Robert Melancton Metcalfe (born April 7, 1946 in
BrooklynBrooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located southwest of Queens on the western tip of Long Island. An independent city until its consolidation with New York in 1898, Brooklyn is New York City's most populous borough, with 2.5 million residents, and second largest in area...
,
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
) is an electrical engineer from the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
who co-invented
EthernetEthernet is a family of frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks . The name comes from the physical concept of the ether...
, founded
3Com3Com is a manufacturer best known for its computer network infrastructure products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney, Bruce Borden, and Greg Shaw, and is headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts...
and formulated
Metcalfe's LawMetcalfe's law states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected usersof the system...
.
, he is a general partner of
Polaris Venture PartnersPolaris Venture Partners is a venture capital firm specializing in seed and early stage investments particularly in companies engaged in the information technology and life sciences sectors....
.
Biography
In 1964, he graduated from Bay Shore Public High School. Metcalfe graduated from
MITThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological research...
in 1969 with two
B.S.A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years ....
degrees, one in
Electrical EngineeringElectrical engineering, sometimes referred to as electrical and electronic engineering, is a field of engineering that deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after...
and the other in Industrial Management from the
MIT Sloan School of ManagementThe MIT Sloan School of Management is one of the five schools of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States...
. He then went to Harvard for graduate school, earning his
M.S.A Master of Science is a postgraduate academic master's degree awarded by universities in a large number of countries...
in 1970.
While pursuing a doctorate in computer science, Metcalfe took a job with MIT's Project MAC after Harvard refused to let him be responsible for connecting the school to the brand-new
ArpanetThe ARPANET created by ARPA of the United States Department of Defense during the Cold War, was the world's first operational packet switching network, and the predecessor of the global Internet....
. At MIT's Project MAC, Metcalfe was responsible for building some of the hardware that would link MIT's minicomputers with the Arpanet. Metcalfe was so enamored with Arpanet, he made it the topic of his doctoral dissertation. However, Harvard flunked him. His inspiration for a new dissertation came while working at
Xerox PARCPARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology....
where he read a paper about the
ALOHA networkALOHAnet, also known as ALOHA, was a pioneering computer networking system developed at the University of Hawaii. It was first deployed in 1970, and while the network itself is no longer used, one of the core concepts in the network is the basis for the widely used Ethernet.- Overview :One of the...
at the
University of HawaiiThe University of Hawaii System, formally the University of Hawaii and popularly known as UH, is a public, co-educational college and university system that confers associate, bachelor, master, doctoral and post-doctoral degrees through three university campuses, seven community college campuses,...
. He identified and fixed some of the bugs in the AlohaNet model and made his analysis part of a revised thesis, which finally earned him his Harvard
PhDPHD may refer to:* Parisada Hindu Dharma, an Indonesian reform organization* PHD, a track on The Crystal Method album Tweekend* PHD finger, a protein sequence* PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company...
in 1973.
Metcalfe was working at
Xerox PARCPARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology....
in 1973 when he co-invented
EthernetEthernet is a family of frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks . The name comes from the physical concept of the ether...
, a standard for connecting
computerA computer is a machine that manipulates data according to a set of instructions.Although mechanical examples of computers have existed through much of recorded human history, the first electronic computers were developed in the mid-20th century . These were the size of a large room, consuming as...
s over short distances, with
David BoggsDavid Reeves Boggs is an electrical and radio engineer from the United States who developed early prototypes of Internet protocols, file servers, gateways, network interface cards...
. Metcalfe pegs the exact day Ethernet was born: May 22, 1973, the day he circulated a memo titled "Alto Ethernet" which contained a rough schematic of how Ethernet would work. "That is the first time Ethernet appears as a word, as does the idea of using coax as ether, where the participating stations, like in AlohaNet or Arpanet, would inject their packets of data, they'd travel around at megabits per second, there would be collisions, and retransmissions, and back-off," Metcalfe explains.
David BoggsDavid Reeves Boggs is an electrical and radio engineer from the United States who developed early prototypes of Internet protocols, file servers, gateways, network interface cards...
offers another date as the genesis of Ethernet: November 11, 1973, the first day the system actually functioned.
In 1979, Metcalfe departed PARC and founded
3Com3Com is a manufacturer best known for its computer network infrastructure products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney, Bruce Borden, and Greg Shaw, and is headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts...
, a manufacturer of
computer networkingA local area network is a computer network covering a small physical area, like a home, office, or small group of buildings, such as a school, or an airport...
equipment. In 1980 he received the
Association for Computing MachineryThe Association for Computing Machinery, or ACM, is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...
Grace Murray Hopper AwardThe original Grace Murray Hopper Awards have been awarded by the Association for Computing Machinery since 1971. The award goes to a young computer professional who makes a single, significant technical or service contribution.-Recipients:* 1971 Donald E. Knuth* 1972 Paul H. Dirksen* 1972 Paul H...
for his contributions to the development of local networks, specifically
EthernetEthernet is a family of frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks . The name comes from the physical concept of the ether...
. In 1990 Metcalfe lost a boardroom skirmish at
3Com3Com is a manufacturer best known for its computer network infrastructure products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney, Bruce Borden, and Greg Shaw, and is headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts...
in the contest to succeed Bill Krause as CEO. The board of directors chose Eric Benhamou to run the networking company Metcalfe had founded in his Palo Alto apartment in 1979. Metcalfe left
3Com3Com is a manufacturer best known for its computer network infrastructure products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney, Bruce Borden, and Greg Shaw, and is headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts...
and began a 10 year stint as a publisher and pundit, writing an
InternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standardized Internet Protocol Suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
column for
InfoWorldInfoWorld is an information technology online media and events business operating under the umbrella of InfoWorld Media Group, a division of IDG...
. He became a venture capitalist in 2001 and is now a General Partner at
Polaris Venture PartnersPolaris Venture Partners is a venture capital firm specializing in seed and early stage investments particularly in companies engaged in the information technology and life sciences sectors....
. He is a director of Pop!Tech, an executive technology conference he cofounded in 1997. He has recently been working with Polaris-funded startup Ember to work on a new type of energy grid, Enernet.
Awards
Metcalfe was awarded the
IEEE Medal of HonorThe IEEE Medal of Honor is the highest recognition of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers . It has been awarded since 1917, when its first recipient was Major Edwin H. Armstrong. It is given for an exceptional contribution or an extraordinary career in the IEEE fields of...
in 1996 for "exemplary and sustained leadership in the development, standardization, and commercialization of
EthernetEthernet is a family of frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks . The name comes from the physical concept of the ether...
."
Metcalfe received the
National Medal of TechnologyThe National Medal of Technology and Innovation is an honor granted by the President of the United States to American inventors and innovators that have made significant contributions to the development of new and important technology...
from
President BushGeorge Walker Bush was the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 and the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000....
in a White House ceremony on March 14, 2003, "for leadership in the invention, standardization, and commercialization of
EthernetEthernet is a family of frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks . The name comes from the physical concept of the ether...
", having been selected for the honor in 2003. In May 2007, along with 17 others, Metcalfe, was inducted to the
National Inventors Hall of FameThe National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recognizing, honoring and encouraging invention and creativity through the administration of its programs. The Hall of Fame honors the men and women responsible for the great technological advances that...
in
Akron, OhioAkron is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Summit County. In 2008, its population was estimated to be 207,510. The municipality is located in northeastern Ohio on the Cuyahoga River between Cleveland to the north and Canton to the south, approximately 60 miles west of...
, for his work with Ethernet technology.
In October 2008 Metcalfe received the Fellow Award from the
Computer History MuseumThe Computer History Museum is a museum established in 1996 in Mountain View, California, USA, when The Computer Museum sent the majority of its historical collection to Moffett Field, California, so that TCM could concentrate on computing-related exhibits for children...
.
Incorrect predictions
Outside of his technical achievements, Metcalfe is perhaps best known for his 1995 prediction that the internet would suffer a
catastrophic collapse the following year; he promised to
eat his words if it did not.
During his
key note speech
at the
Sixth WWW International Conference
in 1997,
he took a printed copy of his column that predicted the collapse, put it in a blender with some liquid and then consumed the pulpy mass. This was after he tried to eat his words in the form of a very large cake,
but the audience strongly protested;
the cake was quite good and was eaten by some of the audience after the speech.
During an event where he talked about
predictions
at the
Eighth International World Wide Web Conference in 1999, a participant asked:
what is the bet?. He stated that there was no bet as he was not ready to eat another column.
Metcalfe is also known for his harsh criticism of open source software, and
LinuxLinux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed,...
in particular, predicting that the latter would be obliterated after Microsoft released
Windows 2000Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on business desktops, notebook computers, and servers. Released on February 17, 2000, it was the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the final release of Microsoft Windows to display the "Windows NT" designation...
:
-
- The Open Source Movement's ideology is utopian balderdash [... that] reminds me of communism. [...] Linux [is like] organic software grown in utopia by spiritualists [...] When they bring organic fruit to market, you pay extra for small apples with open sores – the Open Sores Movement. When [Windows 2000] gets here, goodbye Linux.
Selected publications
- "Packet Communication", MIT Project MAC Technical Report MAC TR-114, December, 1973 (a recast version of Metcalfe's Harvard dissertation)
- "Zen and the Art of Selling", Technology Review, May/June 1992
External links