A Conversation With the Internet's Architect
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About the Leader
Vint Cerf
Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google
- Futuristic®
- Input®
- Communication®
- Strategic®
- Analytical®
Vint Cerf is vice president and chief internet evangelist for Google, where he helps shape global internet policy and expansion. Widely known as one of the "Fathers of the Internet," Cerf co-designed the TCP/IP protocols and internet architecture. He has held executive roles at MCI, DARPA and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives and served on the faculty of Stanford. Cerf was founding president of the Internet Society, chaired ICANN’s board and has been a visiting scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab since 1998. He is a member or fellow of numerous scientific bodies, including the British Royal Society, IEEE, ACM and National Academy of Engineering. Cerf has received many awards and commendations, including the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, U.S. National Medal of Technology and the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering — along with 29 honorary degrees. In 1994, People magazine named him one of its 25 most intriguing people.
"I pride myself on my willingness to be patient and persistent."
Whether it’s developing the internet itself or working on the interplanetary internet system, Cerf dedicates himself to noteworthy projects that take a considerable amount of time to come to fruition. He’s comfortable with the time it takes for projects to develop.
"If you can’t communicate your ideas well, you won’t get any help and you won’t do anything big."
Cerf recognizes the necessity of getting help on important projects. He knows that the only way to complete big projects is to communicate his vision and enthusiasm clearly and convincingly.
"When I’m trying to deeply understand something, I often ask [people] to draw me a picture."
Although he’s inundated with information, articles and videos, Cerf often finds the best way to genuinely understand a complex system is to have it expressed visually as a diagram. This, he says, is a result of his Input talent.
"Being able to tease apart evidence that the data is wrong is really valuable."
While his field requires him to feel comfortable with almost never having enough data, Cerf gives special attention to discovering whether the data he has is inaccurate. He regularly finds himself saying, “You know what, there’s something wrong with this computation."