet operations for a wide range of business customers.

In an interview with Fast Company, Andreessen talked about what it will take to succeed in the next stage of the Internet revolution. Outspoken as ever, he has blunt words for the strategic missteps of recent years, touching on everything from venture capitalists' investing habits ("They went nuts") to the right way to build a brand online ("Advertising is the last thing you do''). But he says that opportunities on the Internet have never been bigger, and he is brimming with insights about how companies and entrepreneurs can capitalize on them. In two sidebars, we distill his thinking on the "Five Things That Are Still True About the Internet " and the "Five Things That Were Never True About the Internet." Get ready for the next revolution.

As we look at the Internet landscape, it's clear that many companies are seriously overhauling their strategies. How do the leaders of a startup -- or the top executives at an established company -- retool successfully? At what point does strategic zigzagging become so hopeless that employees say, "Enough already, I'm going skiing"?

You have to ask a couple of questions. One is "How well respected is the management?" When people quit, they tend to leave because they've lost faith in their manager. A management team with a lot of respect can do a much better job of retaining employees in such an environment -- which is why historically a company like Microsoft , Intel, or Cisco could turn on a dime, do radically different things, and still have people say, "Okay, we'll follow.'' I sometimes think the key to leadership is having people willing to follow you, if only out of curiosity to see what's going to happen.