BoomTown did an interview last night with outgoing RealNetworks (RNWK) CEO Rob Glaser after the announcement yesterday of his departure from the company he founded and led for 16 years.

That will be posted later today, but here is a profile of Glaser I wrote after spending time with him in Seattle, when I was covering the Internet for The Wall Street Journal.

It’s from Feb. 12, 1998–yes, that means Rob and I are genuine Web antiques–and focuses on Glaser’s decidedly complicated relationship with his former employer, Microsoft (MSFT).

As you will see, it comes from a much different era of the Internet, when Microsoft was much scarier, RealNetworks represented innovation and the medium was still in its infancy. My favorite line is a description of Glaser as “radiating so much intensity that his face resembles a clenched fist.”

Here it is:

Rob Glaser learned the software business as one of Bill Gates’s most aggressive proteges at Microsoft Corp. So he knows all too well the anguishing strategic decision that most software entrepreneurs inevitably confront: Go head-to-head against Mr. Gates and risk annihilation. Or cooperate with him–and risk annihilation.

Now an Internet entrepreneur himself, Mr. Glaser thinks he has another strategy: A delicate dance with Microsoft that combines a little bit of competition and a little bit of cooperation.

His newly public company, RealNetworks Inc., popularized the use of realtime audio and video on the Internet’s World Wide Web. It already has more than 18 million registered users of its free “streaming” software for receiving multimedia over the Net. It also has a rapidly growing business selling server software for transmitting audio and video to Website operators.

But it stands squarely in the path of the strategy that has drawn Microsoft into trouble with antitrust regulators: Emulating innovative products, integrating them into its operating systems and then giving them away free. RealNetworks’ daunting task is to prove it can do a better job of outmaneuvering Microsoft than Netscape Communications Inc., the browser pioneer whose market share and profitability have been devastated by Microsoft’s integration strategy.

Mr. Glaser insists he and the software giant can coexist. “I learned an amazing amount from Bill,” he says, speaking in staccato bursts and radiating so much intensity that his face resembles a clenched fist. “We knew we could either compete head-on like Netscape or do something a lot more interesting.”

His strategy is known internally as “coopetition.” Out of mistrust, Netscape two years ago rejected an unsolicited offer from Microsoft to become a partner and investor. But Mr. Glaser approached his former colleagues last summer seeking just such an alliance. In July, he sold a nonvoting 10% stake to Microsoft for $30 million, and licensed RealNetworks’ technology to the software giant for another $30 million. Microsoft also agreed to bundle RealNetworks’ software with Internet Explorer.

In making the deal, Mr. Glaser helped himself to Microsoft’s cash and prestige and calculated that Microsoft wouldn’t consider streaming technology to be as strategic to its future as the browser.

“What we were trying to do in the partnership is to set it up so that our success would not disadvantage their core business,” Mr. Glaser says. “Microsoft is a very paranoid company and so we have tried to create an environment where while they might be covetous of some of our success, analytically they would not fear it.”

The deal gave Mr. Gates the opportunity, if he so desired, to clone RealNetworks’ products during the period when they were licensed to Microsoft. “There’s no question they could use our own technology to become extremely vigorous competitors and try to put us out of business,” says James Breyer, a director and member of Accel Partners, a venture-capital firm that helped finance RealNetworks.

So Mr. Glaser needs to stay ahead of Microsoft by rapidly improving his software, accumulating enough customers to become the standard for sending audio and video over the Internet and diversifying into related businesses.

Last month, for example, he announced an agreement with one of Microsoft’s archrivals, Sun Microsystems Inc., to finetune his software to perform better on Sun’s popular Internet servers than on Windows-based servers.

“They are neither friend nor foe, but Microsoft is most certainly the environment we live in,” says Mr. Glaser, now 36 years old. “It’s how we work within that environment that will make all the difference.”

Mr. Glaser’s own personality seems suited to the relationship’s contradictions. He has been a committed liberal since his days at Yale University, where he wrote a column called “What’s Left” for the student newspaper. He initially named his company Progressive Networks to reflect his politics. And he donated 700,000 RealNetworks shares to causes related to freedom of speech and environmental issues after the public offering, and promises to contribute 5% of the company’s future profits as well.

But he became a notoriously hardcharging and sometimes arrogant manager after he joined Microsoft in 1983, at the age of 21. Some colleagues dubbed him a “screamer.” When deadlines approached for projects, several former colleagues at Microsoft say he became increasingly revved-up, downing one Diet Coke after another and erupting at even tiny mistakes. “My intensity sometimes manifested itself in less positive ways,” Mr. Glaser concedes.

“Like Microsoft, Rob was smart, young, perhaps a little hard to take, and convinced he was absolutely right about a lot of stuff,” recalls Mike Slade, a friend of Mr. Glaser’s at Microsoft who now runs an Internet publishing company, Starwave Corp. “But that was what was rewarded at the company and everything was going too fast there for a lot of management training.”

The pace did take its toll. Even though Mr. Glaser rose to become vice president of multimedia systems and one of Mr. Gates’s favorites, his last years at Microsoft were rocky. Some at the company point to an internal power struggle with Microsoft’s head of technology, Nathan Myhrvold. “They both wanted to be Bill’s boy genius and visionary for the company,” says a colleague. “Obviously, Nathan won.”

Mr. Glaser dismisses tales of infighting, blaming his departure on a diminishing feeling of “joy” in his work. “I began to think that Bill had the best job of all,” he says. In 1993, at the age of 31, he resigned, with about $15 million of stock in his pocket.

His retirement didn’t last long. Soon after, he saw a version of the Mosaic browser, the first graphical interface software for navigating the Web. He had an epiphany, he says, realizing that the Internet could eventually become a major purveyor of audio and video.

Mr. Glaser sank about $1 million of his own money into a start-up that would first produce software for compressing and transmitting sound. With additional funding from friends, such as Lotus founder Mitch Kapor, RealAudio 1.0 quickly made its debut in April 1995.

RealAudio was greeted with more than a little disdain from the Internet elite because it was a tinny and unsatisfying experience for most users. But it gave the Internet a voice, and Mr. Glaser kept plugging away, improving fidelity and striking deals with more content providers to use it on their Web sites. The hook: Free player software for consumers.

He is attempting to repeat the process with RealVideo. It currently provides small, jerky moving pictures but will, he believes, someday transform the Internet as data transmission speeds increase. In a recent demo of the player, Mr. Glaser selected a music video by the languid singer Jewel, he joked, “because she doesn’t move around too much.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft has been developing its own Media Player and NetShow streaming software, partly with technology acquired by purchasing VXtreme, a RealNetworks competitor.

The Microsoft products are now free. But the company may decide to charge for the latest version of NetShow coming out this year, which would be good for RealNetworks. Meanwhile, Microsoft will continue to bundle RealNetworks’ player software with the Microsoft browser, also good for RealNetworks. And the day after RealNetworks’ Sun deal, Microsoft announced an agreement to make its own Media Player compatible with RealNetworks’ server software, yet another positive development for RealNetworks.

“The user only wants it to work,” says Rich Tong, a Microsoft marketing vice president. “So it is good business to work with RealNetworks to set standards for compatibility and expand the market for all of us.”

Skeptics assert that RealNetworks has forged only a temporary truce with Microsoft. Like Netscape, it must continually confront the challenge of trying to make money on technology that Microsoft gives away. RealNetworks charges $29.95 for an enhanced version of the player it gives away free, and $695 and up for its most powerful server software.

Some large companies are snapping the products up. Mercedes Benz, Eastman Kodak and Lockheed Martin are buying RealNetworks’ latest software, RealSystem 5.0, to bring their internal networks to life. Boeing Co., for example, uses RealNetworks’ software to communicate with employees world-wide and conduct training sessions. A variety of media concerns such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the Public Broadcasting System, AOL, Fox News’s 24-hour newsfeed and Paramount Pictures use it as well.

Mr. Glaser recently cut a deal with Macromedia Inc., the largest provider of animation-editing software, to transmit animated material over the Internet. RealNetworks is also operating multimedia Web sites for other companies, and has a joint venture with MCI Communications Corp. to create a broadcast network on the Web.

All these initiatives are running up big bills. Earlier this month, RealNetworks reported that revenue more than doubled for 1997, to $32.7 million from $14 million the year before. But heavy research and development spending tripled losses to $11.2 million, or 40 cents a share, from $3.8 million, or 14 cents a share. The company’s high costs, plus the looming threat of Microsoft, have depressed the stock, which hovers at around $16 a share, only slightly above the $12.50 a share it opened at when it went public in November.

But Mr. Glaser exudes confidence. His intense personality seems calmer these days. Once divorced, he now has a steady girlfriend and is traveling more frequently, including a summer trip to New Zealand, Australia and French Polynesia, where he made the decision to take RealNetworks public. His 13.5 million shares are worth $218.5 million. And he thinks he has Microsoft figured out. “People in Silicon Valley see things unnecessarily in black and white: You either hate Microsoft or you are a vassal of them. I am saying there is a third way.”

Mr. Gates and his former lieutenant Nathan Myhrvold were walking out of the morning session when two reporters, including this one, asked Mr. Gates for a comment on the new Google operating system.

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It was jokingly called the “Millionaires’ Dinner,” but I renamed it the “Billionaires’ Dinner.”

That was due to the frothy fortunes that had been made at the time by the Internet pioneers, from Amazon to AOL to eBay. Get it?!?

Well, despite the economic meltdown, there were still a lot of billionaires in attendance at Brockman’s most recent dinner last Thursday in Long Beach. But he recounted to me that the proceedings were a lot more focused on the serious times we are in, as was the whole digerati-packed conference held last week.

Indeed, Brockman now calls the event the “Edge Dinner,” after his lively Edge Web site, where he presides over a variety of eclectic online debates and discussions (in January, for example, the topic was: “DOES THE EMPIRICAL NATURE OF SCIENCE CONTRADICT THE REVELATORY NATURE OF FAITH?”).

Since I managed to miss the fete entirely (embarrassing confession: I fell dead asleep at 7 p.m. and did not wake until the next morning) and could not chronicle it, Brockman allowed me to post some photos from the event taken by him and by former Microsoft research guru and current intellectual property mogul Nathan Myhrvold.

Here are some, and you can see the rest here (click on the images to make them larger):

Google co-founder Larry Page and Applied Minds’ Danny Hillis

Former AOL kingpin and Revolution Health’s Steve Case and Jean Case, Case Foundation

Twitter CEO Evan Williams and Neoteny’s Joi Ito

Nathan Myhrvold, Google’s Marissa Mayer and Nathan Wolfe of Stanford University

Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos

Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates and DEKA’s Dean Kamen

New Media Nabobs Tim O’Reilly and Arianna Huffington

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here is a video of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Nathan Myhrvold, founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures.

In it, Mossberg wrangles with the former Microsoft (MSFT) CTO and research guru over his controversial company, which is assembling a large body of patents and inventions.

The Wall Street Journal wrote a piece earlier this week about Myhrvold’s efforts, discussing how he is “using that clout to press tech giants to sign some of the costliest patent-licensing deals ever negotiated.”

The video of the interview is in three parts.

In this third part, Myhrvold takes questions from the audience, including about whether Intellectual Ventures is making a patent land grab, putting resources behind inventions to make actual products, patent abuse and making research into a profit center.

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here is a video of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Nathan Myhrvold, Founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures.

In it, Mossberg wrangles with the former Microsoft (MSFT) CTO and research guru over his controversial company, which is assembling a large body of patents and inventions.

The Wall Street Journal wrote a piece yesterday about Myhrvold’s efforts (and did not use our D6 video covering the exact same topic, but we happily link to the Journal’s article anyway!), discussing how Myhrvold is “using that clout to press tech giants to sign some of the costliest patent-licensing deals ever negotiated.”

The video of the interview is in three parts.

In this second part, Myhrvold talks about legendary inventor Thomas Edison and the history of patents and inventions, “invention capitalism,” the patenting of software and its abuse by tech giants, multi-touch technologies and where innovation will come from next.

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here is a video of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Nathan Myhrvold, Founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures.

In it, Mossberg wrangles with the former Microsoft (MSFT) CTO and research guru over his controversial company, which is assembling a large body of patents and inventions.

The Wall Street Journal wrote a piece today about Myhrvold’s efforts (and did not use our D6 video covering the exact same topic, but we happily link to the Journal’s article anyway!), discussing how Myhrvold is “using that clout to press tech giants to sign some of the costliest patent-licensing deals ever negotiated.”

The video of the interview is in three parts.

In this first part, Myhrvold talks about exactly what Intellectual Ventures is–essentially, supporting inventors before they invent–discusses the importance of patience in the inventing business, gives examples of inventions in arenas like energy and defines what a “patent troll” is (not him, he insists).

Day One

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Microsoft

You would have loved Windows 1.0. Walt. You would have LOVED it.”

–Ballmer

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Windows 7 Demo

Day Two

Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com

People loved their horses, too. But you don’t keep riding your horse to work just because you love it.”

–Bezos on the difference between physical books and digital ones

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Bobby Kotick, Activision

The social element has really transformed the gaming experience.”

– Kotick on the impact of games like Guitar Hero

Session post |  Video

Guitar Hero IV Demo with Tony Hawk and Paula Abdul

Howard Stringer, Sony

If we were any more successful, we’d be bankrupt.”

–Stringer on the success of Sony’s LCD business

Session post |  Video

Barry Diller, IAC

Hollywood is a community that’s so inbred, it’s a wonder the children have any teeth.”

Session post |  Video

Michael Dell, Dell

I could take him.”

–Dell on his chances of success in a brawl with Apple CEO Steve Jobs

Session post |  Video

Jerry Yang and Sue Decker, Yahoo

I will never be a CEO again.”

–Yang

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Jeff Bewkes, AOL

AOL is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Web. We don’t get no respect.”

Session post |  Video

Nathan Myhrvold, Intellectual Ventures

We invest in the creation of ideas… It’s like Baby Mama, with me as the mama.”

Session post |  Video

Demo: G.ho.st Web Operating System

Lets users access their desktop from any computer with an Internet connection.

Session post |  Video

Tom Glocer, Thomson Reuters

We have one great advantage over bloggers: we write once, and sell many times to many different media outlets.”

Session post |  Video

Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook

I won’t ever stop until you’re either the biggest thing around, or you’re dead.”

–Kara Swisher on her relentless coverage of Facebook

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation

I want to meet Obama. I want to know if he’s going to walk the walk.”

Session post |  Full Session Videos: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six

Day Three

Demo: evri

An application that graphs the Web via grammatical information.

Session post |  Video

Demo: 23andMe

Web-based, direct-to-consumer genome services.

Session post |  Video

Melinda Gates, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

All lives are equal.”

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Demo: TransMedia’s Glide

A mobile-operating system that cuts across all operating systems.

Session post |  Video

Tom Rogers, TiVo

The TV set and its primary position in the home isn’t going anywhere in the future.”

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Demo: Deka

The “Luke Arm” prosthesis, a state-of-the-art bionic arm.

Session post |  Video

Kevin Martin, FCC and Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless

You’re the chairman of the FCC. How did you allow this to happen?”

–Walt Mossberg grills Martin on the lousy broadband situation in the States

Session post |  Videos: One and Two

Did you have anything to do with the New York Post’s endorsement of Obama?”

– Walt Mossberg to Rupert Murdoch

“Yeah.”

–Rupert Murdoch to Walt Mossberg

I didn’t leave business school to go bankrupt.”

–Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on his first days at Microsoft

You would have loved Windows 1.0, Walt. You would have LOVED it.”

–Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

Guys like us avoid monopolies. We like to compete.”

–Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates

I will never be a CEO again.”

–Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang

Microsoft’s philosophy is to ‘do things better.’ And Vista has given us lots of opportunity to do that.”

–Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates

Microsoft Bob? All Bill’s idea.”

–Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer (CRSO) of Microsoft Corp.

It makes revolutionary desserts you never could have imagined!”

–Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recalls the slogan he used to market Coldsnap Freezer Dessert Makers at Proctor & Gamble

C’mon, you CAN’T be happy with the way this Vista thing has gone.”

–Walt Mossberg to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

In some ways the Web is the most important book in the world.”

–Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com

We try to stick to violence against small animals.”

– Activision CEO Bobby Kotick on violence in the company’s games.

I have to determine whether the joy of craplets is worth preserving.”

–Sony CEO Howard Stringer on craplets on Sony PCs

Facebook is all about information and helping people share it.

– Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg demonstrate “I-Have-Nothing -To-Say-And-I-Am-Saying-It” public relations.

“Sharing information?” Isn’t that a drinking game? Every time Mark Zuckerberg says it you have to drink.

– Kara Swisher

Page got one of the two chairs and Schmidt wound up on the floor.

– Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on meeting with Google’s Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt in his spartan apartment.

All lives are equal.

– Melinda Gates, Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on D6 Highlights

Betamax 2.”

–Sony CEO Howard Stringer on what his epitaph would have been had Sony lost the DVD format war.

If we were any more successful, we’d be bankrupt.”

–Sony CEO Howard Stringer on the success of Sony’s LCD business.

Hollywood is a community that’s so inbred, it’s a wonder the children have any teeth.”

–Barry Diller, Chairman and CEO, IAC

People loved their horses, too. But you don’t keep riding your horse to work just because you love it.”

–Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the difference between physical books and digital ones

I could take him.”

–Dell CEO Michael Dell on his chances of success in a brawl with Apple CEO Steve Jobs

AOL is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Web. We don’t get no respect.”

–Jeff Bewkes, President and CEO, Time Warner

It’s like Baby Mama, with me as the mama.”

–Intellectual Ventures founder Nathan Myhrvold explains the company’s “invest in inventions” business model.

Windows 95 was a nice milestone.”

– Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on one of the high points of his career

I won’t ever stop until you’re either the biggest thing around, or you’re dead.”

– Kara Swisher on her relentless coverage of Facebook

We think they’re fantastic … But you don’t want anyone to be a monopoly.

– Rupert Murdoch on Google

It’s a company that creates technology.

– Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg answers the question, “What is a technology company?”

Coming from Google, you don’t exactly spend a lot of time at Microsoft.”

–Facebook COO and former Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google Sheryl Sandberg

We’re trying to outbook the book.

– Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Kindle.

That’s not serious … he just wants to make himself a few hundred million dollars …”

–Rupert Murdoch on Carl Icahn’s proxy fight for Yahoo

We didn’t buy Alaska to save a couple of elk.”

–News Corporation Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch on Alaska as a solution to the current fuel crisis.

Where’s Rupert’s elk despising gene?

– Kara Swisher while reviewing Murdoch’s genotype

You’re the chairman of the FCC. How did you allow this to happen?

– Walt Mossberg grills FCC Chairman Kevin Martin on the lousy broadband situation in the states

After retiring from his position as chief strategist and chief technology officer of Microsoft (MSFT), Nathan Myhrvold founded Intellectual Ventures, a company that is assembling a large body of patents and inventions. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Cambridge University and worked with Professor Stephen Hawking on research in cosmology, quantum field theory in curved space time and quantum theories of gravitation. Dr. Myhrvold himself holds more than 20 patents and has nearly 200 patents pending. He is currently working on a cookbook surveying the science, technology and techniques used in modern cuisine. It is expected to be completed in late 2009.

• Walt welcomes Nathan Myhrvold to the stage, noting that it will be a nice change of pace to talk about something other than hostile takeovers and ill-starred mergers.
• Myhrvold starts out by explaining his business. “We invest in inventions. We invest in the creation of ideas.” But, he asks, how do you invest in companies that don’t exist yet? Myhrvold says he recruits inventors, funds and nurtures them and then takes ownership of their inventions: “It’s like Baby Mama, with me as the mama.”

  

• What sort of ideas has your company created so far? asks Walt. Myhrvold prefaces his answer by saying his company’s process requires patience: “We have a very long pipeline. We file 500 patents a year …” Walt follows up, asking for an example of a product or service the company has created. Looks like there aren’t any. Myhrvold says they have a few licensing deals.

• Again, Walt asks for an example of one of Intellectual Ventures’ inventions. Myhrvold finally responds, saying the company has developed some sort of nuclear reactor that “rethinks nuclear power.” Walt asks Myhrvold to explain. You really want me to start talking physics here, says Myhrvold. Looks like he’s going to dodge again. He serves up a bunch of jargon wrapped in a “swing for the fences” cliche.
• How do you invest in companies that don’t exist yet? (Honestly, I’m not sure Myhrvold even knows. Perhaps he can recruit an inventor to answer that question and this dubious business model he’s talking up…)
• Moving on … What’s in this for the inventors? A fee and a portion of the returns on any licensing deal Intellectual Ventures manages to secure, Myhrvold says.
• Walt: And how do you manage these deals? You don’t go around dropping letters on CEO doorsteps notifying them of patent infringements, do you? Myhrvold says the company has never done anything like that, but can’t say that it never will. There are some very positive ways you can create value from intellectual property. (And they are …?)

• Moving on …. Walt: This kind of company you’ve set up, is there a precedent for it? Sure is, says Myhrvold: You need only look back to Thomas Edison. A charismatic inventor-genius with an invention-oriented company.
• One thing Myhrvold is good at inventing: new buzzwords. Drawing parallels between venture capitalism and what he does, Myhrvold, it seems, is an “intellectual capitalist.”
• Walt asks about the patent system, specifically with regard to software. Is the patent system broken? Myhrvold acknowledges that the patent office has granted some patents that it shouldn’t have, but notes that it’s been doing a pretty good job of vetting them recently. He says that historically the software industry gas given the patent industry a bad rap.
• Big boys play rough, says Myhrvold. They play rough with copyright and with patents.
• Walt asks, “What do you think about this multi-touch stuff?” Myhrvold says it’s an interesting idea, but not a huge one–it’s a medium-size idea. Gestural interfaces, on the other hand, are a big idea.
• What’s the current state of R&D? Myhrvold says there’s a lot of great work being done at places like Microsoft and Apple, but adds that the current environment isn’t as rich as it was back in the day at PARC.
• Will gestural interfaces inspire lots of patent litigation, asks Walt, noting that Apple CEO Steve Jobs specifically mentioned the company had filed a number of patents around the iPhone’s IP. Myhrvold says that’s tough to say, but he bets that a lot of the early work done on multi-touch was done at places other than Apple and Microsoft, and may well be in the public domain.
• “Don’t let the secret recipe die with the inventor,” Myhrvold says.
• Moving on to the Q&A: First question from Jason Calacanis, who notes the distaste some entrepreneurs have for Myhrvold’s business because of the number of patents he files. Would Myhrvold ever considering winnowing that list down to, say, 250? Myhrvold dismisses that assertion, noting that very few of the patents he files ever amount to anything. Calacanis says that the media has made it appear that Intellectual Ventures has been filing thousands of patents a year. Myhrvold says that’s not the case. Walt jumps in and asks how many patents Intellectual Ventures buys each year. Answer: thousands.
• On to another question about how corporations look at inventions, Myhrvold answers: “No CEO ever says, ‘Damnit, we need to increase research!’ I want to encourage them to do that.”

For more coverage, see The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s Tech Trader Daily.

A note about our coverage: This live blog is not an official transcript of the conversation that occurred onstage. Rather, it is a compilation of quotes, paraphrased statements and ad-lib observations expeditiously written and posted to the Web as quickly as we were able. It was not intended as a transcript and should not be interpreted as one.

[This essay to attendees of the sixth D: All Things Digital conference is from the program book and is written by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg; D6 starts tomorrow night.]

As it turns out, creating a start-up is kind of hard.

And, trying to be entrepreneurial 24/7 is definitely challenging.

And, attempting to drastically shift your paradigm and move into new arenas with even newer rules and lots of uncertainty? Let’s just say, we are very tired these days.

Still, it is safe to say that we are also flatly exhilarated, riveted by our work as never before and pretty much hooked.

But did we mention the really tired part?

In all seriousness, it has been just over a year since we and our hardy little team launched AllThingsD.com, our earnest effort to take the D conference we created six years ago and give it another life on the Web.

When we were designing D we had one idea in mind–to create the kind of conference we wished we could attend. It would have the best speakers, it would cover serious topics, it would treat its audience with respect and intelligence and it would offer content that was valuable and bracingly true.

As to pointless and insufferable panel creep and PowerPoint double-talk–we would banish them.

So in creating AllThingsD.com, our goal was to take the spirit of the D: All Things Digital conference itself, the amazing community and connections, the no-holds-barred style, the rich content and great writing, and add a key ingredient–a staunch commitment to accuracy, ethics, standards and a notion that online readers want quality tech news and analysis in a transparent and honest way.

We hope you think we are well on our way to achieving that. And we are excited by all the possibilities ahead for the site as we move into our second year of trying to take all the many virtues of mainstream media and marry them with the excitement and energy of the blogosphere.

To say we think a lot about change these days is an understatement.

And, in a way, although we tend to shy away from themes at D, the ever faster pace of change in the tech and media world has turned out to be one of the hallmarks of the speakers we have invited to share the stage with us, and their insights with you.

Beginning with Microsoft’s (MSFT) Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, we could not have a better pair to talk about forcing dramatic change, even when running one of the most successful and enduring tech companies in the world.

From its bold and quite unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo (YHOO) this year, to its efforts to transform its core software business, to the symbolic passing of the torch as Mr. Gates moves away from his day-to-day role at the company in July, Microsoft’s leaders have sought out change aggressively.

So, too, have our other speakers.

Michael Dell is trying to reinvent Dell (DELL) again, even though it was his company that reinvented the computer business. Howard Stringer has been facing the same issues at Sony (SNE) in consumer electronics, while Time Warner’s (TWX) new CEO Jeff Bewkes has been handed a media giant he must shift even more dramatically into the digital age.

Amazon’s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos, one of the Internet’s true visionaries, is at it again this year, trying to make the dream of an e-book a mainstream reality.

And Barry Diller of IAC (IACI)? As usual, he has been right in the middle of a brawl about what direction the interactive company should take.

Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook has, of course, been the youthful face of change, bursting on the scene with his upstart social-networking site and upending all the apple carts in Silicon Valley as the leader of the Web 2.0 army. In this fight, he has recently been joined by former Google (GOOG) exec Sheryl Sandberg, who knows a thing or two about disruption.

Tom Glocer of Thomson Reuters (TRI) must take a global information powerhouse and make it even more digital, as challengers pop up everywhere. And Tom Rogers of TiVo (TIVO) is seeking to take the groundbreaking concepts the digital video-recording company pioneered and make a lasting business out of it.

Bobby Kotick of Activision (ATVI) has merged his offline game company, whose “Guitar Hero” is one of the mightiest brands in the sector, with one of the most powerful online multi-player games makers.

And Lowell McAdam of Verizon (VZ) has been trying to react to the sweeping shifts in how wireless technologies are delivered to consumers, as true change finally comes to the cellphone industry.

Nathan Myhrvold, former research guru at Microsoft, has always been about figuring out what’s behind the next corner, while FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has to puzzle over what role the government has to play in this fast-moving space.

And Melinda Gates is changing the world, which is a pretty big job.

And, of all the many luminaries we have on stage at D6, probably no one has had a more eventful year than Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang. From suddenly taking over the reins at the company he launched while a student at Stanford University, to having a tough year of trying to revive Yahoo, to coping with an unsolicited takeover bid from Microsoft, Mr. Yang has had the ride of his life. He will appear with Yahoo president Sue Decker, who has become the No. 2 exec at the company, and has been charged with carrying out Mr. Yang’s vision amid much turmoil.

Finally, the long and storied career of News Corp.’s (NWS) Rupert Murdoch has been all about constant transformation. It is also not an understatement to say that the new owner of Dow Jones (and also AllThingsD.com and this conference too) is probably one of the most game-changing business leaders around.

And we hope to be equally disruptive in quizzing him and all the speakers about what it all means. Even the demos we picked will display the same forward-leaning and game-changing ideas all our speakers represent.

So, hold onto your seats for D6, as it’s going to be a bouncy ride.

And, as it turns out after our first full year as Web entrepreneurs, we would not have it any other way.

Except, of course, it would have been nice to get a little more sleep.

Find out what’s happening at D6 by reviewing these posts and video clips that will be posted live during the conference this week.

Designed on paper by English inventor and mathematician Charles Babbage (pictured here with his creation) and built to his specifications, it is on loan for one year from former Microsoft (MSFT) tech guru Nathan Myhrvold.

(Myhrvold will be a speaker at our sixth edition of D: All Things Digital, taking place in exactly two weeks.)

Babbage was one of the great stories of the early computing age, a man who intricately designed one of the first automatic computing engines to battle the inaccuracies endemic in figures calculated by hand.

As the overview of this video relates: “Engineering, astronomy, construction, finance, banking and insurance depended on printed tables for calculation. Ships navigating by the stars relied on printed tables to find their position at sea. The stakes were high. Capital and life were thought to be at risk … it was not only the grindingly tedious labor of verifying a sea of figures that exasperated Babbage, but their daunting unreliability.”

Despite his laborious and detailed designs, though, Babbage never actually built his creation.

But other geeks took up the task and there are two now, both called Difference Engine No. 2, one in London and one now at the museum. Each has 8,000 parts, weighs five tons and measures 11 feet long and seven feet high.

Check out the video:

The annual gathering of tech and media luminaries was created and is run by my partner Walt Mossberg and me.

D6 tech and media speakers include: Microsoft Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft (MSFT); News Corp.’s (NWS) Rupert Murdoch; Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner (TWX); Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook; Michael Dell of Dell Computer (DELL); IAC’s (IACI) Barry Diller; Amazon’s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos; Howard Stringer of Sony (SNE); and TiVo’s (TIVO) Tom Rogers.

Also: Tom Glocer of Thomson Reuters (TRI); Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation; FCC Chairman Kevin Martin; Lowell McAdam of Verizon Wireless (VZ); Activision’s (ATVI) Robert Kotick; and former Microsoft tech guru Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures.

Just recently, we added Jerry Yang, CEO and co-founder of Yahoo (YHOO), and now he is being joined onstage at the conference by Yahoo President Sue Decker (pictured here in a lovely Wall Street Journal dot-drawing).

The pairing should make for a lively session, given all the heat around Yahoo of late, largely related to the scuttled attempt by Microsoft to buy the company.

What would you like to know about that and anything else about Yahoo?

As it so happens, you can ask!

While the conference is sold out, you can submit questions that you would like answered to Yang and Decker or any of the speakers via text or video. Walt and I will pick the best ones and let loose.

Ask early and often here!

In addition, the whole conference will be online at AllThingsD during the conference, via live blogs and reports of breaking news (and there will be breaking news, as there always is), along with video highlights.

And videos of all the interviews will be posted soon after it is over.

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft (MSFT). News Corp.’s (NWS) Rupert Murdoch. Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner (TWX). Yahoo’s (YHOO) Jerry Yang.

All of them engaged in roiling Internet deal-making of late and all of them in just three weeks on the same stage–but not, thankfully, at the same time, or we’d need a professional negotiator–at the 6th D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif.

The annual gathering of tech and media luminaries was created and is run by my amazing partner Walt Mossberg and me (see us here at D5) and will take place May 27 to 29.

The conference, as we describe it on our Web site, is “unlike any other executive conference.” What we mean by that is that we try to determine the next direction of the digital revolution via unscripted and informal, but pointed, conversations about the impact of digital technology with industry leaders.

In other words, Walt and I needling at the major players of the digital sector, until they give up the good stuff.

The other digital and media leaders coming? That would be: Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook; Michael Dell of Dell Computer (DELL); IAC’s (IACI) Barry Diller; Amazon’s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos; Howard Stringer of Sony (SNE); and TiVo’s (TIVO) Tom Rogers.

Also: Tom Glocer of Thomson Reuters (TRI); Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation; FCC Chairman Kevin Martin; Lowell McAdam of Verizon Wireless (VZ); Activision’s (ATVI) Robert Kotick; and former Microsoft tech guru and Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures.

To say our timing is impeccably planned would be undeserved–we had no idea so much news related to all these companies and their leaders would break out, from the tough economy to takeover battles to court face-offs to mergers to trying to create a whole new way of reading.

Also, there will be some–as yet under wraps–amazing demos onstage too.

While the analog conference has been sold out for many months, the action will be on the AllThingsD.com site throughout the conference with round-the-clock live blogging by Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski, as well as video highlights from stage.

In addition, we’ll be pointing all over the Web to important tech and media news that breaks at D6.

And we will also stream the entire conference in the weeks after the conference takes place, so ATD‘s audience can experience the whole thing, even if they cannot all attend.

But anyone’s questions can be there, though–this year, you can submit questions to any of the speakers via text or video that you would like answered. Walt and I will pick the best ones and let loose. Ask early and often here!

Walt and I are very excited for D6, even after last year, when we brought together industry legends Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Jobs, for an historic joint interview.

At the time, Walt and I joked that we would not be able to top that amazing event (the video of the entire interview is below).

That interview was nearly unbeatable, but we also think that with the top-level interviewees we have assembled for D6, that it is game on.

Until then, here’s the Gates/Jobs video from D5: