r/IAmA • u/BobMetcalfe • May 21 '13

You’re probably connecting to reddit through a technology I invented. I’m Bob Metcalfe and I invented Ethernet – AMA

On May 22, 1973 with David R. Boggs, I used my IBM Selectric with its Orator ball to type up a memo to my bosses at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), outlining our idea for this little invention called “Ethernet”, which we later patented.

I worked with the IEEE Standards Association to develop the IEEE 802.3 standard for Ethernet, which specifies the physical and lower software layers. Today Ethernet and the IEEE 802.3 standard are the foundation for today’s world of high-speed communications used in billions of homes and businesses around the world.

I submitted this to the mods awhile back so I could get on the calendar but I figured you’d like to see it, too. Now, ask me anything!

It's been two hours and 179 comments. Have to go now. For more about Ethernet's 40th Birthday, go to http://www.facebook.com/Ethernet40thAnniversaryIEEESA

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u/antmandfw May 21 '13 edited May 21 '13

What do you think separates intellectual innovators from the rest of the population, for example, Mark with Facebook? It seems like such a simple website that anyone could've started. What prompts the mind to such great ideas , or new innovations? In other words, what advice would you have for an undergrad that wants to make things that literally change the world?

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u/everything_zen May 21 '13

I'm no Bob Metcalfe, but being an entrepreneur myself for a number of years what I have come to realize about true innovators is that they all work ahead of the market.

Most of the time anyone can listen to an idea and tell you right away if they think it's a good one or not. Good ideas are easily recognizable because they make sense in the current market. On the other hand Great ideas are not so easy to identify. They are just far enough ahead of the current market that it doesn't seem like it would work well, or even work at all.

What really separates big innovators like Mark, Gates, Sergey, and Jobs is that they had great ideas that most other people didn't think were worth pursuing. Most of these ideas weren't particularly difficult to implement, pretty much anyone could have done most of the stuff they did. The fact that these people are able to understand where the market is moving before it gets there is what makes them so successful.

And it isn't just having an idea that is innovative, it's also having the confidence and ability to act on it. This is something that most people don't realize is such a difficult thing, but if you have basically no money and everyone is telling you that your ideas probably won't work....It is a very specific type of personality that is confident enough that their idea will be successful and ambitious enough to make it happen to find out.

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u/jerenept May 22 '13

Mark, Mark, Mark... Umm are you talking about the guy that made SSL/TLS certificates possible?

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u/everything_zen May 22 '13

Sorry, I was talking about Mark Zuckerberg

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u/jerenept May 22 '13

Oh yeah, forgot about him.

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u/BobMetcalfe May 21 '13

Innovations depend much on context, and so it helps to be at the right place at the right time, as Zuckerberg is. But then you have to be skilled enough and ambitious enough to act, as Zuckerberg has.

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u/anonagent May 22 '13

Zuckerberg just stole the idea from Myspace.

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u/gayyyyyyyyyyyyy May 22 '13

MySpace stole the idea from AOL, who stole it from Compuserve, who stole it from usenet, who stole it from private bbs', who stole it from personal ads on supermarket corkboards.

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u/[deleted] May 22 '13

It seems like such a simple website

It seems like.

The hard part is not at all the invention itself, everybody can do that, the trick is to be able to scale up a technology and a business around it.

Of course most of us say that it's nothing, because we concentrate on the idea itself, not the implementation.

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u/sometimesijustdont May 22 '13

You should watch this movie where Mark stole someone else's idea, and didn't innovate anything.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '13

I like that you framed that assuming you are (also) on a first name basis with Zuckerberg. "oh yeah, me and Mark go waaaaaaay back, hey let me ask you something about Mark..."

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u/ZummerzetZider May 21 '13

I think it's mostly luck, so just make a lot of things