In a long profile interview, O'Reilly tells about his meeting with American power:

The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog (1992) became a category-busting best-seller, establishing itself as "a 250,000-copies-a-year thing," O'Reilly says, at least until it became outdated in the mid-'90s. He saw the book not just as a tent pole for his business but as a chance to awaken the world to the Internet.

He went on a press tour. He sent a copy to every member of Congress, and was invited to meet with House aides. Before addressing a huge group of them, he was taken aside by the House IT department. "I go into this little room, and it's like Three Days of the Condor," O'Reilly recalls. "This old guy in a three-piece suit and a cane says, 'We don't want you to get the aides too excited about the Internet, because we're not going to give it to them.' So I went out and got them excited anyway."