what was started by sabeer bhatia and jack smith

Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith co-founded Hotmail, the first free web-based email service, in 1996. They had been brainstorming possible business ideas for a few months before coming up with the idea for Hotmail. Smith came up with the idea for anonymous web-based email in 1995, and he worked with Bhatia, his colleague at Apple, to found the company. Hotmail launched on July 4, 1996, with Smith as its Chief Technology Officer. In December 1997, Bhatia sold Hotmail to Microsoft for a reported $400 million.