As a guy who helped teach computers to talk to each other, earning him acclaim as one of the fathers of the Internet, Vint Cerf could have been forgiven a little preening as he handed over the keys to another generation.
But Cerf's farewell speech last week as chairman of ICANN -- the closest thing the Internet has to a governing body -- was vintage Vint.
The gala at Sony Pictures' studios in Culver City was devoted to thanking Cerf for his seven years at the helm, which began when it was unclear whether ICANN would survive. Live and taped tributes from around the world praised his work at the powerful private group and in shaping the Internet itself -- including coauthoring the TCP/IP protocols of the 1970s that dictate how information travels on the Net and developing the first commercial e-mail system at telephone giant MCI more than decade later.
Yet Cerf, clad in the three-piece suit that has seemingly been grafted to him since his high school days in Van Nuys, spent nearly his entire speech thanking scores of people by name. (He interrupted that litany mainly to thank the hundreds in the audience for their patience in listening.)
Cerf's tenure at ICANN has been full of that kind of consensus-inducing graciousness, even though his technical accomplishments are such that he could be a complete jerk and still reign from the pantheon of Internet heroes.
"Vint was a wonderful chairman, and he's a wonderful guy," acknowledged Karl Auerbach, the man who may have been Cerf's most dogged adversary at ICANN. Over the years, Auerbach has objected that ICANN does too much business behind closed doors.
Time and again, Cerf has defused angry critics by listening intently, asking questions and listening some more. As a result, ICANN's future seems surer than ever -- secure enough that Cerf, who initially wanted to stay chairman for a single year, can finally retire from the Marina del Rey-based nonprofit organization and go back to his two or three other jobs.
When not toiling as one of Google Inc.'s top theorists or on plans at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to extend the Internet into space -- that is, mainly between 3 and 6 a.m. -- Cerf plans to continue writing five books. Simultaneously.
"Generally I prefer to avoid sleep -- it's a waste of time," Cerf said in an interview after his ICANN send-off.
That kind of energy has kept Cerf, alone among the Internet's founding fathers, constantly involved in the fast-changing medium's evolution.
