I met Vint at the Kech Institute for Space Studies. He arrived to help us look at in-space data centers for planetary science throughout the solar system. He was a big proponent of delay-tolerant networking and other useful networking stacks, so he was the "rep" for that layer of problems.
Just the nicest guy you could imagine. He took the note-takers job during our breakouts, had beers with us after the session, and asked really good questions and never asserted anything the whole time.
What a legend.
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mehulashah
For all the naysayers in this thread, I gotta say you’re wrong. Vint is a class act. Humble, helpful, and optimistic. Not to mention one of the most impactful computer scientists of our generation.
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Angostura
I interviewed him a few times, when I was a tech journalist in the 90s - a very impressive man.
However I never forget my surprise, Idly flicking through TV one evening and coming across Earth Final Conflict - and there was Vint in a fairly substantial role
djtriptych
hah. I was an intern at Google in 2005 when he was hired and remember the wave of reverence that went through Mountain View. Salute to a legend!
It’s like two lifetimes in tech years. I remember that summer Google Earth was launched, we were a year removed from the Gmail launch, and I worked on shipping the first Summer of Code.
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atombender
Anyone know what he actually did at Google? Was it an active role, did he publish anything interesting? Or was it more of an Institute for Advanced Study kind of position?
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hydrogenbon007
I remember watching Lo and Behold by Werner Herzog and just going how dedicated the internet pioneers were working in their 70s and beyond.
I wonder if he would have designed TCP/IP differently if he'd had the chance to have a second go of it.
Maybe having multiple streams within a single connection, like QUIC does, would have been a better choice. Also being able to demarcate message boundaries within the protocol itself, perhaps, instead of it being a simple byte stream.
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nickdothutton
Worked with some of his team when I was at MCI/Worldcom. We stand on the shoulders of giants.
wwind123
I still remember back in 2005 when I just joined a company, a coworker was quipping Google is not a real elite company, because it doesn't even have a Turing Award winner. I showed him the news that Vint Cerf joined Google recently.
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chips_not_fries
A genuine innovator
No matter what you think of Google
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incognito124
I'm relatively young and my first exposure to life and work of Vint Cerf was through DTN and Interplanetary Internet. What a life of accomplishment!
blamestross
My "When I met Vint" story is less exciting then some here. He attended the "Disability Support Group" at Google regularly. He made a point of just being there to listen and support others.
pwdisswordfishq
> a relatively good career
What's that for?
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jdw64
How amazing it must be to be called the 'father' of something that everyone uses... I'm envious. Could I ever create something like that? As a programmer, the dream is always to build something that others actually use properly.
jibal
I worked on the ARPANET project under Steve Crocker at UCLA and met his bud Vint there (with his ever-present 3 piece suit, briefcase, and hearing aids) ... what a great guy.
An anecdote: I wrote a program (in Sigma-7 assembler I think) to play Jotto--a bit like Mastermind but with 5 letter words. Vint loved to poke around in people's directories to see what they were up to and found my program. He played it a few times, and then collared me to ask me a couple of questions: 1) It seemed to know some of the words he entered but not all -- what was up with that? 2) What sort of AI algorithm was I using for the program to make guesses? (It usually beat the human player.)
Answers: 1) I didn't have a digitized dictionary (it was 1969!) so I hand-entered the five letter words from a pocket dictionary but got tired halfway through so it only knew words starting with a-l. 2) The program would eliminate any words that didn't fit the responses to its guesses so far and then pick a remaining word at random.
Upon hearing my answers Vint walked away in disgust! But years later he gave me a recommendation when I interviewed with Google (it didn't work out for other reasons).
I also shared a cubicle wall with another Van Nuys High alumni, Jon Postel, aka "God of the Internet". Sartorially, Jon was the complete opposite of Vint--long scraggly beard, blue jeans, forever barefoot--but those weren't the things that mattered. Man, those were the days.
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tombert
So, uh, are they hiring a replacement "Internet Evangelist"? I love the internet, I could evangelize!
jamesbelchamber
IP on everything :D
IncreasePosts
Vint cerf now vintage cerf
p1dda
How many "father's of the Internet" are there exactly?
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TAlborough
Thank you. May your peace continue.
croes
Nitpicking: a father of the internet not the father. There is more than one.
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raychis
Thought this was about Tim Berners-Lee, he is the only father I know.
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TurdF3rguson
[flagged]
tonyhart7
Imagine creating internet to connect people and live to see the day that most internet traffic is Bot and AI talk to each other is fascinating
I wonder what he feeling about it
nubinetwork
The dude is in his 80s, he should have been allowed to retire decades ago.
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kappi
He made millions last 20 years at Google without doing much and just being a honorary post, not sure what he feels about BS jobs like this
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PaulHoule
I was impressed with Vint Cerf when I saw him at a distance but once I had dealings with him about issues such as: the way the internet has become a pernicious influence, how the ACM is an industry group for computer science professors that doesn't support practitioners [1], the ACM's support for H-1B visas [2] I came to the conclusion that this quote is about him:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on
his not understanding it.”
― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked
[1] open access journals were a big step forward, but I was open access decades before
[2] i'll join a club which is neutral on the issue, but I can't accept the positive position, not because I feel it threatens me but because it pains me to see a brilliant data scientist being jerked around (bad enough that the HR lady leaves) and not being able to tell him "your skills are in demand and you can find another employer on the other side of the street" (this is NYC) And the argument that "startups" need it is bogus: Google can take a chance on a lottery, a key employee at a startup is key however.
I met Vint at the Kech Institute for Space Studies. He arrived to help us look at in-space data centers for planetary science throughout the solar system. He was a big proponent of delay-tolerant networking and other useful networking stacks, so he was the "rep" for that layer of problems.
Just the nicest guy you could imagine. He took the note-takers job during our breakouts, had beers with us after the session, and asked really good questions and never asserted anything the whole time.
What a legend.
For all the naysayers in this thread, I gotta say you’re wrong. Vint is a class act. Humble, helpful, and optimistic. Not to mention one of the most impactful computer scientists of our generation.
I interviewed him a few times, when I was a tech journalist in the 90s - a very impressive man.
However I never forget my surprise, Idly flicking through TV one evening and coming across Earth Final Conflict - and there was Vint in a fairly substantial role
hah. I was an intern at Google in 2005 when he was hired and remember the wave of reverence that went through Mountain View. Salute to a legend!
It’s like two lifetimes in tech years. I remember that summer Google Earth was launched, we were a year removed from the Gmail launch, and I worked on shipping the first Summer of Code.
Anyone know what he actually did at Google? Was it an active role, did he publish anything interesting? Or was it more of an Institute for Advanced Study kind of position?
I remember watching Lo and Behold by Werner Herzog and just going how dedicated the internet pioneers were working in their 70s and beyond.
Legends
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5275828/
I wonder if he would have designed TCP/IP differently if he'd had the chance to have a second go of it.
Maybe having multiple streams within a single connection, like QUIC does, would have been a better choice. Also being able to demarcate message boundaries within the protocol itself, perhaps, instead of it being a simple byte stream.
Worked with some of his team when I was at MCI/Worldcom. We stand on the shoulders of giants.
I still remember back in 2005 when I just joined a company, a coworker was quipping Google is not a real elite company, because it doesn't even have a Turing Award winner. I showed him the news that Vint Cerf joined Google recently.
A genuine innovator
No matter what you think of Google
I'm relatively young and my first exposure to life and work of Vint Cerf was through DTN and Interplanetary Internet. What a life of accomplishment!
My "When I met Vint" story is less exciting then some here. He attended the "Disability Support Group" at Google regularly. He made a point of just being there to listen and support others.
> a relatively good career
What's that for?
How amazing it must be to be called the 'father' of something that everyone uses... I'm envious. Could I ever create something like that? As a programmer, the dream is always to build something that others actually use properly.
I worked on the ARPANET project under Steve Crocker at UCLA and met his bud Vint there (with his ever-present 3 piece suit, briefcase, and hearing aids) ... what a great guy.
An anecdote: I wrote a program (in Sigma-7 assembler I think) to play Jotto--a bit like Mastermind but with 5 letter words. Vint loved to poke around in people's directories to see what they were up to and found my program. He played it a few times, and then collared me to ask me a couple of questions: 1) It seemed to know some of the words he entered but not all -- what was up with that? 2) What sort of AI algorithm was I using for the program to make guesses? (It usually beat the human player.)
Answers: 1) I didn't have a digitized dictionary (it was 1969!) so I hand-entered the five letter words from a pocket dictionary but got tired halfway through so it only knew words starting with a-l. 2) The program would eliminate any words that didn't fit the responses to its guesses so far and then pick a remaining word at random.
Upon hearing my answers Vint walked away in disgust! But years later he gave me a recommendation when I interviewed with Google (it didn't work out for other reasons).
I also shared a cubicle wall with another Van Nuys High alumni, Jon Postel, aka "God of the Internet". Sartorially, Jon was the complete opposite of Vint--long scraggly beard, blue jeans, forever barefoot--but those weren't the things that mattered. Man, those were the days.
So, uh, are they hiring a replacement "Internet Evangelist"? I love the internet, I could evangelize!
IP on everything :D
Vint cerf now vintage cerf
How many "father's of the Internet" are there exactly?
Thank you. May your peace continue.
Nitpicking: a father of the internet not the father. There is more than one.
Thought this was about Tim Berners-Lee, he is the only father I know.
[flagged]
Imagine creating internet to connect people and live to see the day that most internet traffic is Bot and AI talk to each other is fascinating
I wonder what he feeling about it
The dude is in his 80s, he should have been allowed to retire decades ago.
He made millions last 20 years at Google without doing much and just being a honorary post, not sure what he feels about BS jobs like this
I was impressed with Vint Cerf when I saw him at a distance but once I had dealings with him about issues such as: the way the internet has become a pernicious influence, how the ACM is an industry group for computer science professors that doesn't support practitioners [1], the ACM's support for H-1B visas [2] I came to the conclusion that this quote is about him:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/21810-it-is-difficult-to-ge...[1] open access journals were a big step forward, but I was open access decades before
[2] i'll join a club which is neutral on the issue, but I can't accept the positive position, not because I feel it threatens me but because it pains me to see a brilliant data scientist being jerked around (bad enough that the HR lady leaves) and not being able to tell him "your skills are in demand and you can find another employer on the other side of the street" (this is NYC) And the argument that "startups" need it is bogus: Google can take a chance on a lottery, a key employee at a startup is key however.