Google Hires Vint Cerf

hsuwh writes "Google has hired Internet pioneer Vint Cerf away from MCI as its "Chief Internet Evangelist". "He is one of the most important people alive today," said [Google CEO Eric] Schmidt, who has been friends with Cerf for more than 20 years. "Vint has put his heart and soul into making the Internet happen. I know he is going to jump right in here and start shoveling out new ideas for Google.""

Comments

Re:Do they have a strategy behind this?

[pjkundert]

Non-linear, pure "invention" doesn't occur on a fixed time table. You cannot plan for it. You can't assemble a team, give them a deadline and some money, and say "OK, go invent the next great thing for me.".

All you can do is try to assemable the greatest group(s) of already provably inventive poeple you can find, put them in a positive, stimulating environment, and incent them to come up with something great.

That is what Google is doing. That is exactly NOT what Microsoft, HP, et. al. are doing.

And no, they don't expect you to understand this.

Re:Do they have a strategy behind this?

[qwijibo]

Smart people with a track record of good ideas will generally produce more of them. Google just wants a chance to get the ideas before anyone else. There are such positions in many large companies because good ideas with profit potential will pay many times over for all the unprofitable ideas.

Re:Do they have a strategy behind this?

[Alomex]

It sure looks like they have a surplus of money and a shortage of ideas what to do with it. So heck, let's hire Turing Award medal winners just for kicks.

Successful jocks collect supermodels, successful nerds collect supergeeks, I guess.

Something Big is Happening at Google

[guaigean]

This is a much different strategy than the Microsoft sieze and conquer. MS takes over companies to get technologies, and then through culture the effectiveness of the subsidiary becomes null. Google, however, invests instead in obtaining highly innovative, creative, and motivated individuals, and they're doing it en mass. I know there is a lot of speculation about them working on an operating system or something similarly large, but whatever it is, it is big. There are too many bright minds there for it not to be.

Re:Something Big is Happening at Google

[lessthan0]

Actually, that was Microsoft's strategy too when they were young. They really did obtain "highly innovative, creative, and motivated individuals" to create good software. Now, the acquire them to keep them from creating something that would threaten their monopoly.

Re:He did what?

[kinglink]

Yeah you know designing a form of networking that will last for 30 years, that's nothing major.

The fact that we can do so much with TCP/IP is evidence that the creator actually had more sense then most people in this industry, trivilizing his stuff because you can name stuff built off of that is a joke.

You make jokes about the size of ARPANET but what you don't realize is that those 9 computers were linked to each other, before that you'd have to have a direct line to each computer to call it a link, instead you could do one link to a central system to route the packages with out any major software really running. The idea of the ARPAnet is that it was a defensive infrastructure that could be attacked, and had nodes destroyed with out losing the entire network.

And as for size, yeah it's 9 computers, what ever you want to believe.

Just because you don't beliieve he's worth anything doesn't make him worth less. The fact is the guy actually invented something everyone uses now, that's incredible, a single standarized system of Control, that everyone can agree to, on all platforms, and hasn't been completely revolutionized for the most part for 30 years. Let's see your next development last more then 10 with out needing to be completely scrapped and reworked.

Re:Do they have a strategy behind this?

[Tumbleweed]

They could be copying the Microsoft strategy of buying out, err, hiring all the best and brightest, sticking them in labs to play with whatever they want, and then never doing anything with what they come up with. It prevents those people from going elsewhere and actually making good products.

Re:Do they have a strategy behind this?

[pjkundert]

Very, very few truly inventive poeple find money (eg. personal enrichment, leisure, prestige, etc.) an incentive. Name two.

Isaac Newton

Francis Bacon

Claude Shannon. Father of modern information theory. Published (Not Patented) "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" in 1948. Died a Professor Emeritus.

Nicola Tesla -- Modern multi-phase power systems. Edison was a puny shadow ofthe same era. Slaved for 10 years as a New York street cleaner to bring his 3-phase power system to reality, and then "gave away" the patents, worth Billions (perhaps even Trillions) in todays dollars, to Westinghouse.

Evariste Galois -- Galois fields (eg. Reed-Solomon encoding). Died in a duel protecting the honour of a woman.

Need I go on?