Smart is beautiful.
Written on October 21st , 2025 by Tech Ads
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An AltaVista advert that feels like it couldn’t have come from any other point than the late long 90s. ‘What does God’s house look like?’ coupled with an image of some East Asians praying in an apparent shack is the kind of question and imagery that modern tech companies sprint - rather than walk - away from.
This particular advert, published in the autumn of 1999, would have been created in the shadow of AltaVista’s desire to IPO in the following year and their need to appear respectable to the many investors that may have had some qualms about investing in such a new company. AltaVista first filled for an IPO in December of 1999 with a target date of April 2000. The dot-com crash forced AltaVista to defer this attempt at an IPO with the entire IPO project collapsing in January 2001. AltaVista was later acquired by Overture Services, Inc in February 2003, which itself was acquired by Yahoo! July 2003.
Taken from: Wired (Volume 7, Issue 12 (December 1999))